As part of our porting services for migrating from another rich text control to TX Text Control, we now have the possibility to convert your documents into a modern format that is usable in TX Text Control. Even the HighEdit text fields can be imported and used by TX Text Control. You won't lose functionality, but you will get many new features and document formats.

There is no reason to keep HighEdit in your applications. Migrate to TX Text Control and be sure that your applications will run on future Windows versions.

Simply contact our support to learn more about this service.

Good news for TX Text Control client application developers: In the upcoming version 18.0, the DocumentServer.MailMerge and the TXTextControl.ServerTextControl components can be used in client applications with a Professional or Enterprise license as well.

MailMerge - mail merge as easy as 1-2-3

The MailMerge component can be used to effortlessly merge MS Word template documents with database content in .NET projects. This component encapsulates the whole merge process, so that you can implement mail merge applications with 2 lines of code.

In version 18.0, the MailMerge component can be easily connected to a visual instance of TXTextControl.TextControl. The current document, with it's ApplicationFields, is used as the template for the merge process automatically. The resulting document is displayed in the same parent TXTextControl.TextControl after the merging is finished.

This component can be deployed royalty-free with the Professional or Enterprise license.

ServerTextControl - non-UI processes for client applications

The TXTextControl.ServerTextControl component can be used as a non-visual instance of TX Text Control for background processes. It was available with the server license of TX Text Control for ASP.NET Web applications or Web services only.

In version 18.0, the Windows Forms and WPF client versions will come with a ServerTextControl class that can be used in client applications as well. You can use this instance for every process that doesn't require an user interface.

Another great reason to update your TX Text Control licenses. Stay tuned!

The last weeks and days before a new release are exciting times. Code is frozen, final touches are done, setups are built and the final tests are running in our SQA. Everyone is happy that the code we produced in the last months is published soon. The new features and possibilities of TX Text Control X8 are simply stunning and we are very proud to present one of the biggest releases in the last 20 years.

What is TX Text Control X8?

Basically, X8 is version 18.0: Roman '10' + Arabic '8'. But we used this new version name to emphasize our eXperience of 20 years in word processing components. Every day, we are talking to developers with very specific needs and we learned from all these requirements and feedback.

Here is a brief overview of main features we added and areas we improved. A detailed list will be published on release day.

• Transparent text frames
• Z-Order of objects (images, text frames, charts)
• Comprehensive 2D and 3D charting
• PDF Reflow (improved PDF import)
• Background images
• Updated status bar design
• New mail merge template designer
• EMF support
• Improved object handling (aspect ratio resizing, object moving)
• MailMerge and ServerTextControl available in Windows Forms

Visual Studio User Experience

Additionally, we improved the user experience in Visual Studio while developing with TX Text Control. An updated SmartTag can be used to easily add and connect the optional button bar, status bar or the ruler bars.

MailMerge Template Designer

While creating MailMerge applications, it can be helpful to design and test the templates during development. Now, you can start the new designer right from the TX Text Control SmartTag to create your MailMerge templates. You don't have to leave Visual Studio while creating your applications.

Help and Support Center

The TX Text Control Help and Support Center has been integrated into Visual Studio. In case you need more information, sample code or if you need to open a support case with our engineers, you can start the Help and Support Center right from the TX Text Control SmartTag.

IntelliSense improvements

We invested a lot of time into the improved IntelliSense support. Now, every overload and parameter is listed in the IntelliSense pop-up for each and every method, property or event of TX Text Control. This drastically improves the user experience and efficiency while developing.

Again, this is just a brief overview of TX Text Control X8. More on release day. Stay tuned!

Microsoft recently released the Office 2013 Preview. One of the hottest topics in this release is PDF Reflow. This is basically the PDF import feature that TX Text Control has supported for several versions.

I did a quick comparison that shows what documents look like when they are imported. Inspired by an article about PDF Reflow published at PCMAG.COM, I used the first page of the well known official W-9 tax form for the tests.

Let's have a look at the different results in TX Text Control X8 and Microsoft Office 2013 Preview:

As you can see, parts of the first page are missing in Office 2013, whereas TX Text Control renders the layout accurately. Make sure that your TX Text Control Subscription is up-to-date to get your hands on TX Text Control X8 on release day.

On these larger screens, it makes sense to scale the page to the width of the container or to fit a whole page into the visible area to use the complete space of the screen.

TX Text Control provides the ZoomFactor property that sets the zoom factor, in percent, for a TextControl.

The following method fits the current page to fill it's container:

The next method shows how to set the zoom factor to fill the whole width of the container:

The sample project can be downloaded here: tx_view_modes.zip. At minimum, Visual Studio 2008 and a trial version of TX Text Control .NET for Windows Forms 17.0 is required.

Portable Document Format (PDF) is a broadly used file format to represent documents independent of the used software, hardware and operating system. That is the main reason why PDF became so popular: Everyone is able to view it.

Looking behind the scenes how companies are using PDF documents is interesting and most notably surprising. Here are some facts according to a study from AIIM:

• On average, 45% of documents that are scanned are 100% “born digital”.
• 77% of invoices that arrive as PDF attachments get printed.
• 16% of PDF invoices get printed and scanned back in.
• Electronic-only filing would halve the storage space needed for paper in 5 years.

PDF is a perfect replacement for paper: It is page-oriented, it looks professional and you can specify settings like a user password to protect it.

" 77% of invoices that arrive as PDF attachments get printed and 16% of PDF invoices get printed and scanned back in. "

But isn't it ridiculous that PDF invoices get printed and scanned back in?

Of course, there is a reason for this self-defeating process: It is the used office suite and document management software. Such modules are able to process scanned invoices instead of the already digital PDF invoice.

The Solution - TX Text Control PDF Reflow

Usually, it requires Adobe Acrobat Professional or other expensive tools to open PDF documents. Microsoft Office 2013 offers a similar feature to extract the content of PDF files.

TX Text Control is able to import such "born digital" PDF documents, so that you can view, edit or convert these files. The main advantage of TX Text Control is that it is fully programmable. The PDF document is imported and can be modified just like any other format such as DOC or DOCX. The fully featured API can be used to change the content or to search on the document.

Floating Text

This sample document shows how text is converted into floating text. On the right-hand screenshot, you can see that text can be selected like any other text in a TX Text Control document. Fonts, font weights, colors and paragraph margins are recognized and applied to the document. If a document contains more sections with different page sizes, they are converted to the proper landscape or portrait settings as well.

Original PDF in Adobe Acrobat Reader	Opened in TX Text Control X8 (18.0)

Modify Text in Complex Forms

Form documents with complex tables and perfectly positioned elements can be imported 1:1. You can easily change each string using the editor interface or you can find and replace text programmatically using the powerful TX Text Control API.

Original PDF in Adobe Acrobat Reader	Opened in TX Text Control X8 (18.0)

Import Postscript Vector Graphics

When importing business reports from PDF, they often contain charts or diagrams to visualize data. Using TX Text Control X8 (18.0), these vector graphics can not only be imported, the included text can be changed as well.

Original PDF in Adobe Acrobat Reader	Opened in TX Text Control X8 (18.0)

Using TX Text Control, you can integrate PDF processing directly into your Windows applications in a very reliable way. Reuse formatted text of existing PDF documents, make changes to PDFs or search on documents to recognize text or specific values.

We are delighted to announce TX Text Control X8 - best-of-breed word processing components:

Client Components for Word Processing

• TX Text Control .NET for Windows Forms X8
• TX Text Control .NET for WPF X8
• TX Text Control ActiveX X8

Server Components for Word Processing

• TX Text Control Server for ASP.NET (incl. Windows Forms) X8
• TX Text Control Server for ASP.NET (incl. WPF) X8
• TX Text Control ActiveX Server X8

Download Updated Trial Versions

If you would like to try out the new features of TX Text Control X8, please download one of the updated trial versions. The trial versions are fully featured and valid for 30 days.

Free Technical Support for Subscription Customers

The team of TX Text Control support engineers is waiting to assist you with every aspect of TX Text Control X8. Remember, technical support is unlimited and entirely free of charge for subscription customers.

New Features:

• Transparent Text Frames
• Comprehensive 2D and 3D Charting
• PDF Reflow - Improved PDF Import
• Z-Order of Objects (text frames, images or charts)
• Background Images
• Updated Status Bar with Zoom Slider
• New Ribbon Interface in TX Text Control Words
• Support for EMF - Enhanced Metafile
• Improved Object Handling (aspect ratio resizing, object moving)
• MailMerge and ServerTextControl usable in client-side applications

A chart can be positioned like an image or textframe, either geometrically or as a single character.

The new ChartFrame class handles the positioning of the chart in a document. Such a ChartFrame is always associated with a Chart control that handles the appearance and the data of the chart.

The goal in this sample is to insert a bar chart filled with XML data into a document. The following XML data should be used:

In order to insert a chart diagram into the document, we need to create a new chart. Make sure that a reference to System.Windows.Forms.DataVisualization.Charting.Chart has been added to your project.

Each chart object needs a ChartArea that represents a chart area on the chart image and a Series object that is connected to that area.

In a next step, we can load the XML into a DataSet. The column names are used to set the member of the chart data source used to bind the X and Y values of the series.

Finally, the first table of the DataSet is specified as the data source for the Chart object. A new ChartFrame is created and inserted into the Charts collection of TX Text Control.

When to use ServerTextControl?

Generally speaking, the ServerTextControl can be used for all processes in the background where no GUI is required. If you need to prepare a document programmatically before it is displayed to the end-user, you can use an instance of ServerTextControl to create the document.

The programming interface of TXTextControl.TextControl and TXTextControl.ServerTextControl is the same and you can re-use your existing code. Advantages of using ServerTextControl:

• Better performance
• Must not be visible on a form
• No visible update flicker

In order to use the ServerTextControl, you'll need to add a reference to the TXTextControl.Server.dll and an entry in the licenses.licx file:

The following code shows how to create an instance of ServerTextControl. An using statement is recommended as the object must be disposed explicitly.

Download the 30-day trial version today and try the other great features of TX Text Control X8.

TX Spell .NET 3.0 is a big milestone in the development of our spell checking component. It will be published in the next couple of weeks.

These are the features for TX Spell .NET 3.0:

• Improved suggestion quality
  Get the right word ranked at position 1 or 2 in more than 97% of all cases.
• Event-based spell check dialog
  TX Spell .NET 3.0 provides a spelling dialog that can be customized and used with TX Text Control or any other controls such as the RichTextBox, a simple TextBox or a GridView. You can even use one dialog for more controls in a single pass.
• New events
  Version 3.0 provides events when dictionaries are added or removed, words are added or removed to user dictionaries or buttons have been clicked in the 100% customizable spell check dialog.
• Load and save dictionaries from memory or databases
  Dictionaries and user dictionaries can be added and saved from and to a string array. This enables you to add dictionaries from memory or from databases.
• Create context menus easily
  A new method returns ready-to-use menu items for the integration into your own context menu. You can easily combine your own menus with the spell checking entries.

Keep an eye on this blog to be among the first who are able to test the new features of TX Spell .NET 3.0 - the fastest spell checking component for .NET applications.

• TX Text Control .NET for Windows Forms
• TX Text Control .NET for WPF   
  
• TX Text Control Server for ASP.NET
• TX Text Control ActiveX
• TX Text Control ActiveX Server
  

• TX Text Control .NET for Windows Forms
• TX Text Control .NET for WPF   
  
• TX Text Control Server for ASP.NET
• TX Text Control ActiveX
• TX Text Control ActiveX Server

Our core business is engineering of controls and components that help to integrate rich text editing, document processing and related tasks into your applications.

New products are developed based on user request and our experience and research.

Today, we are very proud to announce a new product that will be introduced at several conferences over the next weeks: TX Barcode .NET.

TX Barcode .NET enables developers to integrate barcodes into .NET-based applications. In today's processes, barcodes are included everywhere: Invoices, delivery notes or admission tickets. Barcodes are used to store digital data on paper that can be acquired easily for further processing using laser-based scanners, cameras or mobile phones.

TX Barcode .NET creates barcodes efficiently and accurately and can be completely integrated into TX Text Control .NET, the leading word processing component for .NET.

Try it yourself and test just a few of the supported barcode types: http://www.textcontrol.com/en_US/blog/archive/20120926/

The unique advantage of the .NET barcode control is the deep integration into TX Text Control .NET. You can create WYSIWYG templates with pre-defined barcodes at fixed positions in order to merge them with actual data during the mail merge process.

We have many more ideas how to include barcodes into document processes such as storing text field information for easy form data acquisition. We will deliver the technology for these ideas - you can focus on your core business.

Keep an eye on this blog or visit us at upcoming conferences such as Silicon Valley Code Camp or DevConnections in Las Vegas.

Simultaneously with DevConnections in Las Vegas this week, we are announcing a co-operation with our friends from RSSBus Inc..

RSSBus provides high-performance, reliable, and fully-extensible products that simplify the process of producing, consuming, and integrating data.

The combination of the powerful mail merge and reporting capabilities of TX Text Control and the high-performance RSSBus data providers gives developers a perfect tool set to create professional reports from various data sources such as:

• Salesforce
• QuickBooks
• SAP
• Twitter
• Facebook
• SharePoint
• and many more

Using these tools, you can easily retrieve data from different data sources in order to access data such as customers, transactions, invoices, sales receipts or reports.

At our booth #303 at DevConnections, you can see our latest version of TX Words including the RSSBus integration. All installed RSSBus data providers are listed automatically in the Select Data Source dialog:

In this demo, we choose Twitter as our data provider and type in our Twitter access credentials:

Thanks to the deep integration of RRSBus into TX Words, all required fields for the login process are listed automatically for all data providers. That enables you to access the data of your preferred database or application.

After the successful login, all available tables and views of the database are listed in the Select Table drop down button.

In a next step, you can select a table and insert merge fields from this table into your report.

Now, these inserted fields can be previewed by clicking on the Preview Merge Fields button:

A very powerful feature of TX Text Control's MailMerge component is the repeating block structure to visualize blocks of repeating data or master-detail relationships. Therefore, all available tables can easily converted into a repeating block. The Insert Merge Block drop down button lists all tables and views.

Choose a table and select the included columns in the opened dialog box:

You can specify whether the block should be rendered as a paragraph or a table row. After the block has been formatted in the template, the inserted block looks like this:

By previewing the template, the data is merged automatically into the repeating block:

The combination of TX Text Control and RSSBus gives developers a powerful tool to create reports, invoices or mass mailings from data directly out of popular ERP systems or other data sources.

If you are at DevConnections, stop by booth #303 and ask for a demo. The Text Control team looks forward to showing you this demo.

We prepared many different demos and sample templates for various conferences in the last weeks. At DevConnections, we presented the latest features of TX Text Control X8 including the new template designer TX Text Control Words.

I set up one particular sample template that was very popular at DevConnections. People's reaction was that they didn't even know that this is possible using a Rich Text Editor - not even with TX Text Control. I thought to publish an article about this reporting sample and how to create it.

This document is a reporting template for presenting stock information highlights on a single page. The following animation shows the template on the left side with all different types of fields, graphics and charts. On the right side, you can see the final merged document with the actual data. As you can see, using TX Text Control, you can create such templates in a true WYSIWYG manner.

First, we need to open the data source. TX Text Control Words comes with a ready-to-use data connection wizard to connect to all types of databases:

After the data source is selected, a data table can be chosen from the Select Table drop down list of the Mailings ribbon tab:

All available table columns are automatically available as merge fields in the Insert Merge Field drop down list. You can start designing your template in order to insert required fields:

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

TX Text Control provides IF fields for this purpose. We simply add two adjacent IF fields with different colors at the specific position:

IF fields are getting specific conditions in order to return a true and a false text. The condition for the first field would be:

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

Of course, this can be adjusted with the integrated dialog boxes:

2D and 3D charting is also a new part of TX Text Control version X8. Supported chart types include areas, bars, columns, lines or pies. They can be fully customized and programmed through the Text Control API.

At any time, you can preview your created document with real data. Simply click on the Preview Merge Fields button and navigate through the records:

TX Text Control is the only component that combines the power of reporting and mail merge features with a true WYSIWYG designer control. Test it on your own and download a trial version of TX Text Control X8 today.

You can download the template and the sample database right here.

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:

1. 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.

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".

3. 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.

4. Now you can start designing your label. In our sample, a nested table is used to arrange different textual label sections:

5. 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.

6. 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.

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

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.

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.