I have several Word templates and I wish to use these to dynamically create Word documents in my app. I wish to avoid using automation at all costs as this is no good. I know that I can use both HTML and XML to create word documents but I just don't know where to start with regards to using a template that may well have images in the footer or the header of a document.
A:
MigraDoc http://www.pdfsharp.net/MigraDocOverview.ashx is a free utility for exporting PDF/Word/HTML files. I've not worked with it using templates as yet however, you could use the DDL files to persists a layout for your files to be re-used.
dnolan
2010-04-06 14:07:45
A:
You could use DocX. It's free, very easy to use, with nice tutorials and is feature reach. It works with only DOCX documents thou. Also development is currently on hold until the author will finish his semester. Here's detailed blog about it.
It has good example of using template in his Invoice Example.
MadBoy
2010-04-06 14:16:27
+5
A:
I use the OpenXML SDK with Word 2007. After you get the hang of it, it's not so bad. I have several template docx files that I scan through to search and replace for placeholder strings with what I want, and then can stitch together multiple templates into one document if I want to. It's nice because I can start with docx files as the template and modify them while the whole time staying within the realm of the docx format. If an image is in the docx when you start modifying it, it'll be there after you re-save it after modification (provided you didn't programmatically remove it of course).
If you have more details with what you'll be doing, let us know.
Chris
2010-04-06 16:24:00