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Need |
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On many occasions, writers and other professionals need to convert their Word documents to PDF and vice versa. There were many such products available in the market but a market survey concluded that the users of those products were dissatisfied with the quality. The reason was that the converted documents were poorly formatted and the size of the applications was too big. Also, their interfaces were not user-friendly.
This kind of application was required to be small in size, easily downloadable, and be easy to use with robust architecture. So the product development team was assigned the task to plan and devise a product that would be handy, useful, and effective for PDF and Word document conversions.
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Challenge |
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As soon as the team sketched the plan of action, work on the application started. The work progressed and the team faced a few obstacles while coding and developing the product. Some features that required logic and out-of-the-box thinking are listed:
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Devising a way for the application to read the meta information in the PDF file. |
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Thinking of ways by which the original format could be preserved. It was required to formulate a code so that DocSmartz would maintain the original look of the PDF document by identifying paragraphs, text labels, graphics, tables, and flow of columns etc. and then replicate it within Microsoft Word. |
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Work out logic so that DocSmartz would match text color, font size, and font style with those in Microsoft Word. This feature would ensure that the original formatting of the Microsoft Word documents be retained exactly in the PDF files after conversion. |
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Coding uniquely so as to make the application multi-lingual, so that it can convert documents that are in other languages too, for e.g. Spanish and French. |
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SOLUTION |
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DocSmartz is a quick fix for users who require a fast, economical solution for converting PDF to Word and vice versa. Original formatting is preserved with a high degree of fidelity bypassing the need for reformatting after document conversion. Formatting obstacles were resolved intelligently and strategically. Objects were used in PDF for every bold, italic, or underlined text etc.
Certain logics were implemented successfully and each small success gave the team a reason to celebrate. To preserve the format, separate text boxes were used in the word document for each object- to define position etc. To make the application multi-lingual, a unique code was built in. For each language, a new application interface was designed. Separate XMLs were used for each label.
After a year of coding and resolving issues, a product christened Docsmartz was finally built. DocSmartz has many unique features. It supports the embedding of True Type fonts. It maintains the original look of the PDF document by identifying paragraphs, text labels, graphics, tables, and flow of columns etc. and then replicates it within Microsoft Word. DocSmartz identifies and separates logos and banners within the Microsoft Word document. |
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TECHNOLOGIES USED |
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– Programming Languages: Visual Basic 6.0, Visual C++ 6.0
– Authoring tools: Adobe Photoshop
– Operating System: Windows 2000 Professional or higher
– IDE: Macromedia Flash, Adobe Photoshop
– Automation: Microsoft Word 2000 or higher
– IDE: Visual Studio
– Documentation: Microsoft Word, Microsoft Visio
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BENEFITS |
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Saves both, money and time. |
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Its easy-to-use wizard style interface reduces the learning curve to a great extent, which is an intrinsic part of any new software. |
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It converts PDF documents into Microsoft Word (.doc or .rtf) format and vice versa while preserving the original layout. |
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It identifies tables, paragraphs, and columns so there is no need of reformatting. |
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The users can receive updates and new messages when the Admin sends them. |
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It supports partial conversion. You can convert the whole PDF file at once or you can choose specific pages. |
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Images can be extracted easily from the PDF files. |
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DocSmartz maintains the original look of the document. |
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DocSmartz identifies and separates logos and banners within the Microsoft document. |
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You can combine more than one Text document to create a single PDF document. |
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You can set the font size and style. Text to PDF supports 40 font styles. You can also change the color of the text. |
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The Admin can send updates for any document specified by him on a valid location after regular intervals through the Alert monitor feature. |
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You can change the page orientation to Landscape or Portrait, page size to 8 different sizes, set height and width of the page and line spacing while converting Word docs to PDF. |
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It has several additional options such as:
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It supports compression to compress the output PDF file. |
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You can specify the number of columns to either one or two. |
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You can use the full screen option to get the PDF document in full screen mode. |
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You can set the Title, Subject, and Creator of the PDF document. |
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