One of my customers ask me to Convert Excel to XML and save the data to database on website, but his website does not support Ms Excel. I have to look for another solution, on CodeProject, I got ExcelReader.

• Download source files – 76 KB

Introduction This library is built based on the following documents, thanks to their authors: Compound Document file format Excel file format Microsoft Office 97 Drawing File Format Record structures in BIFF8/BIFF8X format are considered. What it can do? It can read read worksheets in a workbook and read cells in a worksheet. It can read cell content (text, number, datetime, or error) and cell format (font, alignment, linestyle, background, etc.). It can read pictures in the file, get information of image size, position, data, and format. Using the code Open file: Stream fileStream = File.OpenRead(file); Workbook book = new Workbook(); book.Open(fileStream); Worksheet sheet = book.Worksheets[0]; Read cell: int row = 1; int col = 0; string ID = sheet.Cells[row, col].StringValue; Picture pic = sheet.ExtractPicture(row, col);

iText(java version) and iTextSharp(dotnet version) are very powerful libraries to create and manipulate PDF, but this time, I just want to talk about how to fill PDF form with the help of iText or iTextSharp.

for java version, please visit http://itextdocs.lowagie.com/tutorial/#part5, there are many examples about fill or create PDF form.

for dotnet version(C#),
the easiest example is
PdfReader reader = new PdfReader("SimpleRegistrationForm.pdf");
PdfStamper stamp1 = new PdfStamper(reader, new FileStream("registered.pdf",FileMode.Create));
AcroFields form1 = stamp1.AcroFields;

form1.SetField("name", "Steven");
form1.SetField("address", "http://blog.rubypdf.com");
form1.SetField("postal_code", "200051");
form1.SetField("email", "rocsky@gmail.com");
stamp1.Close();
reader.Close();

and if you want to fill CJK(Chinese, Japanese and Korean) characters to PDF from, have a look the following code,

BaseFont.AddToResourceSearch("iTextAsian-1.0.dll");
BaseFont.AddToResourceSearch("iTextAsianCmaps-1.0.dll");
BaseFont font = BaseFont.CreateFont("STSong-Light", "UniGB-UCS2-H", BaseFont.EMBEDDED);
//if you want to use truetype fonts
//BaseFont font = BaseFont.CreateFont("c:\\windows\\fonts\\STSONG.TTF", BaseFont.IDENTITY_H, BaseFont.EMBEDDED);

//fill the form now
form1.SetField("name", "小李");
form1.SetField("address", "http://blog.rubypdf.com");
form1.SetField("postal_code", "200051");
form1.SetField("email", "rocsky@gmail.com");
stamp1.Close();
reader.Close();

related resources from my Chinese Blog and my free asp.net hosting,

• I have posted it before on my Chinese version blog, and you can get the source code from the following links,
  field_merge: Example code of Early Access iText(how to fill PDF form with iTextSharp)
• Fill and Save PDF Form online(also can add more function,such as email and save data to database ),Adobe Reader is enough
• Fill web form and save the data to PDF form online

YetAnotherForum.NET (YAF) is a Open Source discussion forum or bulletin board system for web sites running ASP.NET. The latest version is ASP.NET v2.0 with a Microsoft SQL Server backend. The full C# source code is available licensed as GPL.

Yesterday, some friends talked about set up a asp.net forum, and one of them recommended YAF, I googled it today, and tried to installed on my free asp.net 2.0 hosting, aspspider.net(it does not offer hosting to new user). It is very easy to install,

• download from http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=90539
• log on http://www.aspspider.net/cp/
• upload YAF-v1.9.0-FINAL-BIN.zip and uncompress,
• create a blank database at local, for example name yaf, so you get yaf.mdf and yaf_log.ldf, just upload yaf.mdf to database folder and forget yaf_log.ldf.
• attach yaf.mdf as tonyfox_yaf(because my usename is tonyfox, so the prefix is tonyfox_)
• find default.config and rename to web.config
• edit the connect string in web.config, just like this,
  .\SQLExpress;Persist Security Info=True;Integrated Security=SSPI;Initial Catalog=tonyfox_yaf
• install YAF now,http://aspspider.net/tonyfox/install/

Feel free to visit my demo,
http://aspspider.net/tonyfox/

related resource,

• YAF supports url rewritting now, and if you are interested in it, please visit this post,
  YAF v1.9.1 RC1 for .NET v2.0 Framework (Dated 5/15/2007)
• MSProject from YAF, but full simplified Chinese version, feel free to visit this post,
  http://bbs.msproject.cn/default.aspx?g=posts&t=178