Aspose Customer Newsletter, October 2007

In This Issue

• Welcome!
• Product Spotlight – Aspose.Pdf for Reporting Services
• Export Excel files to PDF using Aspose.Cells for Java
• Aspose.BarCode for .NET now supports MacroPDF417 symbology
• Create Encrypted Excel files using Aspose.Cells for .NET
• Export HTML formatted reports to Word documents using Aspose.Words for Reporting Services
• Latest Enhancements in Aspose.Network v3.6.0.0
• Technical Tip – Load a Web Image (from a URL) into an Excel Worksheet
• Aspose.Pdf for .NET v3.6.0.0 Mega Release

Welcome

Welcome to the October 2007 issue of the Aspose Newsletter! In this month’s newsletter, we will provide some introductory information about our spotlight product: Aspose.Pdf for Reporting Services. We will also look at the new and exciting features offered in the recent releases of Aspose.Words for Reporting Services, Aspose.Network, Aspose.Pdf, Aspose.BarCode and Aspose.Cells. You will learn about the latest news from Aspose along with the monthly Tech-Tip, which demonstrates how you can load a web image (from a URL) into an Excel worksheet using Aspose.Cells for .NET.

Product Spotlight

Aspose.Pdf for Reporting Services is a robust .NET solution which allows you to produce PDF reports in Microsoft SQL Server 2000 and 2005 Reporting Services. Almost all RDL report features are supported, allowing you to generate high quality PDF reports having tables, charts, matrices, headers & footers, sections, lists, textboxes, rectangles, lines and images etc. Leveraging from the technology of Aspose.Pdf component, Aspose.Pdf for Reporting Services is the ideal product for anyone looking to generate PDF reports in Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services. Please download the free evaluation version of Aspose.Pdf for Reporting Services to see how it fulfills your business needs.

Export Excel files to PDF using Aspose.Cells for Java

The most important feature added in the recent release of Aspose.Cells for Java v1.9.0.0 is the support of exporting Excel files in Aspose.Pdf xml format, which can be converted to PDF documents using Aspose.Pdf. Few more features are also added to this release like the support of copying comments & named ranges while a worksheet is copied and the support of tracing precedents & dependents of a cell etc. Moreover, the support of formula calculation, POJO and POJOs with smart markers is also improved. Many important bugs related to named ranges, pivot tables and formula calculation etc. are also fixed. For more details, please read the complete story.

Aspose.BarCode for .NET now supports MacroPDF417 symbology

In Aspose.BarCode for .NET v2.3.2.0, the support of MacroPDF417 (which is an implementation of PDF417) symbology is also added that will enable our customers to encode very large amount of data into barcodes. Some bugs related to QR barcode and PDF417 numeric mode encodings are also fixed. To get more details about the improvements made in Aspose.BarCode for .NET v2.3.2.0, please click here.

Create Encrypted Excel files using Aspose.Cells for .NET

One of the important features added to Aspose.Cells for .NET v4.4.0.0 is that now developers can easily create encrypted Excel files from scratch using Aspose.Cells. There are some improvements made in Chart to Image and XLS to PDF conversions. Moreover, few bugs are also fixed in this release. For more details, please visit its official release page.

Export HTML formatted reports to Word documents using Aspose.Words for Reporting Services

The latest release of Aspose.Words for Reporting Services v1.4.1.0 introduces a very interesting feature. Now, you can enable a special mode in Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services that will instruct the renderer to understand HTML text hosted within textboxes. This allows applying different inline formatting such as bold or italic within the same textbox. Moreover, you can insert almost any HTML you wish. If you want to export rich formatted reports to Microsoft Word documents, this new feature is exactly what you need. To get more details, please check its official release page.

Latest Enhancements in Aspose.Network v3.6.0.0

With the addition of many new features and important enhancements, Aspose.Network v3.6.0.0 has just got better. New features include the support of rendering multipart/mixed type part in Eml format, deleting attachments in Outlook Message files and converting non-deliverable report message (Outlook Message files) to Eml format. Besides new features and enhancements, some important bugs are also fixed in this release. To get more details about the improvements made in Aspose.Network for .NET v3.6.0.0, please click here.

Technical Tip

Load a Web Image (from a URL) into an Excel Worksheet
**
Sometimes, you do require inserting a picture from a URL into an Excel file. You may do it quite easily. You just need to extract & download image data into stream and then you may use Aspose.Cells to insert image (from the stream) into the worksheet. Following is a simple way to achieve this:

[C#]

//Define memory stream object
System.IO.MemoryStream objImage;

//Define web client object
System.Net.WebClient objwebClient;

//Define a string which will hold the web image url
string sURL = “http://files.myopera.com/Mickeyjoe_irl/albums/38458/abc.jpg";

try
{
//Instantiate the web client object
objwebClient = new System.Net.WebClient();

//Now, extract data into memory stream downloading the image data into the array of bytes
objImage = new System.IO.MemoryStream(objwebClient.DownloadData(sURL));

//Create a new workbook
Aspose.Cells.Workbook wb = new Aspose.Cells.Workbook();

//Get the first worksheet in the book
Aspose.Cells.Worksheet sheet = wb.Worksheets[0];

//Get the first worksheet pictures collection
Aspose.Cells.Pictures pictures = sheet.Pictures;

//Insert the picture from the stream to B2 cell
pictures.Add(1,1,objImage);

//Save the excel file
wb.Save(“d:\\test\\webimagebook.xls”);
}
catch (Exception ex )
{
//Write the error message on the console
Console.WriteLine(ex.Message);
}

[VB]

‘Define memory stream object
Dim objImage As System.IO.MemoryStream

‘Define web client object
Dim objwebClient As System.Net.WebClient

‘Define a string which will hold the web image url
Dim sURL As String = “http://files.myopera.com/Mickeyjoe_irl/albums/38458/abc.jpg"

Try
‘Instantiate the web client object
objwebClient = New System.Net.WebClient

‘Now, extract data into memory stream downloading the image data into the array of bytes
objImage = New System.IO.MemoryStream(objwebClient.DownloadData(sURL))

‘Create a new workbook
Dim wb As Aspose.Cells.Workbook = New Aspose.Cells.Workbook

‘Get the first worksheet in the book
Dim sheet As Aspose.Cells.Worksheet = wb.Worksheets(0)

‘Get the first worksheet pictures collection
Dim pictures As Aspose.Cells.Pictures = sheet.Pictures

‘Insert the picture from the stream to B2 cell
pictures.Add(1, 1, objImage)

‘Save the excel file
wb.Save(“d:\test\webimagebook.xls”)
Catch ex As Exception
‘Write the error message on the console
Console.WriteLine(ex.Message)
End Try

Aspose.Pdf for .NET v3.6.0.0 Mega Release

In the month of September, 2007, the Aspose.Pdf team published a Mega Release that provides plenty of new features, improvements and bug fixes. The new features include the support of embedded image data in XML, non-breaking space, importing data from DataGrid control, XMP metadata and rich formatting list labels etc. The improvements and bug fixes are related to HTML to PDF & Word to PDF conversions, table of contents (TOC), tables, footnotes and text paragraphs etc. The complete list of all these improvements can be viewed here. Please download this latest release now to make your applications work better using Aspose.Pdf.