We have released Aspose.Slides for .NET 5.9.0. This is a maintenance release and is much stable version as compared to its predecessor. In this new release, improved support for accessing presentations causing issues  in earlier versions have been resolved. Since, PowerPoint 2010 supports embedded videos inside presentation and Aspose.Slides for .NET lacked the capability to preserve embedded videos inside saved presentations. But, support for embedded videos has been provided in this new release. The support for enhanced PDF generation by reducing the PDF size and still maintaining its quality has also been added.

In order to view a complete list of fixes and to download Aspose.Slides for .NET 5.9.0, please go to the download page.

Uses for presentation file formats are becoming increasingly more common in todays line of business applications. Over the past year we’ve seen a large increase in the number of Java customers wanting to include presentation file output within their applications – and of course when they have a file format requirement the first place they come is Aspose.

Our Java customers are asking for the full feature set (WordArt functionality, better text effect support, complex thumbnail production etc) of our Aspose.Slides for .NET product to be available in Java version of the product. While this is not an overnight process, we always listen and are happy to help our customers.

Autoporting work for Aspose.Slides will start during February 2012 and we will be providing regular updates on the autoporting progress here on our blog similar to how we did with the Aspose.Words autoporting project, out aim is to keep you fully informed so you can make your own plans around the project.

To ensure the best progress is made in the most reasonable timescale we will only be offering access to our free support service while we are working on this project, Enhanced Support will not be available on the Aspose.Slides Product Family products during this time.

If you have any questions in the meantime please contact us for more information.

This part will help you understand that how easily you can create bar codes, tickets, invoices and send attachments with emails. It’ll also show you how you can print the invoices. We have built this example using WCF, but you can use this code in other types of .NET applications. You can also use the code in a variety of scenarios.

This example contains a WCF service which provides the features to find flight information and reserve a seat. It also creates the bar codes and tickets. The service sends the ticket as an email attachment to the customer.

We have used the following Aspose components in this example:

• Aspose.Pdf for .NET: create ticket, create invoice, print invoice
• Aspose.BarCode for .NET: create bar codes
• Aspose.Email for .NET: send ticket as an email attachment

On the client end, we have used Windows Forms application which allows you to find flight information and then reserve the seat for the customer. It also generates and prints an invoice for the customer.

The WCF service uses Aspose.BarCode for .NET to create bar codes for tickets and Aspose.Pdf for .NET to create tickets, while Aspose.Email for .NET sends the ticket as an email attachment to the customer.

The Windows Forms based client uses Aspose.Pdf for .NET to create invoice and then print that invoice on the default printer. This example also includes a folder containing the sample input and output files like input XML containing initial PDF structure, logos, output bar code images, sample ticket and customer invoice.

You can find the complete code in the airline reservation scenario repository on github.com along with a README.md file. The service and client projects also contain README.txt files to show you the steps for setting up the example at your end.

A few snapshots from the application

We are very much excited to share the first release version of Aspose.Pdf for .NET in 2012. Feel free to explore the exciting features introduced in Aspose.Pdf for .NET 6.6.0. This release includes some great new features including SVG to PDF conversion, transforming PDF to PDF/A, rendering PDF into image format with desired dimensions, creating a PDF portfolio and determining if the source document is encrypted, before opening it.

There has been significant improvements to memory management when dealing with large and complex PDF files and converting PDFs into image formats. The component is also more stable when converting intricate HTML files into PDF format. You can now concatenate large PDF files and generate a resultant PDF around 1.0GB in size. Along with these improvements, we have made the PDF to DOC and PCL to PDF conversion processes more stable and robust. The product has been tested in a multi-threaded environment and it has proved to be a champ.

We have resolved a number of other issues too: we have improved the image/text replacement feature, corrected the rendering of PDF files to raster images, added support for more HTML tags, improved printing of PDF files, corrected the way that multi-line watermarks work and much more. To try it out yourself, download latest release version of Aspose.Pdf for .NET 6.6.0 now.

For a complete list of issues resolved in this version and features being offered, please check out the release notes on the Aspose.Pdf for .NET 6.6.0 download page.

Here’s a quick review of what Aspose achieved in the busy and eventful year 2011.

New products

• Aspose.Pdf for SharePoint allows users to export lists, individual list items and Wiki pages to PDF files.
• Aspose.Email for .NET saw email programming features separated from Aspose.Network for .NET into its own product. We also released Aspose.Email for Java and Aspose.Email for SharePoint but because they are Aspose.Network for Java and SharePoint re-named, they’re not really new products.
• Aspose.Imaging for .NET lets developers work with images from within their own applications.
• Aspose.OCR for .NET added optical character recognition tools to Aspose’s .NET toolkit and
• Aspose.OCR for Java added optical character recognition tools to our Java toolkit.
• Aspose.Words Express is a free utility for converting word processing files to EPUB format.
• Aspose.Network for .NET is now a free utility that contains a number of network programming features.

Notable improvements

New features isn’t the only thing that makes life easier for our users. We also introduce new services and change the way we interact with our customers to give you more flexible ways of working with us. Below is a selection of process changes, features and services that we developed in 2011.

• Auto-porting allows us to maintain one code base and compile both the .NET and Java versions of our products from it. This benefits our customers because the two components are in sync and offer the same features. It benefits us because we only maintain one source for two products. We save time: you get a better product. This year we finished the work on auto-porting two products:
  • Aspose.Words for .NET and Java are now released on the last of the month, every month.
  • Aspose.Cells for.NET and Java now offer almost the same features.
  • Aspose.BarCode for Java went from version 2.7 to 4.4 when the .NET and Java features were synchronized.
• Aspose.Pdf for .NET and Aspose.Pdf.Kit were merged to give our .NET users a unified API for creating new and working with existing PDF files.
• We pay attention to the what out customers ask for so this year we have added a range of conversion options and support for new file formats:
  • PDF to HTML conversion in Aspose.Pdf for .NET.
  • PPTX conversion options added to Aspose.Slides.
  • PST support in Aspose.Email for .NET (previously Aspose.Network).
  • Barcode reading on Windows Phone 7 with Aspose.BarCode for .NET.
• Aspose Consulting allows you to outsource products that use our products to us, the team that knows most about them.

Retired products

Sometimes, we have to discontinue a product. This year, the following three were taken off our product list:

• Aspose.Flash
• Aspose.Report
• Aspose.Pdf.Kit for .NET (merged into Aspose.Pdf for .NET so the functionality is still there)

Community involvement

We sponsored a number of user groups and conferences. From the Great Lakes .NET User Group in the north-east US to Desert Code Camp in the south-west, we help developers get together and learn from each other in an open and  friendly development. We are also building out own online community and have:

• 10,000 customers.
• 69,000 newsletter subscribers
• 140,000 signed up users
• Over 1,500 Twitter followers
• Over 600 Facebook fans

Awards 2010-2011

We’ve won a number of awards this year. We were entered for DevProConnections Community Awards for the first time this year and are delighted to have won two awards.

• SD Times 100 in the Components category.
• ComponentSource awards:
  • ComponentSource Top 10 Bestselling Publisher Award 2010-2011.
  • ComponentSource Top 25 Bestselling Product Award 2010-2011 for Aspose.Total.
  • ComponentSource Top 25 Bestselling Product Award 2010-2011 for Aspose.Words.
  • ComponentSource Top 50 Bestselling Product Award 2010-2011 for Aspose.Cells.
• DevProConnection Community Choice Awards:
  • DevProConnections Community Choice Award for Aspose.Network for .NET.
  • DevProConnections Community Choice Award for Aspose.Total for SharePoint.

Looking forward to 2012

We have great plans for what we’re doing in 2012 and are looking forward to sharing them with you over the year. Watch this space: we’re constantly working to improve our products and the way we support our customers.

We wish you a great new 2012!

In this second part of the series, we’ll have a look into the application architecture and the different parts of the application. We’ll see how these parts come together to build a service for creating the airline ticket and sending it to the customer via email.

Airline Reservation Service

We’ll build a simple WCF service which will allow the booking agents to get the flight information, using a client application, based upon the customer’s reservation criteria and then reserve the seats.

In the following class diagram, you can see a service contract named “IBookingService”. We have created a class named “BookingService” based on the above service contract. This class provides two methods: GetFlightInfo and BookFlight. We have also defined a couple of data contracts: FlightInfo, PassengerInfo, and BookingInfo to pass the data back and fourth between the service and the client.

As we also need to add the features to create the ticket in PDF format and then send it to the customer via email, we’re going to use Aspose file format components to handle file manipulation and email related tasks. Aspose file manipulation components work perfectly in a WCF service, so we can use them in this application.

We have created a separate class named “AsposeFileManager” to work with files. This class will contain all the Aspose related code like creating bar codes using Aspose.BarCode for .NET, generating ticket in PDF format using Aspose.Pdf for .NET, saving flight and passenger information in Excel format using Aspose.Cells for .NET, and sending ticket to the customer via email using Aspose.Email for .NET.

Airline Reservation Service – Class Diagram

Airline Reservation Client

On the client end, we’ll use Windows Forms to build the application which will consume the above reservation service. The booking agent will be able to find the flight information and book the seat for the customer. In addition to that, the agent will be able to print an invoice for the customer. We’ll use Aspose.Pdf for .NET to create the invoice in the PDF format and then send it to the printer.

What’s Next?

In the next post, I’ll share the actual code with you so you could see what’s going on inside the service and how we’re manipulating the files in this WCF based service. You’ll also be able to download the sample application, so you could run and test it at your end.

You can also contribute in any way you like; you may share any comments or suggestions. If you want to get involved in some other way, please do share with us.

You may find all of the repositories on the following URLs:

Aspose.Total for .NET Examples Repositories

• Aspose.Cells for .NET Examples Repository
• Aspose.Words for .NET Examples Repository
• Aspose.Slides for .NET Examples Repository
• Aspose.Pdf for .NET Examples Repository
• Aspose.Email for .NET Examples Repository
• Aspose.BarCode for .NET Examples Repository
• Aspose.Imaging for .NET Examples Repository
• Aspose.Tasks for .NET Examples Repository
• Aspose.Diagram for .NET Examples Repository
• Aspose.OCR for .NET Examples Repository

Aspose.Total for Java Examples Repositories

• Aspose.Cells for Java Examples Repository
• Aspose.Words for Java Examples Repository
• Aspose.Pdf for Java Examples Repository
• Aspose.Slides for Java Examples Repository
• Aspose.BarCode for Java Examples Repository
• Aspose.Email for Java Examples Repository

We’ll add more to these examples and publish samples of other Aspose products on Github as well. However, we’ll be looking forward to your feedback and suggestions.

Aspose.Total for .NET file format components allow you to create, manipulate, convert and print various types of files in your .NET applications. These components provide APIs as .NET assemblies which can be used in different types of .NET applications i.e. Windows Forms, Web Forms, Windows Services, MVC, and WCF etc. You can use Aspose APIs to incorporate file processing features in your .NET applications small or large.

Windows Communication Foundation (WCF)

Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) is a part of the .NET Framework that provides a unified programming model for rapidly building service-oriented applications that communicate across the web and enterprise. Before the WCF, building service-oriented applications would require a variety of communication technologies, whereas WCF provides a single unified model.

Introduction to the Tutorial

In this multi-part tutorial, I’ll explain how you can add file creation and manipulate features in WCF applications using Aspose.Total for .NET. We’ll take an example of a fictitious airline company named “FlyNow Airline” and build a small airline booking service. In this example, we’ll not only create the service, but also a client application to consume this service. We’ll add file formatting features, for different purposes, both in the service and the client application.

The Airline Reservation Scenario

The FlyNow Airline wants to build a booking system using WCF. They also want to add some file formatting features in this service, which is a very important part of the system. So, they’re interested in reliable file format components. The airline will expose a service which will be able to provide airline information and then book a seat for the passenger.

The service will also create ticket in the PDF format and then send the ticket to the passenger via email. In the ticket, they also want to add bar codes. Due to the FlyNow Airline’s particular requirement, the service also needs to create an Excel file containing complete booking and passenger information.

In addition to the booking service, the company is also interested in a Windows Forms based client application which allows their agents to not only book the seat, but also print invoices for the passenger when they purchase a ticket.

Where to use Aspose File Components?

We’ll use different Aspose components to add file creation features in the service, and invoice printing feature in the client application. We’ll use the following components:

• Aspose.BarCode for .NET to create bar codes to be placed on the tickets.
• Aspose.Pdf for .NET to create tickets in PDF format.
• Aspose.Email for .NET to send the ticket as email to the passenger.
• Aspose.Cells for .NET to create Excel file containing complete flight and passenger information.
• Aspose.Pdf for .NET to print the invoice in the client application.

What’s Next?

In the next part of this tutorial, I’ll elaborate the application architecture and other details of building and setting up the environment for this sample application. After that, I’ll show you the actual code of the application, and in the last part of the series, a screencast will be shared with you showing all the steps of building this sample application and adding file processing features. So, stay tuned!

We are pleased to announce the release of Aspose.Pdf for .NET 6.5.0. This release  includes some great new features such as setting background color of pages in PDF documents, determining which pages in a PDF document has background color set and support for attaching MP3 files. This release also improves the product’s performance when converting PDF files into XPS/TIFF format and extracting text and images from PDF. Aspose.Pdf for .NET 6.5 also includes support for transforming PDF files into HTML and other supported formats. We’ve also improved the file concatenation features.

Pass Documents from Class to Class without Saving

We have introduced a mechanism where you can use the single PDF document and pass it to various class objects present under Aspose.Pdf.Facades, without having to repeatedly save and open it. To facilitate this, we have locally added the Document property for almost all facades and extended them with new constructor. However, please note that not all facades work with Document directly.

For example PdfFileInfo only saves changes on invoking methods (SaveNewInfoWithXmp, SaveNewInfo) so has not been extended with the Document property. Document property can be used to access an inner document which is changed by Facade and then we can pass this Document object as an argument to another facade constructor in order to continue editing the same PDF document.

Please have a look at the code snippet below: it shows how PdfContentEditor and PdfAnnotationEditor can work in conjunction.

[C#] 
PdfContentEditor contentEditor= new PdfContentEditor();
contentEditor.BindPdf("input.pdf");
contentEditor.CreateText(newSystem.Drawing.Rectangle(100,100, 50, 50), 
              "Mine", "Some comment", false,"Comment", 1);

PdfAnnotationEditor annotationEditor= 
              new PdfAnnotationEditor(contentEditor.Document);
annotationEditor.ModifyAnnotationsAuthor(1,1, "Mine","Yours");
annotationEditor.Save(“UpdatedAnnotation.pdf”)

Changes to the PdfConverter Class

We have made following changes to PdfConverter class:

1. PdfConverter property changes: The Resolution property type has changed from int to Resolution. It now allows you to set horizontal and vertical resolution independently.
2. PdfConverter methods changes: The GetNextImage methods now accepts width and height instead of resolutionX and resolution.
3. New PdfConverter methods added:
   • SaveAsTIFFClassF(string outputFile)
   • SaveAsTIFFClassF(Stream outputStream)
   • SaveAsTIFF(string outputFile, TiffSettings settings)
   • SaveAsTIFF(Stream outputStream, TiffSettings settings)
   • GetNextImage(string outputFile, ImageFormat format, int imageWidth, int imageHeight)
   • GetNextImage(Stream outputStream, ImageFormat format, int imageWidth, int imageHeight)
   • GetNextImage(Stream outputStream, ImageFormat format, int quality)
   • GetNextImage(string outputFile, ImageFormat format, int quality)
4. New TiffDevice actors added:
   • TiffDevice(int width, int height, Resolution resolution, TiffSettings settings)
   • TiffDevice(int width, int height, Resolution resolution)
   • TiffDevice(int width, int height, TiffSettings settings)
   • TiffDevice(int width, int height)
5. New TiffDevice properties added
   • int Width
   • int Height

Please visit the following link to download the latest release version of Aspose.Pdf for .NET 6.5.0.

DevProConnections collects together independent information about how to build Microsoft applications to give Microsoft developer advise and insight. The network focuses on practical solutions based on real-life implementations. DevProConnections covers many aspects of Microsoft development: Visual Studio, .NET Framework, Azure, Windows, Windows Server, through Office, SharePoint, SQL Server, Mobile and more.

Every year, they run the Community Choice awards in which users nominate and then vote on their favourite companies and products. Aspose was  nominated in a number of categories and won awards in two.

“We value community awards highly,” said Danny Cooper, Team Leader, Aspose Texas, to the news, “because they are proof that we create products that really help our customers.” We are delighted that our efforts are serving our community.

Aspose.Network for .NET takes silver in the Best Email Control

Aspose.Network for .NET (now Aspose.Email for .NET) is a collection of components for working with Outlook PST, EML, MSG and MHT files. Aspose.Email lets developers work with email from within ASP.NET web applications, web services or Windows applications.

Aspose.Email makes it easy to work with HTML or plain text emails and their attachments. It allows developers to work against SMTP, POP, FTP and Microsoft Exchange servers. Work with mail merge and iCalendar features. Create customized header and body, retrieve content, header information and embedded files. Work with Twitter and much more.

Download Aspose.Email for .NET.

Aspose.Total for SharePoint takes bronze in Best SharePoint Development Tool

Aspose.Total for SharePoint brings together Aspose.Cells, Aspose.Words, Aspose.Slides, Aspose.Email and Aspose.Pdf for SharePoint into one powerful package. With all the SharePoint products at their disposal, developers can give their users powerful conversion and email synchronization in their SharePoint applications.

Download Aspose.Total for SharePoint.

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About Aspose

Aspose are file format experts. They offer a powerful set of file management components with which developers can create applications which can open, edit, create and save some of the most popular business file formats. The product range includes word processing components, Excel spreadsheet components, PDF components and many others. Supported formats include Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations, PDF documents, Flash presentations and Project files. Aspose produce components for .NET, Java and SharePoint as well as rendering extensions for SQL Server Reporting Services and JasperReports exporters. Aspose.Total compiles all products for a platform into a powerful toolbox for developers.

Aspose Pty Ltd has been operating since 2002. The headquarters are in Australia, and the company has teams in USA, Scotland, Ukraine and Pakistan.

Press Contact

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