flashapache-flexms-wordgoogle-docsdocument-conversion

How to view google docs or a word files in a flex application?


I am evaluating flex for a mobile and a web application and one of things I want to be able to do is show a google docs or a microsoft docs file (doc,ppt) within a flex application.

Google docs files are published as web pages so I guess you need a html component with javascript enabled. Does such a component exist in flex 4+?

Similarly how would I go about showing a word or a powerpoint file inside a flex app? How does a site like slideshare or scribd do it?


Solution

  • To view office style files in a Flash based application you should look up a tool similar to Flash Paper. (Note: Flash Paper no longer exists as a product' it was killed sometime after Adobe bought Macromedia ).

    I think the gist is that a conversion happens--probably on the server--which turns the document into a Flash format.

    Print2Flash is one product.

    FlexPaper is another tool for displaying PDFs.

    I would not expect that Google Docs would be viewable in a Flex application at all. Scribd uses a tool that reminds me of FlashPaper. I thought Slideshare had created something custom to convert powerpoints into Flash accessible. I had assumed it converted PPT to PNG (or JPG) which it them displays in a custom built Flash app.