How do I link from C++/C# code to a specific section in a word or pdf document.

Question

0.00/5 (No votes)

See more:

I have been asked to write the back-end of an application in C++ and the front-end GUI is being written in C#. The application displays some parameters to the user in a tree-view, and the user can edit these parameters. Each parameter must have a method of linking to, and allowing the user to view, a specific section of a document. The document is currently in word and pdf.
Alternatively, the text from the relevant section of the document could be obtained and copied in order to be displayed on the GUI.

Is there any way to do this, and if not, what is the best alternative, please.

The customer wants the parameter definitions in a document in a conventional, readable format and which can be printed out, and does not want to have the definitions in two places, ie does not want one file to be the human friendly version and one file to be the one that the software uses to display parameter info.

I am thinking that the only option may be to put the text in a software friendly file which can be read and linked to at different sections, and then have some facility to output this in a more standard format for printing and reading by humans.

Can anyone suggest the best way forward please, what file type to use etc.

Many, many thanks.

Posted 5-Feb-14 22:52pm

Jackie Lloyd

Add a Solution

1 solution

Add a Solution

Add your solution here

Treat my content as plain text, not as HTML

Preview 0

…

Existing Members

Sign in to your account

...or Join us

Download, Vote, Comment, Publish.

Your Email
Password
Forgot your password?

Your Email
This email is in use. Do you need your password?
Optional Password

I have read and agree to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy
Please subscribe me to the CodeProject newsletters

When answering a question please:

Read the question carefully.
Understand that English isn't everyone's first language so be lenient of bad spelling and grammar.
If a question is poorly phrased then either ask for clarification, ignore it, or edit the question and fix the problem. Insults are not welcome.
Don't tell someone to read the manual. Chances are they have and don't get it. Provide an answer or move on to the next question.

Let's work to help developers, not make them feel stupid.

This content, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under The Code Project Open License (CPOL)

Richard MacCutchan · Accepted Answer · 2014-02-05T23:03:00

Solution 1

I'm not sure why you are writing the backend in C++, since .NET (i.e. C#) is much the better vehicle for this. .NET provides full library support for reading/writing Word documents[^], and you could look into iTextSharp[^] for PDF files.

Posted 5-Feb-14 23:03pm

Richard MacCutchan

Comments

Jackie Lloyd 6-Feb-14 5:14am

Thanks very much :) , the interop looks really useful. The C# backend has come about because I'm writing my code within a pre-existing framework that was written here in C++, so C# is not an option for that part. I presume there is nothing so useful for C++.

Richard MacCutchan 6-Feb-14 6:10am

You presume right unfortunately. It is possible to access Word docs through C++ but it is a somewhat more difficult interface than that provided by .NET. I don't know of anything for PDF files. It is, of course, possible to write the document handling code in C# and then provide an interface between the C# and C++ code, which would, in theory, make it easier.