Is there a Java API that can create rich Word documents

Question

I have a new app I ll be working on where I have to generate a Word document that contains tables  graphs  a table of contents and text   What s a good API to use for this   How sure are you that it supports graphs  ToCs  and tables   What are some hidden gotcha s in using them   Some clarifications    I can t output a PDF  they want a Word doc  They re using MS Word 2003  or 2007   not OpenOffice Application is running on  nix app-server   It d be nice if I could start with a template doc and just fill in some spaces with tables  graphs  etc   Edit  Several good answers below  each with their own faults as far as my current situation   Hard to pick a  final answer  from them   Think I ll leave it open  and hope for better solutions to be created   Edit  The OpenOffice UNO project does seem to be closest to what I asked for   While POI is certainly more mainstream  it s too immature for what I want

User · Answer

iText is really easy to use   If you requiere doc files you can call abiword  free lightweigh multi-os text procesor  from the command line  it has several conversion format convert options

User · Answer

I think Apache POI can do the job  A possible problem depending on the usage your aiming to may be caused by the fact that HWPF is still in early development      HWPF   is the set of APIs for reading and   writing Microsoft Word 97 -XP    documents using  only  Java

User · Answer

Yet another possibility  since this is a web app     I was able to render an HTML page with the MIME type set to  application msword   which caused the browser to spawn Word which imported the html just fine  allowing edits and saving just as if I d output a real Word doc   Tables work fine  but images I hadn t gotten working yet   It may be as easy as just an  tag in the HTML  or I may have to stream a separate part of the response containing the image data in binary  or some other method I haven t come up with yet

User · Answer

Even though this is much later than the request  it might help others   Docmosis provides a Java API for creating documents in doc pdf odt format using documents as templates   It uses OpenOffice as the engine to perform the format conversions   Document manipulation and population is performed by Docmosis itself

User · Answer

I ve used Aspose Words to do mail merge in  NET   I believe that they also have a Java version

User · Answer

It was mentioned only briefly once  so I d like to call out the docx4j library  as I ve had more success with docx4j than anything else  Apache POI s support for Word documents isn t very good  Also  unlike Aspose Words  docx4j is an open source library   The only drawback is with docx4j you have to create Office Open XML  docx  format documents rather than OLE2-based  doc  format documents  This is the default format for Word 2007  but Word 2003 and earlier users will need to install a compatibility pack

User · Answer

You can use a Java COM bridge like JACOB  If it is from client side  another option would be to use Javascript

User · Answer

In 2007 my project successfully used OpenOffice org s Universal Network Objects  UNO  interface to programmatically generate MS-Word compatible documents    doc   as well as corresponding PDF documents  from a Java Web application  a Struts JSP framework      OpenOffice UNO also lets you build MS-Office-compatible charts  spreadsheets  presentations  etc   We were able to dynamically build sophisticated Word documents  including charts and tables     We simplified the process by using template MS-Word documents with bookmark inserts into which the software inserted content  however  you can build documents completely from scratch   The goal was to have the software generate report documents that could be shared and further tweaked by end-users before converting them to PDF for final delivery and archival     You can optionally produce documents in OpenOffice formats if you want users to use OpenOffice instead of MS-Office   In our case the users want to use MS-Office tools     UNO is included within the OpenOffice suite   We simply linked our Java app to UNO-related libraries within the suite   An OpenOffice Software Development Kit  SDK  is available containing example applications and the UNO Developer s Guide   I have not investigated whether the latest OpenOffice UNO can generate MS-Office 2007 Open XML document formats   The important things about OpenOffice UNO are     It is freeware It supports multiple languages  e g  Visual Basic  Java  C    and others   It is platform-independent  Windows  Linux  Unix  etc        Here are some useful web sites     Open Office home Open Office UNO Developer s Guide OpenOffice Developer s Forum  especially the  Macros and API  and  Code Snippets  forums

User · Answer

I ve used Aspose Words to do mail merge in  NET   I believe that they also have a Java version

User · Answer

I think Apache POI can do the job  A possible problem depending on the usage your aiming to may be caused by the fact that HWPF is still in early development      HWPF   is the set of APIs for reading and   writing Microsoft Word 97 -XP    documents using  only  Java

User · Answer

You can use a Java COM bridge like JACOB  If it is from client side  another option would be to use Javascript

User · Answer

I think Apache POI can do the job  A possible problem depending on the usage your aiming to may be caused by the fact that HWPF is still in early development      HWPF   is the set of APIs for reading and   writing Microsoft Word 97 -XP    documents using  only  Java

User · Answer

Try Aspose Words for Java  it runs on any OS where Java is installed   It will output the document to DOC  DOCX or RTF if you need an MS Word output format  All are supported equally well   Using this API you can create a document from scratch  literally from nodes and set their formatting properties  You can also use a DocumentBuilder which provides higher level methods such as create a table row  insert a field etc  Or you can copy join move portions between existing pre created document  say you want to assemble a contract  just grab and copy pieces from several documents and Aspose Words will merge styles  list formatting etc properly in the resulting document   You will be able to insert a TOC field using Aspose Words  but as of today  the TOC field will require a field update when the document is opened in Microsoft Word  However  we are going to release full support for TOC fields early in 2010  E g  it will build complete TOC as MS Word does it   I m on the Aspose Words team

User · Answer

Try Aspose Words for java      Aspose Words for Java is an advanced  commercial  class library for Java that enables you to perform a great range of document processing tasks directly within your Java applications       Aspose Words for Java supports DOC  OOXML  RTF  HTML and OpenDocument formats  With Aspose Words you can generate  modify  and convert documents without using Microsoft Word

User · Answer

After a little more research  I came across iText  a PDF and RTF-file creation API   I think I can use the RTF generation to create a Doc-readable file that can then be edited using Doc and re-saved   Anyone have any experience with iText  used in this fashion

User · Answer

I have developed pure XML based word files in the past  I used  NET  but the language should not matter since it s truely XML  It was not the easiest thing to do  had a project that required it a couple years ago   These do only work in Word 2007 or above - but all you need is Microsoft s white paper that describe what each tag does  You can accomplish all you want with the tags the same way as if you were using Word  of course a little more painful initially

User · Answer

docx4j or poi  both of which are ASL v2   wondersofcomputing  iText is actually free and open source

User · Answer

Even though this is much later than the request  it might help others   Docmosis provides a Java API for creating documents in doc pdf odt format using documents as templates   It uses OpenOffice as the engine to perform the format conversions   Document manipulation and population is performed by Docmosis itself

User · Answer

In 2007 my project successfully used OpenOffice org s Universal Network Objects  UNO  interface to programmatically generate MS-Word compatible documents    doc   as well as corresponding PDF documents  from a Java Web application  a Struts JSP framework      OpenOffice UNO also lets you build MS-Office-compatible charts  spreadsheets  presentations  etc   We were able to dynamically build sophisticated Word documents  including charts and tables     We simplified the process by using template MS-Word documents with bookmark inserts into which the software inserted content  however  you can build documents completely from scratch   The goal was to have the software generate report documents that could be shared and further tweaked by end-users before converting them to PDF for final delivery and archival     You can optionally produce documents in OpenOffice formats if you want users to use OpenOffice instead of MS-Office   In our case the users want to use MS-Office tools     UNO is included within the OpenOffice suite   We simply linked our Java app to UNO-related libraries within the suite   An OpenOffice Software Development Kit  SDK  is available containing example applications and the UNO Developer s Guide   I have not investigated whether the latest OpenOffice UNO can generate MS-Office 2007 Open XML document formats   The important things about OpenOffice UNO are     It is freeware It supports multiple languages  e g  Visual Basic  Java  C    and others   It is platform-independent  Windows  Linux  Unix  etc        Here are some useful web sites     Open Office home Open Office UNO Developer s Guide OpenOffice Developer s Forum  especially the  Macros and API  and  Code Snippets  forums

User · Answer

You can use a Java COM bridge like JACOB  If it is from client side  another option would be to use Javascript

User · Answer

There s a tool called JODConverter which hooks into open office to expose it s file format converters  there s versions available as a webapp  sits in tomcat  which you post to and a command line tool  I ve been firing html at it and converting to  doc and pdf succesfully it s in a fairly big project  haven t gone live yet but I think I m going to be using it  http   sourceforge net projects jodconverter

User · Answer

After a little more research  I came across iText  a PDF and RTF-file creation API  I think I can use the RTF generation to create a Doc-readable file that can then be edited using Doc and re-saved  Anyone have any experience with iText  used in this fashion   Bill  the POI and iText API are very similar from a programming perspective  I ve worked with both in the past and found them both easy to use and well documented  With iText you gain the advantage of being able to switch between formats  RTF and PDF  with minor change to the code  If I remember correctly the content is laid out using the same calls and then set as PDF or RTF using a few lines of code  However I believe the formatting in RTF is limited compared to DOC  I don t know if you ll be able to implement the advanced features you are looking for  tables  inline images  without a decent amount of hassle  if at all  Given what you said that about HWPF not having enough functionality for your needs  I ve only dealt with the Excel side of POI  your best bet may be to convince the powers that be that PDF is the best technology for the job

User · Answer

After a little more research  I came across iText  a PDF and RTF-file creation API  I think I can use the RTF generation to create a Doc-readable file that can then be edited using Doc and re-saved  Anyone have any experience with iText  used in this fashion   Bill  the POI and iText API are very similar from a programming perspective  I ve worked with both in the past and found them both easy to use and well documented  With iText you gain the advantage of being able to switch between formats  RTF and PDF  with minor change to the code  If I remember correctly the content is laid out using the same calls and then set as PDF or RTF using a few lines of code  However I believe the formatting in RTF is limited compared to DOC  I don t know if you ll be able to implement the advanced features you are looking for  tables  inline images  without a decent amount of hassle  if at all  Given what you said that about HWPF not having enough functionality for your needs  I ve only dealt with the Excel side of POI  your best bet may be to convince the powers that be that PDF is the best technology for the job

User · Answer

It was mentioned only briefly once  so I d like to call out the docx4j library  as I ve had more success with docx4j than anything else  Apache POI s support for Word documents isn t very good  Also  unlike Aspose Words  docx4j is an open source library   The only drawback is with docx4j you have to create Office Open XML  docx  format documents rather than OLE2-based  doc  format documents  This is the default format for Word 2007  but Word 2003 and earlier users will need to install a compatibility pack

User · Answer

I ve used Aspose Words to do mail merge in  NET   I believe that they also have a Java version

User · Answer

Yet another possibility  since this is a web app     I was able to render an HTML page with the MIME type set to  application msword   which caused the browser to spawn Word which imported the html just fine  allowing edits and saving just as if I d output a real Word doc   Tables work fine  but images I hadn t gotten working yet   It may be as easy as just an  tag in the HTML  or I may have to stream a separate part of the response containing the image data in binary  or some other method I haven t come up with yet

User · Answer

iText is really easy to use   If you requiere doc files you can call abiword  free lightweigh multi-os text procesor  from the command line  it has several conversion format convert options

User · Answer

You can use a Java COM bridge like JACOB  If it is from client side  another option would be to use Javascript

User · Answer

I ve used Aspose Words to do mail merge in  NET   I believe that they also have a Java version

User · Answer

I have developed pure XML based word files in the past  I used  NET  but the language should not matter since it s truely XML  It was not the easiest thing to do  had a project that required it a couple years ago   These do only work in Word 2007 or above - but all you need is Microsoft s white paper that describe what each tag does  You can accomplish all you want with the tags the same way as if you were using Word  of course a little more painful initially

User · Answer

Yet another possibility  since this is a web app     I was able to render an HTML page with the MIME type set to  application msword   which caused the browser to spawn Word which imported the html just fine  allowing edits and saving just as if I d output a real Word doc   Tables work fine  but images I hadn t gotten working yet   It may be as easy as just an  tag in the HTML  or I may have to stream a separate part of the response containing the image data in binary  or some other method I haven t come up with yet

User · Answer

Try Aspose Words for java      Aspose Words for Java is an advanced  commercial  class library for Java that enables you to perform a great range of document processing tasks directly within your Java applications       Aspose Words for Java supports DOC  OOXML  RTF  HTML and OpenDocument formats  With Aspose Words you can generate  modify  and convert documents without using Microsoft Word

User · Answer

Try Aspose Words for java      Aspose Words for Java is an advanced  commercial  class library for Java that enables you to perform a great range of document processing tasks directly within your Java applications       Aspose Words for Java supports DOC  OOXML  RTF  HTML and OpenDocument formats  With Aspose Words you can generate  modify  and convert documents without using Microsoft Word

User · Answer

In 2007 my project successfully used OpenOffice org s Universal Network Objects  UNO  interface to programmatically generate MS-Word compatible documents    doc   as well as corresponding PDF documents  from a Java Web application  a Struts JSP framework      OpenOffice UNO also lets you build MS-Office-compatible charts  spreadsheets  presentations  etc   We were able to dynamically build sophisticated Word documents  including charts and tables     We simplified the process by using template MS-Word documents with bookmark inserts into which the software inserted content  however  you can build documents completely from scratch   The goal was to have the software generate report documents that could be shared and further tweaked by end-users before converting them to PDF for final delivery and archival     You can optionally produce documents in OpenOffice formats if you want users to use OpenOffice instead of MS-Office   In our case the users want to use MS-Office tools     UNO is included within the OpenOffice suite   We simply linked our Java app to UNO-related libraries within the suite   An OpenOffice Software Development Kit  SDK  is available containing example applications and the UNO Developer s Guide   I have not investigated whether the latest OpenOffice UNO can generate MS-Office 2007 Open XML document formats   The important things about OpenOffice UNO are     It is freeware It supports multiple languages  e g  Visual Basic  Java  C    and others   It is platform-independent  Windows  Linux  Unix  etc        Here are some useful web sites     Open Office home Open Office UNO Developer s Guide OpenOffice Developer s Forum  especially the  Macros and API  and  Code Snippets  forums

User · Answer

After a little more research  I came across iText  a PDF and RTF-file creation API   I think I can use the RTF generation to create a Doc-readable file that can then be edited using Doc and re-saved   Anyone have any experience with iText  used in this fashion

User · Answer

In 2007 my project successfully used OpenOffice org s Universal Network Objects  UNO  interface to programmatically generate MS-Word compatible documents    doc   as well as corresponding PDF documents  from a Java Web application  a Struts JSP framework      OpenOffice UNO also lets you build MS-Office-compatible charts  spreadsheets  presentations  etc   We were able to dynamically build sophisticated Word documents  including charts and tables     We simplified the process by using template MS-Word documents with bookmark inserts into which the software inserted content  however  you can build documents completely from scratch   The goal was to have the software generate report documents that could be shared and further tweaked by end-users before converting them to PDF for final delivery and archival     You can optionally produce documents in OpenOffice formats if you want users to use OpenOffice instead of MS-Office   In our case the users want to use MS-Office tools     UNO is included within the OpenOffice suite   We simply linked our Java app to UNO-related libraries within the suite   An OpenOffice Software Development Kit  SDK  is available containing example applications and the UNO Developer s Guide   I have not investigated whether the latest OpenOffice UNO can generate MS-Office 2007 Open XML document formats   The important things about OpenOffice UNO are     It is freeware It supports multiple languages  e g  Visual Basic  Java  C    and others   It is platform-independent  Windows  Linux  Unix  etc        Here are some useful web sites     Open Office home Open Office UNO Developer s Guide OpenOffice Developer s Forum  especially the  Macros and API  and  Code Snippets  forums

User · Answer

After a little more research  I came across iText  a PDF and RTF-file creation API   I think I can use the RTF generation to create a Doc-readable file that can then be edited using Doc and re-saved   Anyone have any experience with iText  used in this fashion

User · Answer

I have developed pure XML based word files in the past  I used  NET  but the language should not matter since it s truely XML  It was not the easiest thing to do  had a project that required it a couple years ago   These do only work in Word 2007 or above - but all you need is Microsoft s white paper that describe what each tag does  You can accomplish all you want with the tags the same way as if you were using Word  of course a little more painful initially

User · Answer

I have developed pure XML based word files in the past  I used  NET  but the language should not matter since it s truely XML  It was not the easiest thing to do  had a project that required it a couple years ago   These do only work in Word 2007 or above - but all you need is Microsoft s white paper that describe what each tag does  You can accomplish all you want with the tags the same way as if you were using Word  of course a little more painful initially

User · Answer

I think Apache POI can do the job  A possible problem depending on the usage your aiming to may be caused by the fact that HWPF is still in early development      HWPF   is the set of APIs for reading and   writing Microsoft Word 97 -XP    documents using  only  Java

User · Answer

docx4j or poi  both of which are ASL v2   wondersofcomputing  iText is actually free and open source

User · Answer

You could use this  http   code google com p java2word  I implemented this API called Java2Word  with a few lines of code  you can generate one Microsoft Word Document   Eg    IDocument myDoc   new Document2004    myDoc getBody   addEle new Heading1  Heading01     myDoc getBody   addEle new Paragraph  This is a paragraph        There is some examples how to use  Basically you will need one jar file  Let me know if you need any further information how to set it up    I wrote this because we had one real necessity in a project  More in my blog    http    leonardo-pinho blogspot com 2010 07 java2word-word-document-generator-from html    cheers Leonardo  Edit   Project in link moved to https   github com leonardoanalista java2word

User · Answer

There s a tool called JODConverter which hooks into open office to expose it s file format converters  there s versions available as a webapp  sits in tomcat  which you post to and a command line tool  I ve been firing html at it and converting to  doc and pdf succesfully it s in a fairly big project  haven t gone live yet but I think I m going to be using it  http   sourceforge net projects jodconverter

User · Answer

You could use this  http   code google com p java2word  I implemented this API called Java2Word  with a few lines of code  you can generate one Microsoft Word Document   Eg    IDocument myDoc   new Document2004    myDoc getBody   addEle new Heading1  Heading01     myDoc getBody   addEle new Paragraph  This is a paragraph        There is some examples how to use  Basically you will need one jar file  Let me know if you need any further information how to set it up    I wrote this because we had one real necessity in a project  More in my blog    http    leonardo-pinho blogspot com 2010 07 java2word-word-document-generator-from html    cheers Leonardo  Edit   Project in link moved to https   github com leonardoanalista java2word

User · Answer

Try Aspose Words for Java  it runs on any OS where Java is installed   It will output the document to DOC  DOCX or RTF if you need an MS Word output format  All are supported equally well   Using this API you can create a document from scratch  literally from nodes and set their formatting properties  You can also use a DocumentBuilder which provides higher level methods such as create a table row  insert a field etc  Or you can copy join move portions between existing pre created document  say you want to assemble a contract  just grab and copy pieces from several documents and Aspose Words will merge styles  list formatting etc properly in the resulting document   You will be able to insert a TOC field using Aspose Words  but as of today  the TOC field will require a field update when the document is opened in Microsoft Word  However  we are going to release full support for TOC fields early in 2010  E g  it will build complete TOC as MS Word does it   I m on the Aspose Words team

User · Answer

Yet another possibility  since this is a web app     I was able to render an HTML page with the MIME type set to  application msword   which caused the browser to spawn Word which imported the html just fine  allowing edits and saving just as if I d output a real Word doc   Tables work fine  but images I hadn t gotten working yet   It may be as easy as just an  tag in the HTML  or I may have to stream a separate part of the response containing the image data in binary  or some other method I haven t come up with yet

User · Answer

Try Aspose Words for java      Aspose Words for Java is an advanced  commercial  class library for Java that enables you to perform a great range of document processing tasks directly within your Java applications       Aspose Words for Java supports DOC  OOXML  RTF  HTML and OpenDocument formats  With Aspose Words you can generate  modify  and convert documents without using Microsoft Word

User · Answer

After a little more research  I came across iText  a PDF and RTF-file creation API   I think I can use the RTF generation to create a Doc-readable file that can then be edited using Doc and re-saved   Anyone have any experience with iText  used in this fashion

[java] Is there a Java API that can create rich Word documents?

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