Question

We are currently developing a Windows Forms application in VS 2008 C#. This application is for reading long (200 – 300 pages) law documents, and it handles about 30 – 40 docs. The application searches in document text, switches between documents, etc.

Our customer has sent the docs in separate *.rtf files for us to “put it into the application”. We decided to convert the rtf files into HTML, using the MS Word’s “Save as” function, and then selecting “filtered HTML”. In this solution, the application can show the documents in a WebBrowser control.

Our problem is: the Customer wants an additional “Pager view” function, where the user can read the documents like it would be a book. He can see the pages on a virtual paper sheet, and then click next page, previous page, etc. Like in the browser’s Print preview dialog.

I have searched the internet for any Pager HTML viewer, but I haven’t found anything. Could you suggest any solution or component for showing the HTML pages in pager mode?

In last case, we can hold the original rtf files too for Pager View showing. In this case, is there any solution for view RichText files in pager mode? (We want to avoid it, if it’s possible.)

Waiting for your answer:
Peter

Answer 1

I don’t know of any components that can display HTML in pages, but a couple possible solutions could be:

1. edit the HTML documents and manually separate them into linked pages (or hidden divs with javascript to hide/unhide divs for navigating)

2. convert the RTF docs to XPS format and use WPF’s DocumentViewer control – but since your app is WinForms, then you’d probably have to do something like this:
   http://www.codeproject.com/KB/dialog/WinFormWPFIntegration.aspx
   (though someone commented on that page about a memory-leak :S that’s something to keep an eye open for…)