rtflib v1.0 - CodeProject

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Introduction

This article is about generating RTF documents from the source code. For this purpose, a free C-library is developed in order to help developers. Considering this release, 100% compatibility is achieved only with MS Word 97 to MS Word 2003 applications used as external RTF viewer to generated RTF documents. For the future, it is planned to extend this to all possible RTF viewers that support RTF specification 1.8 which is documented by Microsoft and can be found here.

Background

A developer may use CRichEditCtrl, a MFC control, in order to get RTF output from the source code. This is the control upon which WordPad application is built. But, there are many limitations when considering the generated RTF file. Also, an RTF document can be created with any advanced text editor directly. This library, however, provides a low-level interface to RTF syntax which is not so easy to be hand-coded like HTML. It can be extended and adopted to custom needs. Also, a custom high-level interface is a challenge to be built on this low-level interface base.

Using the code

A full description of using the library code is provided in a separate guide (can be found in the download section above). To use the library in a custom project, include the provided header files (rtflib.h, errors.h, globals.h) and add links in project settings to rtflib.lib compiled module, or download library source and compile it and then include headers and add link to the compiled module. The library source is not hard-tested so memory leaks or some other bugs are possible to be found. If this is the case, please report. But, don't consider wrong output on destination RTF viewer as library error. It is stated here that full compatibility is achieved, for this release, only with MS Word 97 to MS Word 2003 applications.

See an example on using the library below:

// // "HelloWorld" in RTF document example
//
// Add links to header files (and link to rtflib.lib in project settings)
// #include "rtflib.h"
// #include "errors.h"
// #include "globals.h"
//
//
// void main()
// {
//     // RTF document font and color table definition
//     char font_list[] = “Times New Roman;Arial;”;
//     char color_list[] = “0;0;0;255;0;0;192;192;192”;
//
//     // Create new RTF document
//     rtf_open( “Sample.rtf”, font_list, color_list );
//
//     // Write simple paragraph text
//     rtf_start_paragraph( “Hello, World !!!”, false );
//
//     // Close RTF document
//     rtf_close();
// }
//

Points of Interest

I am interested in continuing the work on this library and hope that interested developers will include with their ideas and solutions. A C++ class solution is very simple to be designed on this base. I also plan to write similar PDF generating libraries.

History

rtflib v1.0 features:

document creating and formatting
section creating and formatting
paragraph creating and formatting
character formatting
images loading (*.bmp, *.jpg, *.gif)
table creating and formatting
tabs
columns
bullets and numbering

License

This article has no explicit license attached to it but may contain usage terms in the article text or the download files themselves. If in doubt please contact the author via the discussion board below.

A list of licenses authors might use can be found here

About the Author

darkoman

Software Developer (Senior)
Elektromehanika d.o.o. Nis

Serbia

Member

He has a master degree in Computer Science at Faculty of Electronics in Nis (Serbia), and works as a C++/C# application developer for Windows platforms since 2001. He likes traveling, reading and meeting new people and cultures.

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Comments and Discussions

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My vote of 5

K4HVDs

8:52 30 Mar '12

Very simple, clear and usefull!
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How to merge two rtf files ?

Koma Wang

20:01 12 Apr '11

I want add to the rtf file. Like: BOOL MergeRtf(CStrint strPath1,CString strPath2,CString strOutPath); thanks for you reply !
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Table width and paper width

naghekyan

4:19 9 Jul '10

I would like to understand how to set table width, table row width and paper width. For paper width I have tried this, but there is no effect: RTF_DOCUMENT_FORMAT * df = rtf_get_documentformat(); df->gt;marginLeft = 10; df->gt;marginRight = 10; df->gt;paperWidth= 850; // Open RTF file rtf_open( fileNameChar, font_list, color_list ); Thanks in advance.
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I modified a copy to support the Chinese language

zyj402301

5:40 26 Apr '10

I modified a copy to support the Chinese language,
I modified funciton rtf_write_header,change language

strcpy( rtfText, "{\\rtf1\\ansi\\ansicpg936\\deff0\\deflang1033\\deflangfe2052{\\fonttbl" );

modiyed fuciton rtf_init,to add chinese fonts

strcat( rtfFontTable, "{\\f0\\froman\\fcharset0\\fprq2{\\*\\panose 02020603050405020304}Times New Roman;}" );
	strcat( rtfFontTable, "{\\f13\\fnil\\fcharset134\\fprq2{\\*\\panose 02010600030101010101}\\'cb\\'ce\\'cc\\'e5{\\*\\falt SimSun};}" );
	strcat( rtfFontTable, "{\\f17\\fnil\\fcharset134\\fprq2{\\*\\panose 02010600030101010101}\\'ba\\'da\\'cc\\'e5{\\*\\falt SimHei};}" );
	strcat( rtfFontTable, "{\\f109\\froman\\fcharset238\\fprq2 Times New Roman CE;}" );
	strcat( rtfFontTable, "{\\f110\\froman\\fcharset204\\fprq2 Times New Roman Cyr;}" );
	strcat( rtfFontTable, "{\\f55\\fmodern\\fcharset134\\fprq1{\\*\\panose 02010609030101010101}\\'bf\\'ac\\'cc\\'e5_GB2312;}" );
	strcat( rtfFontTable, "{\\f621\\fnil\\fcharset0\\fprq2 @\\'cb\\'ce\\'cc\\'e5 Western;}" );

Add a funciton to translate chinese string to ascii string

string StrToASC(char* text)
{
	string strResult;
	int iLen = strlen(text);
	for(int i = 0; i&lt;iLen; i++)
	{
		BYTE chData = text[i];
		if(chData &gt; 0xa0 &amp;&amp; chData != 0)
		{
			char szHex[12]={0};
			wsprintf(szHex,"\\'%2.2x", chData);
			strResult += szHex;
		}
		else
		{
			strResult += (char) chData;
		}
	}
 
	return strResult;
}

then modified fuction rtf_start_paragraph,

// Starts new RTF paragraph
int rtf_start_paragraph(char* text, bool newPar)
{
	string strText = StrToASC(text);
 
	// Set error flag
	int error = RTF_SUCCESS;
 
	// Copy paragraph text
	if(rtfParFormat.paragraphText)
	{
		delete[]rtfParFormat.paragraphText;
		rtfParFormat.paragraphText = NULL;
	}
 
	rtfParFormat.paragraphText = new char[strText.size()+1];
	strcpy( rtfParFormat.paragraphText, strText.c_str() );
 
	// Set new paragraph
	rtfParFormat.newParagraph = newPar;
 
	// Starts new RTF paragraph
	if( !rtf_write_paragraphformat() )
		error = RTF_PARAGRAPHFORMAT_ERROR;
 
	// Return error flag
	return error;
}

almost thoese are what i did,sorry for my pool English
PS,there are many memory leaks......

Re: I modified a copy to support the Chinese language

tianyige0726

15:47 25 Aug '10

你好我看了你那个支持中文显示的代码发现StrToASC函数中for(int i = 0; i<iLen; i++) 和if(chData > 0xa0 && chData != 0)不明白什么意思能不能解释一下我现在正在作者方面的东西
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Unicode patch

margaritaville

15:18 17 Sep '09

#include <SSTREAM>
#include <WINDOWS.H>

/************************************************************************/
/* Takes stream with unicode characters, convert it into RTF format 
/* string, like \u2514.
/************************************************************************/
inline std::string InputToRTFstream(const char* input)
{
	DWORD dwNum = ::MultiByteToWideChar (CP_ACP, 0, input, -1, NULL, 0);
	wchar_t* wpstr = new wchar_t[::strlen(input) + 1];
	::MultiByteToWideChar(CP_ACP,   0,   input,   -1,   wpstr,   dwNum);   //ASCII   to   UNICODE 
	std::wstring str(wpstr);
	std::ostringstream sstr;
 
	for(int i = 0; i < str.length(); i++)
	{
		sstr << "\\u" << wpstr[i] << "  ";
	}
 
	delete[]   wpstr; 
 
	return sstr.str();
}

Re: Unicode patch

_EOA_

7:29 26 Dec '10

Great! Thanks. Now supports Cyrillics!
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int rtf_start_tablerow() corrupts the stack

mhorowit

15:30 15 Mar '09

I am using vst2005. rebuilt the sample with the library as part of the source and got a stack corruption error around variable tblrw int rtf_start_tablerow() { // Set error flag int error = RTF_SUCCESS; char tblrw[] = ""; tblrw is only allocated with 1 byte of storage in the original code char tblrw[1024] = ""; fixes the stack.
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Will this library work for creating non-english RTF content?

andrewtruckle

3:23 19 Mar '08

IE, my application supports czech, polish and other european languages. I notice the API calls are all char*. Will it cope with these other languages?
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Re: Will this library work for creating non-english RTF content?

zyj402301

5:33 26 Apr '10

I modified a copy to support the Chinese language,
I modified funciton rtf_write_header,change language

	strcpy( rtfText, "{\\rtf1\\ansi\\ansicpg936\\deff0\\deflang1033\\deflangfe2052{\\fonttbl" );

modiyed fuciton rtf_init,to add chinese fonts

	strcat( rtfFontTable, "{\\f0\\froman\\fcharset0\\fprq2{\\*\\panose 02020603050405020304}Times New Roman;}" );
	strcat( rtfFontTable, "{\\f13\\fnil\\fcharset134\\fprq2{\\*\\panose 02010600030101010101}\\'cb\\'ce\\'cc\\'e5{\\*\\falt SimSun};}" );
	strcat( rtfFontTable, "{\\f17\\fnil\\fcharset134\\fprq2{\\*\\panose 02010600030101010101}\\'ba\\'da\\'cc\\'e5{\\*\\falt SimHei};}" );
	strcat( rtfFontTable, "{\\f109\\froman\\fcharset238\\fprq2 Times New Roman CE;}" );
	strcat( rtfFontTable, "{\\f110\\froman\\fcharset204\\fprq2 Times New Roman Cyr;}" );
	strcat( rtfFontTable, "{\\f55\\fmodern\\fcharset134\\fprq1{\\*\\panose 02010609030101010101}\\'bf\\'ac\\'cc\\'e5_GB2312;}" );
	strcat( rtfFontTable, "{\\f621\\fnil\\fcharset0\\fprq2 @\\'cb\\'ce\\'cc\\'e5 Western;}" );

Add a funciton to translate chinese string to ascii string

string StrToASC(char* text)
{
	string strResult;
	int iLen = strlen(text);
	for(int i = 0; i<iLen; i++)
	{
		BYTE chData = text[i];
		if(chData > 0xa0 && chData != 0)
		{
			char szHex[12]={0};
			wsprintf(szHex,"\\'%2.2x", chData);
			strResult += szHex;
		}
		else
		{
			strResult += (char) chData;
		}
	}
 
	return strResult;
}

almost thoese are what i did,sorry for my pool English

rtf_load_image memory leak

CopyMaster

0:17 11 Jan '08

Nice work!
It's a pity there are so many memory leaks though. Cry | :((

I found an other one in rtf_load_image, near the end of the function there's:

// Convert metafile binary data to hexadecimal

char* str = rtf_bin_hex_convert( buffer, size );

delete []buffer;

but str is never deleted. So add (at the end of the code block):
delete []str;

after:

strcpy( rtfText, "}" );

fwrite( rtfText, 1, strlen(rtfText), rtfFile );

BTW: The code by MRSilver features the same leak Frown | :(

rtf_write_paragraphformat

henk21cm

5:28 6 Jan '08

Gday,

The rtflib was of great help for me. Nevertheless i met some quicks but these have been solved. Additionally i found one not yet discussed in this forum, so i want to share it with you.

In function rtf_write_paragraphformat -rather at the end of the function-, the actual writing to rtfFile takes place. All information is stored into the variable rtfText, which is an array of char of length 4096. When writing long texts, the upper bounds of rtfText are exceeded, which causes nasty errors. Therefore i propose to split the meta information and the actual text and write them separatedly:



// Set paragraph tabbed text

if ( rtfParFormat.tabbedText == false )

{

sprintf( rtfText, "\n%s\\fi%d\\li%d\\ri%d\\sb%d\\sa%d\\sl%d%s ", text, 

	  rtfParFormat.firstLineIndent, rtfParFormat.leftIndent, 

          rtfParFormat.rightIndent, rtfParFormat.spaceBefore, 

          rtfParFormat.spaceAfter, rtfParFormat.lineSpacing, font );

}

else

	sprintf( rtfText, "\\tab " );

 

// Writes RTF paragraph formatting properties

if ( fwrite( rtfText, 1, strlen(rtfText), rtfFile ) < strlen(rtfText) )

	result = false;

 

// A paragraph text might be long. The variable rtfText is fixed in length

if ( fwrite( rtfParFormat.paragraphText, 1, 

             strlen(rtfParFormat.paragraphText), rtfFile) < 

            strlen(rtfParFormat.paragraphText))

		result = false;

 

// Return error flag

	return result;

21 cm, Hydrogens universal wavelength

Suggested Enhacement to Image Loading

Abbas Ibn Fernas

23:03 18 Nov '07

First thanks for sharing your work.

You can load images with less memory and less code:

  IPicture* pPic;

	HRESULT hr = OleLoadPicturePath(const_cast(pszImagePath),

		  NULL,

		  0,

		  0,

		  IID_IPicture,

		  reinterpret_cast(&pPic));

if(SUCCEEDED(hr) && pPic!= NULL)

{

 ....

}

instead of:

		// Read image file

		int imageFile = _open( image, _O_RDONLY | _O_BINARY );

		struct _stat st;

		_fstat( imageFile, &st );

		DWORD nSize = st.st_size;

		BYTE* pBuff = new BYTE[nSize];

		_read( imageFile, pBuff, nSize );

		// Alocate memory for image data

		HGLOBAL hGlobal = GlobalAlloc(GMEM_MOVEABLE, nSize);

		void* pData = GlobalLock(hGlobal);

		memcpy(pData, pBuff, nSize);

		GlobalUnlock(hGlobal);

		// Load image using OLE

		IStream* pStream = NULL;

		if ( CreateStreamOnHGlobal(hGlobal, TRUE, &pStream) == S_OK )

		{

			HRESULT hr;

			if ((hr = OleLoadPicture( pStream, nSize, FALSE, IID_IPicture, (LPVOID *)&rtfPicture)) != S_OK)

				error = RTF_IMAGE_ERROR;

 

			pStream->Release();

		}

		delete []pBuff;

		_close(imageFile);

Thanks again,
Abbas

Landscape?

s.jb

6:42 7 Sep '07

Is there a way to set the document to be in landscape instead of protrait mode? Thanks
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i want to know some about jpg in rtf, thanks for share

ikohl

15:46 28 Jun '07

thanks for share although haven't read the code thoroughly, i want to know if it can show jpg files directly in that rtf file.
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Great!

sleet

17:44 31 Mar '07

I love it extremely, thanks
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How to link to the header from a template ?

Stefan Georgescu

21:16 31 Jan '07

Hi, I have a template named hf.dot in which I have defined a header. I want to generate a RTF file that shows that header. Inside the RTF file, I can link to the template and use it's styles with a code like this: `{\template c:\\hf.dot}\linkstyles` but I don't know how to use the header. Any idea ?
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Unicode

dankomil

11:14 10 Oct '06

Hi Darko!

Thanks for very usefull library.

I have some solution for unicode suport in mfc applicatons (RTF Specification, version 1.6 on http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnrtfspec/html/rtfspec.asp[^]).

In rtflib.h add new function declaration:
int rtf_start_paragraph(CString sUni, bool newPar)

in rtflib.cpp add this code:

int rtf_start_paragraph(CString sUni, bool newPar)

{

  char * s = (char *)(LPCTSTR) sUni;

#ifdef _UNICODE

  char cWord[1024];

  strcpy( cWord ,  "{\\uc{" );

  for(int i = 0; i < sUni.GetLength()*2; i+=2){

    char lo = s[i];

    char hi = s[i+1];

    strcat( cWord , "\\u" );

    int iUni = hi*256+lo;

    char buffer[20];

    _itoa( iUni, buffer, 10 );

    strcat( cWord , buffer );

  }

  strcat( cWord , "}}");

  return rtf_start_paragraph(cWord, newPar);

#else

  return rtf_start_paragraph(s, newPar);

#endif

}

Re: Unicode

andrewtruckle

4:08 19 Mar '08

It would be nice if this rtflib could be unicode aware! Andrew
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Re: Unicode

HiHand

5:21 11 Aug '11

if(int(lo) < 0 ) iUni += 256;
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Bugs fixed

mrsilver

10:47 6 Oct '06

rtf_start_paragraph shoulb be like this

int rtf_start_paragraph(char* text, bool newPar)
{
// Set error flag
int error = RTF_SUCCESS;

// Copy paragraph text
rtfParFormat.paragraphText = new char[strlen(text)+1];
strcpy( rtfParFormat.paragraphText, text );

// Set new paragraph
rtfParFormat.newParagraph = newPar;

// Starts new RTF paragraph
if( !rtf_write_paragraphformat() )
error = RTF_PARAGRAPHFORMAT_ERROR;

delete [] rtfParFormat.paragraphText;
rtfParFormat.paragraphText=NULL;

// Return error flag
return error;
}

is required to reserve 1 more char for copying the NULL terminating string on the next strcpy
also the pointer is freed after being used.

more memory leaks on rtf_write_paragraphformat:

...

// Format paragraph border type
char *br = rtf_get_bordername(rtfParFormat.BORDERS.borderType);
strcat( border, br );

// add this after the call to delete the returned pointer
delete []br;
br=NULL;

and more on the same function at:

// Format paragraph shading
char* sh = rtf_get_shadingname( rtfParFormat.SHADING.shadingType, false );

// add this after the call to delete the returned pointer
strcat( text, sh );
delete sh;
sh=NULL;

some improvements could be made to insert a picture that you've already loaded from file, add this function to the library (.cpp and .h) and you're done:

// Inserts image from IPicture
int rtf_insert_image(IPicture* pImage, int width, int height)
{
// Set error flag
int error = RTF_SUCCESS;

// If IIpicture is valid
if ( pImage != NULL )
{
// Calculate image size
long hmWidth;
long hmHeight;
pImage->get_Width(&hmWidth);
pImage->get_Height(&hmHeight);
int nWidth = MulDiv( hmWidth, GetDeviceCaps(GetDC(NULL),LOGPIXELSX), 2540 );
int nHeight = MulDiv( hmHeight, GetDeviceCaps(GetDC(NULL),LOGPIXELSY), 2540 );

// Create metafile;
HDC hdcMeta = CreateMetaFile(NULL);

// Render picture to metafile
pImage->Render( hdcMeta, 0, 0, nWidth, nHeight, 0, hmHeight, hmWidth, -hmHeight, NULL );

// Close metafile
HMETAFILE hmf = CloseMetaFile(hdcMeta);

// Get metafile data
UINT size = GetMetaFileBitsEx( hmf, 0, NULL );
BYTE* buffer = new BYTE[size];
GetMetaFileBitsEx( hmf, size, buffer );
DeleteMetaFile(hmf);

// Convert metafile binary data to hexadecimal
char* str = rtf_bin_hex_convert( buffer, size );
delete []buffer;

// Format picture paragraph
RTF_PARAGRAPH_FORMAT* pf = rtf_get_paragraphformat();
pf->paragraphText = "";
rtf_write_paragraphformat();

// Writes RTF picture data
char rtfText[1024];
sprintf( rtfText, "\n{\\pict\\wmetafile8\\picwgoal%d\\pichgoal%d\\picscalex%d\\picscaley%d\n", hmWidth, hmHeight, width, height );
if ( fwrite( rtfText, 1, strlen(rtfText), rtfFile ) < strlen(rtfText) )
error = RTF_IMAGE_ERROR;
fwrite( str, 1, 2*size, rtfFile );
strcpy( rtfText, "}" );
fwrite( rtfText, 1, strlen(rtfText), rtfFile );
} else
{
error = RTF_IMAGE_ERROR;
}
// Return error flag
return error;
}

Roll eyes | :rolleyes:

cells display trleft0

Mei You Qian

0:33 20 Jul '06

When creating tables, sometimes initial cell text contents is "\trleft0" and then the rest of cell text. What am I doing wrong? Mei You Qian
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Re: cells display trleft0

Mei You Qian

0:45 20 Jul '06

FYI, problem appears only when including the rtflib.cpp file. If I link with rtflib.lib, the problem does not appear. May be the rtflib.cpp file is outdated? Mei You Qian
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