TX Text Control

TX Text Control X9 and TX Barcode .NET have been released

Christopher Krause — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 08:32:00 GMT

What's New in TX Text Control .NET for Windows Forms X9

We are delighted to announce TX Text Control X9 - best-of-breed word processing components:

Client Components for Word Processing

Server Components for Word Processing

Components for 1D and 2D Barcodes

In addition to the above word processing components, we have also released an entirely new series of components to add lightning fast and accurate 1D and 2D barcodes to your applications:

Download the new trial version today!

Improved Headers and Footers: Odd and Even Pages

TX Text Control .NET for Windows Forms X9 supports different headers and footers for the even and odd pages of the whole document or of a single section.

You can define a different header and footer for facing pages. Odd and even headers and footers are mostly used for books, magazines and all kind of bound documents such as high quality reports.

The following screenshot shows a typical document with odd and even headers and footers:

The section layout dialog has been updated to include the odd and even headers and footers:

Learn more: HeaderFooter Class

Headers and Footers: New Frame Style with Information Area

A new frame style is available for activated headers and footers. A dividing line has a label indicating the type of the header or footer (even, odd, first page).

Additionally, the label displays the current section number and if the header or footer is connected to the previous header or footer. This gives the user a much better overview of the current document settings and layout.

All colors can be fully adjusted. The following screenshot shows the dividing line and information area label with a customized color schema:

Learn more: TextControl.HeaderFooterFrameStyle Property

Native support for barcodes from TX Barcode .NET^*

Using TX Barcode .NET for Windows Forms you can add fast and accurate 1D and 2D barcodes to your .NET based applications. TX Barcode .NET for Windows Forms has been specifically designed for the requirements when integrating barcodes into documents, such as invoices.

TX Text Control now supports the insertion of barcode controls of the type TXTextControl.Barcode.TXBarcodeControl. A barcode can be positioned like an image or textframe, either geometrically or as a single character.

The new BarcodeFrame class handles the positioning of the barcode in the document. A barcode frame is always associated with a barcode control that handles the appearance and the data of barcodes.

TX Text Control .NET for Windows Forms X9 ships with a barcode settings dialog box as standard that can be used to change the type, text, color or angle:

Learn more about TX Barcode .NET

^* TX Barcode .NET is an optional product and is sold separately.

Learn more: TX Barcode .NET Programmer's Guide

Advanced, MS Word Compatible Page Numbering

Text Control now supports additional features for showing page numbers. For each section in the document page numbers can either be continued from the previous section or can be restarted with a certain start number.

A new type of page numbers has been implemented to show the total number of pages. This field is updated automatically when pages are added or removed.

A new ready-to-use dialog has been implemented to insert and manipulate page numbers in TX Text Control .NET for Windows Forms X9.

Learn more: PageNumberField Class

Built-in Context Menus and Icon Sets

TX Text Control .NET for Windows Forms X9 now implements built-in, ready-to-use and customizable context menus. Depending on the area where the right mouse button has been clicked, a menu with standard options for this area is shown.

The following menus are available:

Standard formatting context menu:
Inserting and editing headers and footers and altering page settings context menu:
Images context menu:
Text frames context menu:
Tables context menu:

The context menus can be fully customized using the new TextContextMenuOpening event. This event can be used to alter or to expand the predefined menu, to provide a custom designed menu or to completely suppress the menu.

The event returns a native ContextMenuStrip that can be manipulated. Items can be removed or added and menu item icons can be replaced.

In order to provide these ready-to-use context menus, TX Text Control .NET for Windows Forms X9 ships with more than 400 large and small icons that can be used in your applications. Below is a selection of the small 16x16 icon set.

The following selection is taken from the 32x32 icon set that is used for the Ribbon integration:

Learn more: TextControl.TextContextMenuOpening Event

New Table Insert Dialog

A new TableCollection.Add method has been added which opens a built-in dialog box to specify and insert a new table into the document. The most important table properties can be adjusted such as number of columns, number of rows, a specific column width and additional options such as a repeating table header or the table behavior at page breaks.

After the table has been inserted into the document, these settings and behavior can be changed and adjusted using the table attribute dialog:

Learn more: TableCollection.Add Method

Microsoft Word Content Controls Support

TX Text Control .NET for Windows Forms X9 supports Microsoft Word Content Controls. Content controls are converted to TX Text Control ApplicationFields, when Microsoft Word (.DOCX) documents are loaded.

MS Word implements a feature to support individual controls like form elements in templates or forms. The following controls are available since MS Word 2007: Rich Text, Text, Picture, Combo Box, Drop-Down List and Check Box.

Just like for the merge and form fields, TX Text Control imports these fields as ApplicationFields available in the ApplicationField collection. TX Text Control provides parameters through the ApplicationField.Parameters property using the XML syntax of the Office Open XML Format.

Learn more: Importing Fields from Microsoft Word

Anchor Position Control Characters

TX Text Control .NET for Windows Forms X9 now has a control character which shows the anchor position of an anchored object. Anchored objects are positioned relative to a paragraph. The anchor postion is shown left of this paragraph's first character.

Additionally, individual control characters can be shown permanently on the screen independently of the value of the ControlChars property:

Space
Tab
ParagraphEnd
ForcedLineBreak
ObjectAnchor
ForcedPageBreak
SectionBreak
Hyphen
NonBreakingSpace
TableCellEnd
All

Learn more: TextControl.PermanentControlChars Property

Reporting: MailMerge Supports Charts and Barcodes Natively

The MailMerge component is now merging data into DataVisualization.ChartFrame and DataVisualization.BarcodeFrame objects. Barcodes are essentially processed like merge fields: If the name of a BarcodeFrame object is the same as a table column, data will updated and rendered.

ChartFrame objects can be supplied with merge data of data relations that must be part of the DataTable object passed to the DocumentServer.MailMerge.Merge method.

The template designer TX Text Control Words has been updated with a Data Relations dialog to adjust the Chart relations for preview purposes:

Learn more: DocumentServer.MailMerge.Merge Method

Download Updated Trial Versions

If you would like to try out the new features of TX Text Control X9 or TX Barcode .NET, please download one of the updated trial versions. The trial versions are fully featured and valid for 30 days.

Text Control Flow Type Reporting: Basic Concepts

Christopher Krause — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 08:03:00 GMT

Reporting and Mail Merge have become wide-sweeping terms for automated document, report and label creation. Creating invoices, proposals, generated covering letters or shipping labels can be summarized in the term Reporting.

Instead of utilizing complex reporting tools and designers to create such documents, TX Text Control offers an easy-to-use and powerful package to create reports: Flow Type Layout Reporting.

Creating a report is as simple as writing a letter in MS Word

TX Text Control is shipped with a customizable template designer named TX Text Control Words. This royalty-free application is designed to create templates that can be merged with TX Text Control's programmable reporting classes.

Database connections to all types of databases can be opened to insert available merge fields into a template. A merge field is a placeholder that is merged with content from various data sources. The formatting of merge fields is preserved when merged with real content.

The supported merge fields are compatible to MS Word. Therefore, existing MS Word documents can be used as templates for reporting processes. Templates can be modified within TX Text Control as well as MS Word.

Reporting features: Master-detail relationships, charting and barcodes

Templates contain static content such as headers and footers, fixed text or images and dynamic text represented as merge fields. Additionally, blocks of content can be repeated based on specific sets of data rows. Such repeating blocks can be nested to represent Master-detail (1:n) relationship views.

A template can be designed just like a usual document in MS Word with typical elements such as headers and footers, tables, images, different page orientation settings or paragraph stylesheets.

1D and 2D barcodes^* as well as 2D and 3D charting makes the reporting solution complete. TX Text Control can be easily used to create invoices, sales sheets, delivery notes or sales reports.

Quick facts to differentiate TX Text Control Reporting from Crystal Reports

Each reporting engine has it's advantages over others. The following table lists the advantages of TX Text Control Reporting over Crystal Reports:

Feature	TX Text Control	Crystal Reports
WYSIWYG editor	✔	✖
Output to DOCX and PDF/A	✔	✖
Stylesheets	✔ (Fully supported)	✔ (only CSS)
Reusable output (RTF, DOC, DOCX)	✔	✖
Templates compatible to MS Word	✔	✖
Easy to use editor (MS Word skills required, not developer skills)	✔	✖
All databases supported	✔	✖
Easy change of data sources	✔	✖

^* Barcodes will be available soon.

About TX Text Control:

TX Text Control was originally released in 1991, since then more than 50,000 copies have been sold. Starting off as a single, small DLL, TX Text Control has made its way through 16-bit DLL and VBX versions to today‘s Enterprise edition with its .NET and ActiveX components. The recent addition to the family, TX Text Control .NET Server, offers all of TX Text Control advanced word processing functionality in an easy-to-use server-side .NET component. Customers benefit from these years of experience, large user base, and at the same time, appreciate developing with a mature, reliable product.

Contact Informations:

support@textcontrol.com

North & South America: Phone: +1 704-370-0110 Phone: +1 877-462-4772 (toll free)

Europe: Phone: +49 (0)421 42 70 67 10

Asia Pacific: Phone: +886 2-2797-8508

TX Text Control X9 Preview: Out-of-the-Box Context Menus

Christopher Krause — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 08:41:00 GMT

One of the new helpful features in the next version X9 of TX Text Control are the ready-to-use contextual menus we are currently working on. These dynamic menus are available by default and usable without any additional programming.

The following steps are required to create a fully-featured word processing application using TX Text Control that gives you full access to these new context menus - without writing a single line of code.

Open Visual Studio and create a new project.
Select Windows Forms Application from the Windows templates, choose a name, select a location and confirm with OK.
Find TextControl in the toolbox and drag and drop an instance onto the form.
Visit the SmartTag in the upper right corner of TextControl and add a button bar, a status bar, a ruler bar and a vertical ruler using the available Wizards. Finally, arrange and connect the controls by clicking Arrange Controls Automatically.
Start the application.
You can immediately start typing text, use the button bar to do some formatting or to zoom using the status bar. Here is the new part: You can right-click everywhere in the document which opens contextual menus dependent on whether the mouse is over normal text, header or footer area or in a table.

Context menus for page settings, tables, images and text frames

You can use the context menu to insert headers and footers or to adjust the page layout or borders:

The following screenshot shows a context menu that is shown when no text is selected:

When the input position is inside a table, the following context menu options are available:

There are many more menu options available for all kind of situations in a document. The ready-to-use context menus contain pre-defined icons that matches the icons in our Ribbon demo. You will have access to more than 350 different icons that can be used in your applications.

The context menus are fully customizable and you can add, remove or change menu items from the context menus.

This is just another great new feature of TX Text Control X9. Stay tuned for more!

About TX Text Control:

Contact Informations:

support@textcontrol.com

North & South America: Phone: +1 704-370-0110 Phone: +1 877-462-4772 (toll free)

Europe: Phone: +49 (0)421 42 70 67 10

Asia Pacific: Phone: +886 2-2797-8508

Advantages of the TX Text Control API over MS Word Automation

Christopher Krause — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 14:39:00 GMT

If you ever used Microsoft Word Automation in one of your projects, you will know how complex the manipulation of a document can be. Word Automation is a technology that can be used to manipulate Word documents in .NET applications by using the client executable of MS Word.

Documents can be manipulated using a hard to use API called the Word Object Model. In case you are using the Office Open XML SDK to manipulate DOCX files, similar knowledge about the actual document is required in order to properly change or build a document.

In order to do simple tasks such as adding a paragraph to a document, the following code is required:

Word.Application wordApp = new Word.Application(); 
wordApp.Visible = true; 
Word.Document doc = wordApp.Documents.Add(); 
Word.Range range = doc.Content; 
Word.Paragraph paragraph = range.Paragraphs.Add(); 
paragraph.Range.Text = "Hello World!";

In comparison to those tree-based models, the TX Text Control API is much better structured, easy to learn and more understandable without any document format specific knowledge.

Referring to the above sample, this task can be easily achieved using the TX Text Control API:

TXTextControl.ServerTextControl doc = new TXTextControl.ServerTextControl(); 
doc.Create(); 
doc.Selection.Text = "Hello World!";

You can see the difference quite easily: While you need extensive knowlegde about the document structure when using MS Word Automation, you simply use the Selection object in TX Text Control.

In TX Text Control, collections are available for all elements such as tables, images, pages, paragraphs or sections. Let's say you want to insert an image on every page without using headers and footers:

foreach (Page page in textControl1.GetPages()) 
{ 
    TXTextControl.Image img = new TXTextControl.Image(); 
    img.FileName = "tx_text_control_logo.png"; 
 
    textControl1.Images.Add(img, 
        page.Number, 
        new Point(100, 100), 
        ImageInsertionMode.AboveTheText); 
}

You can easily loop through the collection of pages in order to add a new image to each page. You don't need to use enumerators, but you have access to very easy-to-use collections.

In order to add text at a specific character location, the Selection object can be utilized. You simply create a new Selection object with a start index. In the next scenario, a new formatted text should be inserted at a specific character location:

TXTextControl.Selection sel = new Selection(); 
sel.Start = 5; 
 
sel.Bold = true; 
sel.Text = "New Text"; 
 
textControl1.Selection = sel;

There are other collections on top of this concept that can be used to get a specific start index for the Selection. Consider the following situation: You want to insert a new text at the beginning of page 5. The Page object returns the start index through the Start property which then can be used with the Start property of the Selection. The Selection.Start property is 0-based (input position) while the character positions are all 1-based - therefore, 1 must be subtracted from the return value. The following code inserts new text on page 5:

TXTextControl.Selection sel = new Selection(); 
sel.Start = textControl1.GetPages()[5].Start - 1; 
sel.Text = "New Text on Page 5"; 
 
textControl1.Selection = sel;

Conclusion: TX Text Control offers a very easy-to-learn API to create and manipulate documents in a very fast and efficient way. Powerful collections and objects can be used instead of complex tree-based object models.

About TX Text Control:

Contact Informations:

support@textcontrol.com

North & South America: Phone: +1 704-370-0110 Phone: +1 877-462-4772 (toll free)

Europe: Phone: +49 (0)421 42 70 67 10

Asia Pacific: Phone: +886 2-2797-8508

Ready-to-use template: Creating invoices using TX Text Control

Christopher Krause — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 13:20:00 GMT

Creating invoices is certainly one of the most typical applications for TX Text Control. MS Word compatibility, flow type layouts and WYSIWYG template creation are just a few of the wide-ranging advantages over pure reporting tools.

This tutorial shows how to create professional invoices using TX Text Control. You will learn how to create the template using TX Text Control Words and how to use the MailMerge component to create the final invoice.

Data structure

First, let's take a look at the data structure for invoices. Typically, invoice data come from different database tables. The sender is coming from a different table than the addressee. Invoice items are typically loaded from an article database. The following tables are usually required to create an invoice.

company

company_companyname

company_street

company_city

company_country

company_bankname

company_bankaba

company_bankaccount

company_bankswift

company_bankiban

company_phone

company_email

company_www

invoice

invoice_address

invoice_invoicenumber

invoice_intro

invoice_totalnet

invoice_total

invoice_note

invoiceitems

invoiceitem_item

invoiceitem_quantity

invoiceitem_price

invoiceitem_title

invoiceitem_description

invoiceitem_total

taxes

tax_taxname

tax_rate

tax_amount

Creating the template

For this tutorial, we prepared a ready-to-use invoice template you can use, modify or redesign for your purposes. Refer to the documentation to learn how to use TX Text Control Words to create a template from scratch.

The template consists of different parts with dynamic fields, repeating blocks and special fields such as a field to display the current date.

All merge fields from the listed data tables are used and have been added to the above template. The green areas are repeating blocks that will be merged with a list of invoice items and taxes.

Preparing the data

In invoicing modules of ERP systems, the complete invoice is stored in database tables. The resulting PDF or the printout is a specific view of this invoice. The pure invoice data is used for further processing inside the ERP system. This data gathering process is always different and depends on the used databases and the .NET data layer (e.g. ADO.NET).

In our sample, we are using an already merged DataSet in form of an XML file that could have been generated as a database view for real-live scenarios as well.

Merging the document as easy as 1-2-3

All you need to do is to connect a TextControl with the MailMerge component in order to load the template:

TXTextControl.LoadSettings ls = new TXTextControl.LoadSettings(); 
ls.ApplicationFieldFormat = TXTextControl.ApplicationFieldFormat.MSWord; 
 
mailMerge1.TextComponent = textControl1; 
textControl1.Load("invoice.docx", TXTextControl.StreamType.WordprocessingML, ls);

The following code lines are required to merge the document:

DataSet ds = new DataSet(); 
ds.ReadXml("invoice.xml"); 
 
mailMerge1.MergeBlocks(ds); 
mailMerge1.Merge(ds.Tables["invoice"], false);

TX Text Control is looking for the appropriate merge fields in the data automatically in order to merge the fields. The repeating blocks are recognized and merged with the associated DataTables.

A sample data source, a ready-to-use invoice template and a Visual Studio sample project can be downloaded for your own tests.

Download Visual Studio 2010 project

How to use the sample?

Download the Visual Studio 2010 project
Download and open the project in Visual Studio 2010. At least, a TX Text Control .NET for Windows Forms trial version is required.
Start the application
The template is loaded automatically. You can see different text fields that are not merged yet.
Choose Create from the Invoice menu to start the merge process
The data is merged into the text fields. Pay attention to the invoice items that are part of a repeating block. These item lines are repeated based on the number of invoice items passed in the data.

As you can see, creating invoices using TX Text Control is a very easy task and has advantages over pure reporting tools. You can easily change your templates in a true WYSIWYG editor or reuse MS Word documents to create your templates.

About TX Text Control:

Contact Informations:

support@textcontrol.com

North & South America: Phone: +1 704-370-0110 Phone: +1 877-462-4772 (toll free)

Europe: Phone: +49 (0)421 42 70 67 10

Asia Pacific: Phone: +886 2-2797-8508

Windows 8 and .NET 4.5: Hosting Text Control in Internet Explorer

Christopher Krause — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 13:19:00 GMT

TX Text Control .NET for Windows Forms can be hosted in Internet Explorer as an UserControl. This SmartClient technology is very popular to publish highly responsive applications on the Web.

Since .NET 4.5, the security model has been changed and hosting these controls is blocked in Internet Explorer by default. The previous behavior can be restored by setting the EnableIEHosting value of the registry subkey HKLM/SOFTWARE/MICROSOFT/.NETFramework to 1.

We updated the security wizard to reflect these changes. Additionally, the wizard project has been published on CodePlex for better accessibility.

You can download the project here:

CAS Security Wizard

About TX Text Control:

Contact Informations:

support@textcontrol.com

North & South America: Phone: +1 704-370-0110 Phone: +1 877-462-4772 (toll free)

Europe: Phone: +49 (0)421 42 70 67 10

Asia Pacific: Phone: +886 2-2797-8508

TX Text Control X9 Roadmap Released

Christopher Krause — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 13:19:00 GMT

We are working on new amazing features for TX Text Control version X9 and new products coming up in 2013. There is no fixed release date for X9 yet, but I thought to unveil some detailed information about the great work our developers did in the last months.

1D and 2D Barcodes - Specifically Designed for Reporting

Barcodes are already an essential part of all kind of documents: Invoices, reports and delivery notes. Different barcode types are used to encrypt various data. When barcodes are used in documents, these barcode components have very specific requirements. The text flow must not be broken, the barcode size should be fixed and barcodes are dynamically updated.

Based on our knowledge about documents, reporting and mail merge, we were able to design a perfectly tuned barcode component for Windows Forms and WPF that can be inserted into TX Text Control documents, grid controls or any other .NET containers.

The following screenshot shows TX Barcode .NET for Windows Forms implemented as a custom barcode DataGridViewColumn:

The shipped TX Text Control Words is updated to support the insertion of barcodes. TX Text Control Words is used to create reporting and mail merge templates including barcodes. You can design the final style of the document in a true WYSIWYG designer and merge the actual data programmatically.

TX Text Control X9 for Windows Forms and WPF will be fully compatible to TX Barcode .NET. Barcodes can be inserted and programmed from the TX Text Control API just like a TextFrame or an image. TX Text Control will be shipped with an out-of-the-box barcode settings dialog:

Flow Type Layout Reporting: Performance, Chart and Barcode Integration

The barcodes will be fully integrated into the MailMerge component. All contained barcode placeholders in a template are evaluated and merged with associated data. These barcodes can be part of repeating blocks or nested blocks as well.

The same approach will be integrated for the supported 2D and 3D charts. This enables users to create their reporting templates with pre-defined placeholders of charts and barcodes at the proper location in their actual size and style.

Additionally, we will improve the performance of merging large documents with longer repeating blocks and tables.

TX Text Control Words will be udpated to reflect the new features. The following screenshot shows how to set the data relation for charts:

The Chart Tools ribbon group has been updated with new icons to adjust the selected chart object:

Page Numbers, Odd and Even Headers/Footers and Visualization

Headers and footers and page numbering has been updated in version X9. It allows you to restart page numbers per section and to insert MS Word compatible total number of pages fields that are updated automatically.

A new page number dialog is available and can be used to adjust the page number field properties:

The activation and visualization of activated headers and footers are improved. The current section and the header/footer type is visualized when a header or footer is activated. All colors are adjustable to match your application style.

Out-of-the-box Context Menus

With version X9, pre-defined context menus can be used without any programming. These dynamic context menus are available for all areas, objects and text parts of a document. TX Text Control recognizes the mouse position in order to display the proper context menu. If the mouse cursor is over the header area and no header is added to the document, the following context menu is shown automatically:

More than 150 newly created icons are available and can be freely used in your applications. The following screenshot shows the typical formatting context menu when normal text is selected:

Most commonly used table operations are available in the dynamic context menus automatically:

New Table Insert Dialog

We designed a new dialog to insert tables into a document. You can specify the number of columns and rows, define the column width and adjust specific options such as the table header. This new dialog is opened automatically, when the Add method of the Tables collection is called without any parameters.

There are many other new, but still classified features we will unveil at a later time. TX Text Control X9 and TX Barcode .NET will set new standards in word processing and reporting.

Save money and update your Subscription now to get hands-on these new versions as soon as they are available.

Update your Subscription

About TX Text Control:

Contact Informations:

support@textcontrol.com

North & South America: Phone: +1 704-370-0110 Phone: +1 877-462-4772 (toll free)

Europe: Phone: +49 (0)421 42 70 67 10

Asia Pacific: Phone: +886 2-2797-8508

Text Control sponsors DevIntersection in Las Vegas

Christopher Krause — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 13:18:00 GMT

As you may know, there is a new conference coming to the MGM Grand in Las Vegas this Spring: DevIntersection.

We are committed to this new conference as a sponsor and exhibitor, because we are very convinced about the conference content and coverage.

The DevIntersection conference brings together Visual Studio, ASP.NET, Open Web, Mobile and Cloud developers to the MGM Grand in Las Vegas April 8-11, 2013.

Learn from well-known keynote speakers like Scott Guthrie, Richard Campbell, Scott Hanselman and Carl Franklin.

Visit us in the expo hall - we will unveil our next TX Text Control version X9 and a complete new product line, exclusively at the DevIntersection.

Use the discount code and receive an additional $25 discount.

Discount Code: TXT

See you Las Vegas!

About TX Text Control:

Contact Informations:

support@textcontrol.com

North & South America: Phone: +1 704-370-0110 Phone: +1 877-462-4772 (toll free)

Europe: Phone: +49 (0)421 42 70 67 10

Asia Pacific: Phone: +886 2-2797-8508

Sneak peek: First screenshots of TX Barcode .NET in TX Text Control

Christopher Krause — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 13:16:00 GMT

I received a very special gift past week: A very early technology preview version of TX Text Control X9 and TX Barcode .NET to play with. This TX Text Control version includes the barcode support to work in combination with our recently announced barcode control TX Barcode .NET.

Barcodes can be added to documents just like any other objects such as images, text frames or chart controls. They can be positioned, anchored, aligned and protected in the same way. Barcode objects are fully controllable with the TX Text Control API and will be completely integrated into the MailMerge component of TX Text Control.

This enables you to create WYSIWYG templates with barcode placeholders with proper location, size and style. During the merge process, the barcode data is added and rendered by the barcode.

The screenshot below shows an envelope template with the new Intelligent Mail Barcode that is used by the US Postal Service beginning on January 28th, 2013.

TX Text Control X9 will be shipped with a new dialog box for barcode controls to adjust several settings such as color, transparency, alignments and the encoding.

The following screenshot shows a colored and rotated QR Code with a blue light background in a zoomed TX Text Control document. It shows the full integration of TX Barcode .NET in TX Text Control.

Stay tuned for more screenshots and features of TX Barcode .NET.

About TX Text Control:

Contact Informations:

support@textcontrol.com

North & South America: Phone: +1 704-370-0110 Phone: +1 877-462-4772 (toll free)

Europe: Phone: +49 (0)421 42 70 67 10

Asia Pacific: Phone: +886 2-2797-8508

TX Barcode .NET: Sample screenshots, feature overview

Christopher Krause — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 13:16:00 GMT

TX Barcode .NET is planned to be release in the next months and will be presented at the DevIntersection in Las Vegas. Currently, we are working on some initial sample applications that shows how to use the barcode controls in Windows Forms and WPF.

There are many different applications for barcode controls:

Barcode integration in TX Text Control
Barcodes in reporting and mail merge templates
Barcode image creation without a view (e.g. server-side)
Barcode visualization for on-screen scanning and many more

TX Barcode .NET has been designed for the specific requirements when integrated in documents such as invoices. In these cases, the barcode size must be fixed, even if the barcode length differs. TX Barcode .NET implements very smart ways to control the actual barcode size and alignment.

TX Barcode .NET enjoys a deep integration into TX Text Control. Barcodes can be inserted from the TX Text Control API just like a TextFrame or an image. It can be completely programmed and adjusted like any other supported object. You can easily control the text flow, z-order, size and object alignment.

TX Text Control will be shipped with an out-of-the-box barcode settings dialog that can be used to change the type, text, color or angle:

All settings can be done programmatically as well, so that other variations of such dialogs are possible. This following dialog is part of a sample application that comes with TX Barcode .NET:

Barcodes can be used as placeholders in reporting templates. Each barcode object can get an unique ID and Name in order to visualize actual data during the merge process. This can be done by iterating through the Barcodes collection in TX Text Control or automatically when the MailMerge component is used.

The following screenshot shows the data replacement in a sample application:

TX Barcode .NET is the perfect product to integrate barcodes into .NET based applications - especially for barcodes in documents and reports. It enjoys a seamless integration into TX Text Control and can be easily used with the Windows Forms and WPF products.

About TX Text Control:

Contact Informations:

support@textcontrol.com

North & South America: Phone: +1 704-370-0110 Phone: +1 877-462-4772 (toll free)

Europe: Phone: +49 (0)421 42 70 67 10

Asia Pacific: Phone: +886 2-2797-8508

TX Text Control Sweepstake - Win a TX Text Control Professional license!

Christopher Krause — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 10:44:00 GMT

Like Text Control on Facebook and win a TX Text Control Professional Subscription license: http://on.fb.me/11LQwuG

TX Text Control MailMerge Features Outlined

Christopher Krause — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 15:34:00 GMT

Flow type layout reporting is an easy, but powerful way to create reports based on word processing document templates. Aside from formatting and layout features such as column layout, headers and footers or page borders, TX Text Control's MailMerge component supports various reporting features.

These features range from merge and date fields over dynamic images to nested repeating blocks alias master-detail views.

Below is an active image map that illustrates the most important reporting features. Simply click on one of the blinking areas to get a detailed description:

Dynamic Merge Fields

These merge fields are the actual data fields that can be replaced with database content. They are compatible to MS Word and are formatted in the template. The merged text is formatted with the pre-defined style and formatting.

A merge field has additional format properties and options:

Format: UPPERCASE
Format: lowercase
Format: First capital
Format: Title Case
Text before
Text after

Related event during the merge process: FieldMerged

Date Fields

A date field is automatically merged with the current date and time in a specified string format. In your merge code, you don't need to care about these date fields. They are automatically handled during the merge process.

The following screenshot shows the Date Field Options dialog with the different format settings:

Related event during the merge process: FieldMerged

IncludeText Fields

The MS Word compatible IncludeText field can be used to include sub-templates into the document. Sub-templates itself can contain other sub-templates, merge fields or merge blocks. You can nest unlimited levels of sub-templates in a merge process - only infinite loops are trapped.

A sub-template can be a single formatted word or a whole document with several pages - it doesn't matter. Additionally, an event is triggered when an IncludeText field is handled. It allows you to replace the whole sub-template in the event.

Related event during the merge process: IncludeTextMerging

Conditional If Fields

A conditional If field compares the value of a specific MergeField to a given value in order to return a true or a false text.

The following operators are supported:

Equals
NotEqual
LessThan
GreaterThan
GreaterThanOrEqualTo
LessThanOrEqualTo

Multiple If fields can be inserted adjacent to each other. This allows simple, but powerful conditional constructs like in the below sample.

A large green "UP" should be inserted, if the stock's "day change" is positive or a red "DOWN" when this value is negative.

Two adjacent IF fields with different colors are added at the specific position:

The condition for the first field would be:

If merge field dDayChange is less than 0 then return Down.

Related event during the merge process: FieldMerged

Master-Detail Relationship Views

Creating powerful hierarchical reports is the strength of TX Text Control. Nested repeating blocks with master-detail relationship views can be easily inserted. It doesn't matter what's repeated in the block: A table row, paragraphs, images or text frames.

A master-detail relationship is a 1:n (one-to-many) type relationship. A typical example for such a relationship is a purchase order and a set of items that belongs to each purchase order. This allows you to create complex nested reports in a very easy way.

MS Word compatible page numbering

Page numbers can be added to headers and footers in different sections of a document. These page numbers are populated automatically during the merge process. The current page and the total number of pages fields are supported.

A document can consist of an unlimited number of sections with different page formatting and orientation. Page numbering can be applied for each header and footer in every section.

These are only a few of the supported features in the powerful flow type layout reporting solution of TX Text Control.

Give it a try and download the trial today!

Fully Featured, 30 Day Trial Version

Flow Type Layout Reporting with TX Text Control

Christopher Krause — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 10:19:00 GMT

Are you tired of explaining complex report designers to your end-users? Are you looking for an easy-to-use way of creating powerful reports?

TX Text Control provides the solution: WYSIWYG Flow Type Layout Reporting. Creating a report is as simple as writing a letter in MS Word.

With the TX Text Control Words^™ Template Designer, that comes with full Visual Studio sources, your users can create templates with typical word processing features such as tables, images and headers and footers. In contrast to complex report designers, users can use their MS Word skills to create beautiful reports - no steep learning curve.

WYSIWYG Template Design

Click image to zoom [+]

When creating a new template, you can choose from typical word processing features such a headers and footers, column-layout, tables, paragraph styles or page borders. Like in MS Word, you can see how the report will look like when designing the template. You can even import existing MS Word documents from various formats such as DOC, DOCX, RTF or PDF. Your users will see the final report while designing it.

The TX Text Control Words Template Designer comes with full sources as a Visual Studio project and can be completely customized or integrated into your own application.

Powerful Data Connection

Click image to zoom [+]

TX Text Control Words implements an out-of-the-box data connection wizard to connect to all types of databases including MS SQL, Access, ADO.NET or ODBC. You can easily insert merge blocks from the recognized database tables.

A preview mode allows you to step through the database records to see your template in action.

Add 2D and 3D Charting to your Reports

Click image to zoom [+]

Powerful data visualizations in a report or any other document are essential to get the "big picture". Charts indicate trends and can be used to attractively visualize large volumes of data.

Bars, donuts, pies or financial series - more than 30 fully programmable diagram types can added. This concept allows you to create true WYSIWYG templates for your reports. The size and style of charts are added at design-time and merged dynamically.

Export to PDF, MS Word or Print

Click image to zoom [+]

TX Text Control supports the most important industry standard formats such as DOC, DOCX, RTF, HTML, PDF and PDF/A. You can digitally sign and encrypt Adobe PDF and PDF/A documents or print them directly from your application.

How to get started?

Download a 30-day fully featured trial version of TX Text Control .NET for Windows Forms or WPF, start the pre-compiled TX Text Control Words^™ Template Designer and create your first reports.

Download Trial Version

About TX Text Control:

Contact Informations:

support@textcontrol.com

North & South America: Phone: +1 704-370-0110 Phone: +1 877-462-4772 (toll free)

Europe: Phone: +49 (0)421 42 70 67 10

Asia Pacific: Phone: +886 2-2797-8508

Technology Roadmap 2013: Touch Capabilities, Barcodes and Reporting

Christopher Krause — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 10:18:00 GMT

What an amazing year 2012 was. We published TX Text Control X8 which was our largest ever release in terms of features and functionality. We also released TX Spell .NET 3.0 which is now the best selling spell checking component at our largest reseller ComponentSource and we presented our game-changing reporting approach as part of the MailMerge component. Just to mention a few of the innovations.

It is still too early to publish the final roadmap for 2013. But things are approaching fast and I thought to share some upcoming key features, products and technologies.

All About Touch - Touch Enabled Interfaces

With the release of Windows 8, applications should aim to leverage this new input method sooner rather than later. Touch support is not only interesting for pure WinRT apps, but for powerful Windows Forms and WPF desktop applications as well.

Windows 8 Pro tablets can be the next big thing for business applications. The major advantage of these tablet PCs over iPads and Android portable devices is the operating system. The majority of business applications are written for Microsoft Windows. Soon all of these applications will be able to run on Windows 8 Pro tablets.

In order to add touch support, all you need to do is to update your used TX Text Control version in order to handle the supported touch events. Provide your users a hassle-free mobile strategy without changing the whole application. In 2013, we will support you with touch-ready, well-tested components.

Barcode Components: Integrate Barcodes into your Documents

Invoice data, payment transfer information or address details are printed on invoices encoded in various barcode types. This helps with extracting the included information in a very easy and error-free way.

In 2013, we will publish TX Barcode .NET that enables developers to integrate barcodes into .NET-based applications. TX Barcode .NET creates barcodes efficiently and accurately and can be completely integrated into TX Text Control .NET. You can create WYSIWYG templates with pre-defined barcode placeholders at fixed positions in order to merge them with actual data during the mail merge process.

MailMerge: Performance, Chart and Barcode Integration

Additionally, we will improve the performance of merging large documents with longer repeating blocks and tables.

New TX Text Control Core Features

The TX Text Control development team is working on many improvements and new features. Here are just a few - others are still classified:

Reset page numbers section-based
New Total Number of Pages field, also section-based
Page number dialog
Even/Odd headers and footers
Updated Page Setup dialog

We are really looking forward to a fantastic year 2013. As in the previous 20 years, we will make all efforts to deliver best-of-breed word processing components, innovations and outstanding technical support.

About TX Text Control:

Contact Informations:

support@textcontrol.com

North & South America: Phone: +1 704-370-0110 Phone: +1 877-462-4772 (toll free)

Europe: Phone: +49 (0)421 42 70 67 10

Asia Pacific: Phone: +886 2-2797-8508

MailMerge: Creating shipping labels using TX Text Control

Christopher Krause — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 10:16:00 GMT

Creating labels for mailings, shipping or labeling is a common task for reporting tools. TX Text Control's MailMerge component gives you powerful features to create such labels or to print content on pre-printed Avery labels.

Using TX Text Control, creating labels is a very easy task. The following tutorial shows the details:

In a first step, the template must be created. Therefore, the shipped template designer TX Text Control Words can be used or you can reuse existing MS Word documents. In this tutorial, a label template is created from scratch in TX Text Control Words.
Open TX Text Control Words and create a new document. Open the Page Layout ribbon tab and set the number of columns to 2.
Set the page margins to the specific margins of your full sheet label paper. Many Avery^® labels have a top and bottom margin of 0.5" and a left and right border of 0.156".
Insert a table with 1 row and 1 column and set the minimum height to the vertical label dimension. Insert the table using the Table button of the Insert ribbon tab. Set the input position inside the table and open the Properties dialog box of the Table Tools contextual ribbon tab. Confirm with OK.
Now you can start designing your label. In our sample, a nested table is used to arrange different textual label sections:
In a last step, merge fields must be added for the variable label data. Open the Mailings ribbon tab and insert merge fields at the desired positions. Set the cursor to a specific input position and click the Insert Merge Field button. In the opened dialog box, type in a name for the field. In this sample, the data source is an XML file with 3 fields per label:
```
<label>
	<name>Jack Ballmer</name>
	<company>Microsoft</company>
	<package_weight>72</package_weight>
</label>
```
Analogically, the merge field names are: name, company and package_weight.
The final template should look like this:
Save the template as DOC, DOCX, RTF or in the internal TX Text Control format.
You need a TextControl and a MailMerge instance in your .NET application. Refer to the documentation to learn how to create and connect these controls:
Connecting MailMerge to TextControl
Two easy steps are required to create the labels. First, the template must be loaded into TX Text Control:
TXTextControl.LoadSettings ls = new TXTextControl.LoadSettings(); ls.ApplicationFieldFormat = TXTextControl.ApplicationFieldFormat.MSWord; textControl1.Load("template.docx", TXTextControl.StreamType.WordprocessingML, ls);
Loading the XML data source in order to fill a DataSet and to merge the document is the second step:
DataSet ds = new DataSet(); ds.ReadXml("data.xml"); mailMerge1.MergeBlocks(ds); mailMerge1.Merge(ds.Tables[0], false);

This is all you need to create pixel perfect labels. Based on the number of data rows, the number of labels are created:

Try it out and download the template and the Visual Studio project. A trial or full version of TX Text Control .NET for Windows Forms X8 is required to run this application.

About TX Text Control:

Contact Informations:

support@textcontrol.com

North & South America: Phone: +1 704-370-0110 Phone: +1 877-462-4772 (toll free)

Europe: Phone: +49 (0)421 42 70 67 10

Asia Pacific: Phone: +886 2-2797-8508

TX Text Control

TX Text Control X9 and TX Barcode .NET have been released

What's New in TX Text Control .NET for Windows Forms X9

Client Components for Word Processing

Server Components for Word Processing

Components for 1D and 2D Barcodes

Improved Headers and Footers: Odd and Even Pages

Headers and Footers: New Frame Style with Information Area

Native support for barcodes from TX Barcode .NET*

Advanced, MS Word Compatible Page Numbering

Built-in Context Menus and Icon Sets

New Table Insert Dialog

Microsoft Word Content Controls Support

Anchor Position Control Characters

Reporting: MailMerge Supports Charts and Barcodes Natively

Download Updated Trial Versions

Text Control Flow Type Reporting: Basic Concepts

Creating a report is as simple as writing a letter in MS Word

Reporting features: Master-detail relationships, charting and barcodes

Quick facts to differentiate TX Text Control Reporting from Crystal Reports

TX Text Control X9 Preview: Out-of-the-Box Context Menus

Context menus for page settings, tables, images and text frames

Advantages of the TX Text Control API over MS Word Automation

Ready-to-use template: Creating invoices using TX Text Control

Data structure

Creating the template

Preparing the data

Merging the document as easy as 1-2-3

How to use the sample?

Windows 8 and .NET 4.5: Hosting Text Control in Internet Explorer

TX Text Control X9 Roadmap Released

1D and 2D Barcodes - Specifically Designed for Reporting

Flow Type Layout Reporting: Performance, Chart and Barcode Integration

Page Numbers, Odd and Even Headers/Footers and Visualization

Out-of-the-box Context Menus

New Table Insert Dialog

Text Control sponsors DevIntersection in Las Vegas

Sneak peek: First screenshots of TX Barcode .NET in TX Text Control

TX Barcode .NET: Sample screenshots, feature overview

TX Text Control Sweepstake - Win a TX Text Control Professional license!

TX Text Control MailMerge Features Outlined

Dynamic Merge Fields

Date Fields

IncludeText Fields

Conditional If Fields

Master-Detail Relationship Views

MS Word compatible page numbering

Give it a try and download the trial today!

Flow Type Layout Reporting with TX Text Control

WYSIWYG Template Design

Powerful Data Connection

Add 2D and 3D Charting to your Reports

Export to PDF, MS Word or Print

How to get started?

Technology Roadmap 2013: Touch Capabilities, Barcodes and Reporting

All About Touch - Touch Enabled Interfaces

Barcode Components: Integrate Barcodes into your Documents

MailMerge: Performance, Chart and Barcode Integration

New TX Text Control Core Features

MailMerge: Creating shipping labels using TX Text Control

Native support for barcodes from TX Barcode .NET^*