What is WordGlue .NET?

Convert MS Word documents into formats like PDF and SVG

WordGlue is a generic layout engine which supports DOC and DOCX conversion and rendering for converting Office formats.

Native for .NET 4, .NET 5, .NET 6, .NET 7, .NET 8 and .NET 9.
100% managed, 100% thread safe and 100% independent of applications like MS Word and OpenOffice.org.
Designed to convert semantic formats like DOC and DOCX documents to PDF, SVG, XPS and also to raster formats like TIFF, JPEG, BMP, WMP and GIF.
Rendering interface to allow easy implementation of rich export formats like HTML and RTF.
Form and field substitutions for easy mail merge and field based adaptation of documents prior to export.
Modification of documents 'on-the-fly' to allow custom data to be inserted or content to be adapted.
WordGlue Inspector example project for examining the internal structure of documents and watching layout and rendering in real time.
WordGlue Editor example project for editing the internal structure of documents.

Why is WordGlue better than Microsoft Office and OpenOffice.org?

Fault-Tolerant

MS Office applications are designed for interactive use which tends to mean single process, single thread models. Automated systems need to take advantage of multiple threads and multiple processes. This is just not possible using MS Office or OpenOffice.org because they were never designed for it. The result is a system that does not scale in a simple and predictable way.

Secure Processing

Automated conversions often run from reduced permission accounts like those associated with ASP.NET. However applications like MS Office and OpenOffice.org are designed to run from user level accounts. As such setting up the permissions for them to work in these environments can be extremely difficult and time consuming. The final result is often a compromise between practicality and security.

Malware Protected

Office applications are frequent targets for viruses, trojans and other malware. A security problem on a client machine is easily contained and has limited impact. However a security problem on a server is potentially much more serious and difficult to contain. WordGlue has been written to make it completely immune to this type of problem.

How does it work?

We designed this from the ground up as a new DOC and DOCX rendering engine. Our aims were

100% Managed AnyCPU
Fast and light on memory
Small, self-contained and easy to deploy
Multi-threaded and thread-safe for scalability
Output to vector formats like PDF, SVG and XPS
Output to raster formats like PNG and JPG
Easily extensible to other formats like HTML, VML etc

How simple is it?

First we create a document object. We read in the existing file and then we save as PDF.

using(Doc doc = new Doc("test.docx"))
    doc.SaveAs("output.pdf");

That's all there is to it! How much simpler could you get?

Of course, there is more code you can add in - features designed to make the whole process more flexible.

Ultimately this is the basis of the whole process - it is designed to be logical, elegant and easy.

What's Great in WordGlue?

.NET 4 to .NET 9

To support you on your varied platforms and in your varied projects, we now offer native assemblies for the classic .NET Framework 4 but also .NET 5.0, .NET 6.0, .NET 7.0, .NET 8.0 and .NET 9.0. For your convenience these are available both via traditional installer and NuGet package.

Native PDF and SVG Export

WordGlue includes new exporters for a number of formats like PDF and SVG. The latter is a great web friendly export format which has the advantage of being easily manipulable using simple text and XML operations. There are also exporters for higher quality output to raster formats like TIFF, JPEG, BMP, WMP and GIF.

Better Interpretation

This release enhances verisimilitude with respect to MS Word layout and rendering via many new features such as AltChunk support. Indeed the rendering interface itself is much improved with fewer methods, abstracted objects like pens and brushes, and semantic tagging. Semantic tagging allows easy implementation of rich export formats like HTML and RTF.

Faster and more Dynamic

WordGlue is designed to allow you to adjust documents 'on-the-fly'. Form and field substitutions allow easy mail merge and field based adaptation of documents prior to export. Indeed you can completely change the document structure to allow custom data to be inserted or content to be adapted.

WordGlue Inspector

WordGlue Inspector is an application and example project for examining the internal structure of documents and watching layout and rendering in real time.

WordGlue Editor

WordGlue Editor is an application and example project for editing the raw internal structure of Word documents. Great for experimenting with different structures prior to implementation.