Convert doc-files to rdl-files

Question

Hello,

 

I might have a rather strange question but I was wondering if there is a way/tool that can be used to convert/import Word documents (.doc) into Reporting Services report files (.rdl). The problem is that I have lots of Word documents containing e.g. survey question. The reports are very extensive with many pages and many "graphical" objects e.g. rectangles etc.. Now I want to have all these reports imported into Reporting Services, i.e. I want the .doc-files to be converted to .rdl-files. I do not want to use e.g. OfficeWriter but I want the .doc-files to be migrated to the rdl-format. Is that possible, is there a tool for this? Both file formats are Microsoft formats, so there should be a conversation tool right?

 

Best Regards

Lars

Answer 1

There is a reason that the makers of OfficeWriter decided to make OfficeWriter. They are filling a gap in the market.
 

http://officewriter.softartisans.com/OfficeWriter-405.aspx

Expect some/all of the functionality to feature in RS 2008, esp. MS Word functionality

Answer 2

 

Yes, I understand that but if I have understood it right the addition of OfficeWriter functionality in RS 2008 will not solve my problem, isn't that right? My problem is that I want to convert .doc-files into .rdl-files. OfficeWriter doesn't do that or am I wrong? When OfficeWriter is included in RS 2008 I will only be able to export .rdl-reports to .doc-files not import/convert .doc-template files into .rdl-files.

 

Best regards

Lars

 

Answer 3

First hit of internet search, first paragraph

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa964136.aspx

www.google.com

Answer 4

Thanks for the link but I have read that before and I still don't think that OfficeWriter solves my problem. The Excel/Word report content is serialized into the rdl-format, not actually translated into real rdl-format. That means that I will not be able to import/convert a .doc-file and thereafter only use Visual Studio/Report Viewer to change the layout of the previous Word report. See the following from your link:

 

"OfficeWriter reads, writes, and manipulates Excel and Word documents in their native binary formats."

 

"OfficeWriter differs from other report design tools in a significant way: the Excel or Word binary template file is serialized and stored separately from the XML layout. The Excel and Word templates are embedded in the RDL file and become part of the report definition. This creates a completely separate report layout definition within the RDL file."

 

I interpret that as if the original .doc-format i preserved, isn't that right?

 

Best regards

Lars

Answer 5

It would seem to me that all you need is to convert your word doc format to their word doc format.

Then just create the report.

I guess you need to get hold of 2008, create a simple report, see how the internals differ, see if you can edit it outside of word and see if the changes are reflected back in the word doc.

I'm guessing that you have to create your word doc in a particular 'style' and then run some kind of report generator (probably one way so you wouldn't be able to put it in VS make changes and chuck it back to word)

So all you would need to do is to figure out how to convert your existing docs to this 'style' en masse.

This fella has a blog on report builder and so may have more of an insight into how the ms word report builder is going to work.
http://blogs.msdn.com/bobmeyers/default.aspx

Drop him a line.

Answer 6

 

Ok, thanks for the tip! I will email him.

 

Best regards

Lars

Answer 7

It's hard to get a response by shooting an email to those bloggers -- I still haven't. I don't think they have the bandwidth. One post every 3-4 months should also be an indication.

 

Answer 8

 

Hi Lars,

Have you found a solution to your query. I am in a similar situation, so could you please share the steps taken by you.

Answer 9

Hi,

 

No I have not found a solution to the problem. We are actually using SSRS 2008 today and there is no functionality for converting .doc to .rdl-files in that product. If I have understood MSFT right they do not have a tool themselves either. We have done the extensive work to manually (read redo the reports) design the reports in SSRS. From the rdl-files we can now generate .doc, .xls, .pdf and so on.

 

Regards

Lars

 

Answer 10

I take it you never did find an answer?


We're looking for something similar with an .xls file we've been sent as a template - the oringal .rdl we created doesn't line up to the millimetre accurately, as it needs to be scanned into another system.

We're having to line it up manually and, as there are a lot of fields and boxes on it, it's tedious, and not always successful.

Answer 11

I see I am a bit late to the party, but I found a solution for this that I hope can help someone browsing here.

Office writter probably is the way to go but yes it imports it as a binary, so you will not be able to modify it after the fact. Also, my company wasn't crazy about shelling out the money for this app even though it is somewhat cheap.

There are two other ways which you can set this up. First if you and your users are using office 2007 it is somewhat simple to modify word documents as XML. You can find the way to convert docx files to xml programatically on msdn http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb266220.aspx. So what I did was insert place holders in the documents have the application grab the xml from the docx, replace the content then convert it back to a docx file. This worked and my users have the ablity to change the template format as needed.

If you are not using office 2007 there are xml conversions back to word 2000. So you would open the document in word (200?) add the content place holders and 'save as' xml. Your app then reads and converts the place holders. The problem in this senario I was unable to overcome was that the document will have an xml extension. Office 2007 was able to open it as a word document but I wasn't able to test with older versions. Even so, there must be ways to programatically convert wordML to actual .doc files. And if you find them post here, please. 

gl and I hope this helps someone it was quite a headache for me. 

Answer 12

I may be totally over simplifying this but...

Assuming you have a big long word doc with loads of static text, layout and images, a few dynamic/external elements, and you don't want to spend the next 4 years re-drawing rectangles in an rdl.

So you just want an rdl version of the word doc asap.

Open MS Access, create a report, copy and paste the content of the word doc into the report, save

Import that access report into VS BIDS report project

add and edit data sources, data sets, expressions, charts...

It won't be great, it won't be perfect, and it certainly isn't clean but it will get a lot of it across a lot of the work with a minimum of effort.

You can always once done create a new one from scratch and copy and paste elements for rdl to rdl

Answer 13

For the record, this post was the first hit when I ran a search...