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OLE container surrogate for .NET

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13 Mar 2013CPOL1 min read 91.8K   5K   18   33
COM OLE-container analog for .NET

Introduction  

Microsoft Visual Basic versions 6.0 and 5.0 provide an OLE container control for embedding OLE objects directly on forms. The OLE container control provides a means for embedding OLE objects such as Microsoft Excel workbooks, Microsoft PowerPoint presentations, and Microsoft Word documents. But Visual Studio .NET does not provide an OLE container control for Windows Forms: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/304562/. Microsoft recommends achieving a similar functionality by using the Microsoft WebBrowser control to host the document if the document uses ActiveX. Excel, PowerPoint, and Word all support ActiveX. Therefore, documents from those sources may be displayed by using the WebBrowser control.

But the WebBrowser control doesn't embed Office documents because of security problems.

The PreviewContainer control solves this problem.  

Possibilities:    

  • preview MS Office documents (Excel, Word, PowerPoint and etc) 
  • preview and zooming different image formats like .jpg, .bmp and etc
  • preview and browsing multi-paged .tif files 
  • preview file formats which WebBrowser control support like .htm, .xml, and etc.
  • developers can extend PreviewContainer control for support different file formats 

Screenshots  

Excel document preview:

Image 1

Multipages TIFF preview:

Image 2

Background

Solution is based on preview handlers mechanism:

Using the code

Using of this control is very simple: 

  1. Add a reference to PreviewsHandlers.dll
  2. Drop the PreviewContainer on a Windows Form 
  3. Call the CreateLink method of the control with the full file path:
  4. C#
    this.previewContainer.CreateLink(@"c:\test.tif");
  5. If you want to browse multi-paged content (like multi-page tif), you can use these methods:
  6. C#
    ((IPaginalPreviewHandlerHost)this.previewContainer).PreviousPage();
    	((IPaginalPreviewHandlerHost)this.previewContainer).NextPage(); 

License

This article, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under The Code Project Open License (CPOL)


Written By
Software Developer (Senior) GNIVC
Russian Federation Russian Federation
I'm a Russian (Moscow Aviational Institute 1996-2002) Software Engineer living in Moscow, Russia. I have a long experience in Windows programming and have been developing large GUI, Real Time Enterprise Client/Server C# applications and SQL Server/Oracle databases.

My point of interests is high load enterprise applications.

Comments and Discussions

 
QuestionSource Code? Pin
TheCPUWizard15-Mar-21 1:04
TheCPUWizard15-Mar-21 1:04 
Questionpossibility of embedding instead of copy local Pin
Eduardo Del Cerro31-Aug-20 23:43
Eduardo Del Cerro31-Aug-20 23:43 
QuestionDisable right click menu which are currently displayed on the control Pin
yash150713-Nov-18 23:18
yash150713-Nov-18 23:18 
QuestionOLE container Pin
RufinaTrehub8-Jan-18 7:04
RufinaTrehub8-Jan-18 7:04 
Questionhow do you get hyperlinks work in ppt and docs ? Pin
Member 131136263-Nov-17 20:33
Member 131136263-Nov-17 20:33 
QuestionCan't preview PDF in windows 10 x64 Pin
Belikov Sergey17-Oct-15 6:15
Belikov Sergey17-Oct-15 6:15 
QuestionIs It possible preview by print layout? Pin
Member 448700712-Apr-15 18:56
Member 448700712-Apr-15 18:56 
Questionvisual basic .net Pin
rjmendoza28-Jan-15 14:49
rjmendoza28-Jan-15 14:49 
AnswerRe: visual basic .net Pin
Alexei Bouravtsev3-Feb-15 0:23
Alexei Bouravtsev3-Feb-15 0:23 
Questionedit Pin
Jayson Ragasa22-Nov-14 5:11
Jayson Ragasa22-Nov-14 5:11 
AnswerRe: edit Pin
Alexei Bouravtsev3-Feb-15 0:22
Alexei Bouravtsev3-Feb-15 0:22 
QuestionAppears to have issues with more than one Preview Container on a WinForm Pin
gr8yt200028-Jul-14 5:35
gr8yt200028-Jul-14 5:35 
QuestionRe: Appears to have issues with more than one Preview Container on a WinForm Pin
TourInfernale26-Feb-15 0:42
TourInfernale26-Feb-15 0:42 
QuestionXLSM? Pin
LunaMirage25-May-14 16:04
LunaMirage25-May-14 16:04 
AnswerRe: XLSM? Pin
Alexei Bouravtsev3-Feb-15 0:25
Alexei Bouravtsev3-Feb-15 0:25 
GeneralRe: XLSM? Pin
Member 819835116-Jul-17 11:06
Member 819835116-Jul-17 11:06 
QuestionGreat Pin
User_Beginner18-Mar-14 8:14
User_Beginner18-Mar-14 8:14 
QuestionCategory does not exist.? Pin
Member 1018047328-Nov-13 5:14
Member 1018047328-Nov-13 5:14 
AnswerRe: Category does not exist.? Pin
Alexei Bouravtsev25-Mar-14 22:34
Alexei Bouravtsev25-Mar-14 22:34 
QuestionOpen PPT Pin
conqu1212-Sep-13 19:05
conqu1212-Sep-13 19:05 
AnswerRe: Open PPT Pin
Member 1311362612-Oct-17 10:01
Member 1311362612-Oct-17 10:01 
QuestionTry compilation with SharpDevelop 4.3.2 Pin
moebius221-Aug-13 5:55
moebius221-Aug-13 5:55 
AnswerRe: Try compilation with SharpDevelop 4.3.2 Pin
Alexei Bouravtsev25-Mar-14 22:42
Alexei Bouravtsev25-Mar-14 22:42 
QuestionError "Excel has stopped working" Pin
Jason Orphanidis13-Aug-13 0:24
Jason Orphanidis13-Aug-13 0:24 
AnswerRe: Error "Excel has stopped working" Pin
Alexei Bouravtsev13-Aug-13 1:50
Alexei Bouravtsev13-Aug-13 1:50 

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