Making OfficeWriter available to your applications

There are several steps to make OfficeWriter available to your .NET applications:

  1. Install OfficeWriter
  2. Include System.Web
  3. Add references to OfficeWriter
  4. Include OfficeWriter in your code

Add a reference to System.Web

All of the OfficeWriter API objects (ExcelTemplate, ExcelApplication, PowerPointTemplatePowerPointApplication,  WordTemplate, WordApplication) have the output options for saving to disk, saving to memory stream, streaming to user in a page response. The last output option, streaming to the user, has a dependency on System.Web. If you are developing a web application, the reference to System.Web should have been added automatically. For other types of applications, you may need to add this reference.

If you are using Visual Studio .NET:

  1. Right-click the project name in the Solution Explorer and choose Add Reference.
  2. Click System and locate System.Web

If you are compiling against .NET 4.0, make sure to use the full profile. The default profile does not include System.Web.

Add a reference to OfficeWriter

There are two ways to do this:

Method #1: Adding OfficeWriter to a specific application

  1. At the top level of your application, create a directory call bin.
  2. Copy SoftArtisans.OfficeWriter.ExcelWriter.dll, SoftArtisans.OfficeWriter.PowerPointWriter.dll, or SoftArtisans.OfficeWriter.WordWriter.dll from the install directory to your application's bin directory.

If you are using Visual Studio .NET:

  1. Right-click the project name in the Solution Explorer and choose Add Reference.
  2. Click Browse and navigate to C:\Program Files\SoftArtisans\OfficeWriter\bin.
  3. Choose Softartisans.OfficeWriter.ExcelWriter.dll,  SoftArtisans.OfficeWriter.PowerPointWriter.dll, or SoftArtisans.OfficeWriter.WordWriter.dll and click Open.
  4. Click OK.

Method #2: Making OfficeWriter available to all applications on a machine

Step 1: Install OfficeWriter in the Global Assembly Cache (GAC)

These instructions can be used for installing SoftArtisans.OfficeWriter.ExcelWriter.dll, SoftArtisans.OfficeWriter.PowerPointWriter.dll or SoftArtisans.OfficeWriter.WordWriter.dll in the GAC; remember to change 'ExcelWriter' to 'WordWriter' or 'PowerPointWriter depending on the dll you wish to install:

  1. Open a command prompt window and move to the directory OfficeWriter\bin\dotnet20\.
  2. Enter gacutil /i SoftArtisans.OfficeWriter.ExcelWriter.dll.
  3. Open the file machine.config (in [Windows directory]\Microsoft.NET\Framework[.NET version directory]\CONFIG).
Step 2: Reference the copy of OfficeWriter in the GAC in machine.config or web.config

Add the following line to the assemblies node of machine.config:

<add assembly="Softartisans.OfficeWriter.ExcelWriter,
            Version=x.x.x.x, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=f593502af6ee46ae"/>

You may need to add the assemblies parent node to machine.config under the configuration node.

OR

Create a text file containing the following lines, and save it as web.config. Save web.config at the top level of your application.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<configuration>
    <system.web>
        <compilation>
            <compilers>
            </compilers>
            <assemblies>
                <add assembly="Softartisans.OfficeWriter.ExcelWriter,
                    Version=x.x.x.x,
                    Culture=neutral,
                    PublicKeyToken=f593502af6ee46ae"/>
                <add assembly="*" />
            </assemblies>
        </compilation>
    </system.web>
</configuration>

The version attribute of the add assembly node must correspond exactly to the version of Softartisans.OfficeWriter.<Excel/Word>Writer.dll added to the GAC. If you add a new version of Softartisans.OfficeWriter.<Excel/Word>Writer.dll to the GAC using the gacutil command, update the dll version attributes in machine.config. To get the exact version of Softartisans.OfficeWriter.<Excel/Word>Writer.dll, right-click the file and select the Properties tab.

Include OfficeWriter in your code

On any page that uses OfficeWriter, make sure to add the appropriate using statements:

using SoftArtisans.OfficeWriter.ExcelWriter; //For ExcelWriter
using SoftArtisans.OfficeWriter.WordWriter; //For WordWriter

using SoftArtisans.OfficeWriter.PowerPointWriter; //For PowerPointWriter

As mentioned above, you will also need to make sure that System.Web is included in your project.