How do I host a Microsoft Office document inside a Winforms application?

Question

Anyone that can recommend an Word, Excel and PowerPoint viewer (no editing), that can be used as a component in Winforms?

The viewer must support Office 2003, 2007 and 2010.

The target is .NET 4.0.

A free one is preferred ;-) But if its commercial its ok.

Thanks in advance!

@Robert - http://www.google.co.uk/search?rlz=1C1GPCK_enGB369GB369&aq=f&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=microsoft+office+viewer+component - but I have to admit I didn't follow many of the links — ChrisF, Feb 28 '11 at 21:53

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 28 '11 at 21:44

2

Generally your best approach to this is to have your users obtain the appropriate read-only viewers from Microsoft.

Word Viewer

Excel Viewer

PowerPoint Viewer

This is how the vast majority of document management systems work; they rely on the computer's file associations to target various readers. So all you have to do is provide a link.

answered Feb 28 '11 at 21:44

Robert Harvey

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The client specifically wants to view the files in the WinForms application. – Marcus Feb 28 '11 at 21:47
@marcus: As far as I know there's no way to do this well. The Word viewer has a browser plugin I believe, so in theory you could host a webbrowser control, but it's not a pretty solution. – Robert Harvey Feb 28 '11 at 21:53
@Robert Harvey: But it requires MS Office installed – TOUDIdel Mar 14 '12 at 14:24

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 28 '11 at 21:43

0

One alternative is to use the WebBrowser control in WinForms in combination with Google Docs Viewer?

answered Feb 28 '11 at 21:43

jimmystormig

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How do I host a Microsoft Office document inside a Winforms application?

2 Answers2

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