Information Loss in Word Processors
OOXML, DOC and RTF are very complex document formats. Fields, drawing objects, annotations, revisions, styles, lists, smart tags and so on. We estimate the Microsoft Word document specification includes over 2000 individual feature-points that describe things that you could encounter in documents.
The complexity of the format is the reason for the current situation in the field of word processors and word processing controls for Microsoft Word documents. The situation is that there are clearly two classes of word processors:
1. Full. Only Microsoft Word supports all features of Microsoft Word documents.
2. All Others. This includes applications OpenOffice Writer, GoogleDocs, AbiWord, Buzzword as well as all word processing and rich editor controls that you could possibly find. All of these editors support only a subset of features that occur in Microsoft Word documents.
The problem is that editing a Microsoft Word document that contains some advanced elements or formatting in any of these word processors "filters down" (often severely) the document by stripping all document elements that are not supported by that particular word processor.
For example, if you open a Microsoft Word document containing mail merge fields in any of these word processors and then save it, all of you mail merge fields will be lost. In this article, I will use mail merge fields as an example, but the discussion perfectly applies to all other document features.
Lossless Editing in Aspose.Editor
Aspose.Editor is different from other word processors in a unique way. Aspose.Editor claims to support lossless editing of Microsoft Word documents.
While developing Aspose.Editor we realized we could not possibly develop an editor control in a reasonable timeframe that support all those thousands of Microsoft Word document features. But we felt that filtering down documents like others do is wrong. So we came up with an idea of lossless editing:
If Aspose.Editor does not support a particular document feature (e.g. cannot yet display ,edit or print), it still should not lose it from the document.
In other words, Aspose.Editor fully rountrips documents behind the scenes while only a subset of document elements might be visible and available to the user for editing in the window.
Walkthrough Example
1. Find a document that contains some data or formatting that is NOT supported by Aspose.Editor. For example, a document with mail merge fields. Here is how it looks in Microsoft Word.
2. Start the Aspose.Editor Live Demo. Use File / Open / Upload to upload the document and then open it in Aspose.Editor. Here is how it looks.
Note that unsupported document elements are displayed as red "?" marks.
3. Although I agree the question marks look "ugly", don't worry about them and edit the document. Add or delete something, for example, add text like shown below.
4. Now save the document using File / Save and then download it from the Aspose webserver back to your computer using File / Open / Download in Aspose.Editor.
5. Now open the downloaded document in Microsoft Word again and viola! All the original mail merge fields and images are still there!
You have successfully completed a session of lossless editing of a Microsoft Word document in an editor other than Microsoft Word. Aspose.Editor has successfully roundtripped the document for you.
N.B. The lossless editing feature of Aspose.Editor did not come to us for "free". It is a complex feature by itself and is itself under continious refinement. We preserve almost all Microsoft Word document featurs and aim to preserve them all. If you see something is getting lost you are welcome to report in our support forums.
6. But what happens if you do the same in other word processors? Well, you can try it yourself. But here are snapshots of some outputs. GoogleDocs, OpenOffice Writer, Buzzword that we tried all have stripped mail merge fields from your document causing you information loss.
Summary
In this article we've shown how Aspose.Editor supports lossless editing of Microsoft Word documents. This is a unique feature that solves the problem of information loss when editing Microsoft Word documents in many other word processors.
Here is lossless editing also described in the Aspose.Editor Features http://www.aspose.com/documentation/visual-components/aspose.editor-for-.net/lossless-editing.html
