Aspose.Newsletter: Convert DOC to PDF with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

Welcome to the May 2008 issue of the Aspose Newsletter! In this month’s newsletter, we will provide some introductory information about our spotlight product: Aspose.AdHoc. We will also look at the new and exciting features offered in the recent releases of Aspose.Words, Aspose.Cells for Reporting Services, Aspose.Slides for Reporting Services, Aspose.Slides, Aspose.Pdf.Kit, and Aspose.Cells. You will learn about the latest news from Aspose along with the monthly Tech-Tip, which demonstrates how to efficiently use Aspose.Slides in your applications, and an introduction to our featured technical article which shows you how to convert DOC to PDF with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 using Aspose components.

Product Spotlight

The Aspose.AdHoc Query Builder component is an ASP.NET component that can be used for a wide variety of tasks, ranging from Ad Hoc reports to quick and easy search screens. Developers can simply drag and drop the Ad Hoc component on to their web forms, assign a DataTable object as the data source and let the component do the rest. The Ad Hoc component uses a DataTable object as its data source allowing developers to use virtually any back end database. The Ad Hoc component offers a variety of outputs, including: SQL statement, Select statement, Where statement, Order By statement, Filtered Data Objects and many more. Take the time to download the free evaluation version today to see how Aspose.AdHoc can work for you.

Aspose using Sitefinity CMS to manage its web content

In an effort to better serve our valuable customers, the Aspose website has been upgraded. We have moved few of our website modules onto Sitefinity CMS. The new CMS based website modules are more user-friendly & easily accessible and feature a sleek design with a consistent layout throughout, making the content more appealing and easy to navigate. We value your feedback greatly and would like you to explore our new website and share your experiences with us. For more information please visit this blog post.

Aspose.Words for .NET on latest platforms

Aspose.Words comes with two DLLs; one is targeted for .NET Framework 1.1 and the other for .NET Framework 2.0. The DLL targeted for .NET Framework 2.0 can also be used in Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 with both x86 and x64 applications targeted for .NET Framework 3.0 and .NET Framework 3.5. For detailed information, you are requested to view the relevant post. Aspose.Words has also been tested on and confirmed to have no problems while being used on Windows Server 2008 Enterprise x64. More details here.

New VBA based UI of the client tool for Aspose.Cells for Reporting Services

In the latest version 1.1.1.0 of Aspose.Cells for Reporting Services, we have made some changes to the client tool which is used to design reports in MS Excel. We have now used VBA to develop the UI of the client tool and C# to develop its other features. This removes its dependency on Excel PIA and makes installation and deployment easier. The support for sub-report design, manual input report range and composite markers have also been included in this release along with numerous bug fixes. The latest version can be downloaded from here. For more information please visit the official release page and the accompanying blog post.

Importing DrawingML graphics with Aspose.Words for .NET

Aspose.Words for .NET version 5.1.0.0 has been released. This new release brings improvements to DOCX (Office Open XML) import of DrawingML graphics; some images in the DrawingML format are now supported. ODT (OpenDocument) export has also been improved as well as an option to export to a CSS stylesheet (embedded in HTML or separate file) is now available when exporting to HTML. We have also resolved some problems that customers were experiencing on 64bit Windows. In addition to this, numerous other bug fixes and improvements have been incorporated into this release. For detailed information please visit the official release page and the accompanying blog post. The latest version of Aspose.Words for .NET can be downloaded from here.

Aspose.Slides for Reporting Services 1.1.5.0 released

The latest version 1.1.5.0 of Aspose.Slides for Reporting Services has been released. In this release we have added the capability to export Hyperlink actions. By RDL specifications, hyperlinks can now be added to images and text boxes in a report. For more information please visit the official release page. The latest version of Aspose.Slides for Reporting Services can be downloaded from here.

Cloning slides inside PPTX presentation

Aspose.Slides for .NET version 2.8.3.0 has been released. This was soon followed by the release of version 2.8.4.0. The new release now supports cloning of slides inside one presentation for PPTX format. Also supported is the rendering of headers, footers, slide numbers and all types of automatically generated dates, etc. on thumbnail, SVG and PDF. Many internal improvements for reading/writing PPTX and numerous other bug fixes have been incorporated into these releases. For more information please visit the official release pages here and here. The latest version of Aspose.Slides for .NET can be downloaded from here.

Digital signature supported in Aspose.Pdf.Kit for Java

The latest version 2.0.0.0 of Aspose.Pdf.Kit for Java has been released. In this release the support for digital signature has been added. Users are now able to secure the PDF document with digital certificate. Also added is the support for extracting various comments (annotations) including types of text, highlight, stamp, attachment, etc. as well as the support for CJK font for filling fields and stamping texts. Also included in this release are numerous bug fixes and improvements. Please visit the official release page and the accompanying blog post for more information. You can download the latest version of Aspose.Pdf.Kit for Java from here.

Aspose.Cells for .NET 4.4.3.0 released

Aspose.Cells for .NET version 4.4.3.0 has been released. This was preceded by the release of version 4.4.2.0 earlier. The new release now supports the DAYS360 function in formula calculation engine, and the 2007 XLSM format. In addition to this, two new methods, Cell.GetStyle and Cell.SetStyle, have been added to optimize memory usage. Also included in this release are numerous bug fixes and improvements. For more information please visit the official release pages here and here, as well as the accompanying blog post. The latest version of Aspose.Cells for .NET can be downloaded from here.

Aspose.Slides for Java supports OLE1 native objects and bidirectional writing

The latest version 1.8.3.0 of Aspose.Slides for Java has been released. The new release includes support for OLE1 native objects and bidirectional writing. Also included is the support for any number of meta characters (which represent slide numbers, header, footers and etc.) in a text frame through TextFrame.getMetaCharacters() method. In addition to this the rendering of headers, footers, slide numbers and all types of automatically generated dates, etc. on thumbnail, SVG and PDF is also supported. Numerous other bug fixes and improvements have been incorporated into this release as well. For more information please visit the official release page. The latest version of Aspose.Slides for Java can be downloaded from here.

Technical Article – Converting DOC to PDF with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 using Aspose Components

This article describes how you can add the ability of converting DOC to PDF (DOC2PDF) to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS) using Aspose.Words and Aspose.Pdf. The article will guide you in creating a small console application in Visual Studio that works as a document converter for SharePoint and invokes the Aspose components to perform the conversion. It is easy to add even more types of document conversions by following the example in this article.

Technical Tip – How to efficiently use Aspose.Slides in your applications

Speed optimizations

Aspose.Slides has many features for managing presentations. Some of these features are quite efficient in terms of execution speed while others are a bit time consuming. The main idea of speed optimization is replace slow operations with their more efficient alternatives where possible. Following are some useful operation replacements:

- When creating presentations from templates try to avoid cloning slides from one presentation to another. Sometimes it’s better to open template and delete unnecessary slides instead of cloning each slide from the template to an empty presentation.
- If you are creating a presentation with several similar slides then avoid cloning each slide from template. You should do it only once and after that clone this created slide inside your target presentation. Cloning local slides is more efficient than cloning between presentations.
- Create whole table at once if possible instead of adding new columns and rows later. This can also reduce memory usage.
- Fill table cells row by row from left to right and from top to bottom. Another order can slow down the process dramatically.

Size optimization

Most of the optimization tasks related to size of the presentation are executed automatically by Aspose.Slides when you save the presentation to a file or stream. However there are several additional ways to further reduce the size of the presentation:

- Don’t forget to delete unused master slides and handout.
- Reuse fonts and images in a presentation.
- Delete alternative text from shapes if you are not going to use it later.
- Insert common shapes and images to master slide.
- Minimize the number of text portions if possible.

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