Inquiry: Support for Document Generation and Embedding Capabilities in Microsoft Technologies

Question

Inquiry: Support for Document Generation and Embedding Capabilities in Microsoft Technologies

Shrutika Kharche 0

Dear Team,

We are currently evaluating document generation libraries for a .NET-based application using c# and would like to understand whether Microsoft components(free/paid services) would support the following functionality:

Generate documents in the following formats:

1.Word (.docx)

2.PDF

3.Excel (.xlsx)

Embed files inside a Word (.docx) document, including:

1.Other .docx files

2.rdl (Report Definition Language) files

Export the Word document (with embedded files) to PDF, retaining the embedded objects if possible.

Could you please confirm:

1.Whether Microsoft services supports embedding .docx and .rdl files into Word documents?

2.If embedded objects are preserved when converting to PDF?

3.If any combination of Microsoft technologies or services would cover these use cases under a single license or package, could you please confirm and share the applicable pricing details?

1 answer

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Answer 1

Microsoft has two major reporting applications. SQL Reporting services (SSRS) and Power BI.

SSRS is a server report generator. the report viewer has an export to word, excel, pdf, etc.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/reporting-services/create-deploy-and-manage-mobile-and-paginated-reports?view=sql-server-ver17

Power BI also has some export services and integrates well with excel.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/products/power-bi

Generally reports are embedded in word as images. As pdf creating is typically done a print driver, embedded objects are just printed. Neither service has direct support for building word or pdf documents. Both target hosting reports on a web server, though Power BI can also be hosted by excel and produce excel files.

as for application library support, there are two major sdks:

openxml, a library to create and read office xml files:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/open-xml/open-xml-sdk

graph sdk. this is a library to create and edit online office files:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/sdks/sdks-overview

for building reporting applications with C#, you probably need to go 3rd party. also MS has no pdf generation libraries. again you need to go 3rd party.

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Inquiry: Support for Document Generation and Embedding Capabilities in Microsoft Technologies

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