Is There a Java API That Can Create Rich Word Documents

Is there a Java API that can create rich Word documents?

In 2007 my project successfully used OpenOffice.org's Universal Network Objects (UNO) interface to programmatically generate MS-Word compatible documents (*.doc), as well as corresponding PDF documents, from a Java Web application (a Struts/JSP framework).

OpenOffice UNO also lets you build MS-Office-compatible charts, spreadsheets, presentations, etc. We were able to dynamically build sophisticated Word documents, including charts and tables.

We simplified the process by using template MS-Word documents with bookmark inserts into which the software inserted content, however, you can build documents completely from scratch. The goal was to have the software generate report documents that could be shared and further tweaked by end-users before converting them to PDF for final delivery and archival.

You can optionally produce documents in OpenOffice formats if you want users to use OpenOffice instead of MS-Office. In our case the users want to use MS-Office tools.

UNO is included within the OpenOffice suite. We simply linked our Java app to UNO-related libraries within the suite. An OpenOffice Software Development Kit (SDK) is available containing example applications and the UNO Developer's Guide.

I have not investigated whether the latest OpenOffice UNO can generate MS-Office 2007 Open XML document formats.

The important things about OpenOffice UNO are:

1. It is freeware
2. It supports multiple languages (e.g. Visual Basic, Java, C++, and others).
3. It is platform-independent (Windows, Linux, Unix, etc.).

Here are some useful web sites:

• Open Office home
• Open Office UNO Developer's Guide
• OpenOffice Developer's Forum (especially the "Macros and API" and "Code Snippets" forums).

Word document creation API in Java

I've worked with POI before and it's certainly able to generate Word documents. But the devil is in the details.

Word has thousands of features: You can put numbered lists starting at #13 with negative indents into two joined cells of a table included in another table that is itself part of a bullet list... you get the idea. When the POI documentation says they are a work in progress, that reflects what will probably be an eternal state of trying to catch up to the (to us, undocumented) specification of Word.

Documents with a reasonably "normal" set of used features are well supported by POI, whose interfaces and methods are reasonable and consistent but sometimes require a bit of work. But as Pascal says, documents with a not too exorbitant set of features are also supported by RTF.
I have almost no experience "doing" RTF but it's probably a bit simpler than working with POI.

If you're working in an environment or for a customer who insists that your produced documents be .DOC rather than .RTF, then POI is pretty much your only choice, unless you can introduce a step where you use a bit of Office automation to convert RTF into DOC.

Update: I've had a couple more ideas in the meantime.

Using POI or creating RTF documents is something that you could do on practically any platform. At my job, all servers doing processing like this happen to be running Linux, for example.

However, in the likely case that your programs will run under Windows, there is another alternative: Jacob http://www.land-of-kain.de/docs/jacob/

Jacob is a COM interface for Java; it essentially allows you to "remote control" Windows programs such as Word and Excel. The document I linked to above is not to Jacob's own site but to a single page with "cookie cutter" recipes for using Jacob. The project itself is on SourceForge: http://sourceforge.net/projects/jacob-project/ But people claim, and rightly so, that the documentation is a bit lacking.

Jacob has the advantage over all other solutions that you're dealing with the "real" Word and therefore all capabilities of Word are available to you. This would be an alternative if there are detail aspects of your document that just can't be handled with POI or via the RTF format.

Create Word file (docx) on Android with Jword Library Apache POI (Solution)

As a beginner you can start with some tutorials :

1. http://poi.apache.org/poifs/how-to.html
2. http://www.mysamplecode.com/2011/10/android-read-write-excel-file-using.html
3. http://apache-poi.1045710.n5.nabble.com/Creating-new-word-doc-with-POI-td2289680.html
4. http://viralpatel.net/blogs/java-read-write-excel-file-apache-poi/comment-page-1/

StackOverflow link

1. What's a good Java API for creating Word documents?

Hope this helps.

---

Related Topics