Question

My goal…

• I’ve .rtf template files at my web server.
• I need to import those files into my iPad and Droid app.
• I need to show the contents of imported template file with exact formatting in an RTF editor in my iPad/Droid app.
• I need to make small changes in templates and save resulting document as rtf/pdf on my iPad or Droid.

What I am NOT asking…

• I know we can display RTF, DOC and PDF formats in web view but that is a readonly view and is of no use in my case. So PLEASE DON’T TELL ME that a can open files in web view.
• This open source project can help me in creating an RTF editor for iPad. So PLEASE DON’T TELL ME how to create an RTF editor.

My question simply is…

• Is it possible to import, parse, edit and save RTF documents with all formatting preserved?
• If not possible, what is the best alternative (other formats like doc, pdf etc) to do this?

Regards

Answer 1

Here is the solution!

Neither iOS nor Android has support for editing and saving DOC/RTF files. But both support HTML. In this case, we can use an HTML editor on iPad and Droid which will definitely appear in a web view (It’s up to the developer to give it a native app look and its possible with HTML5!!).

So here are the steps…

• Mobile app requests the contents of a DOC/RTF file from the web server app.
• Web app converts DOC/RTF into HTML and sends HTML contents to mobile app.
• Mobile app displays HTML contents in its HTML based RTF editor.
• User makes changes to the document in the editor.
• Mobile app sends edited contents in HTML format back to the web server app.
• Web server app converts HTML content into DOC/RTF format and saves the file.