VB6 RTF to Word 2010 - vb6

I have a VB6 application which has RTF field that eventually gets copied and pasted to Word 2010 document.
Texts and pictures get pasted all nicely except when a chart element is pasted, it has axis labels hidden by default.
So I basically have to click individual chart and "show" axis labels.
Is there any way to make it visible by default?
Thanks!

You might need to expand on your question a bit for more specific details but it is possible using OLE Automation to manipulate the objects in your Word document from VB6. Here's a better sample than I could give you from memory: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/237337

Related

Refresh text size/layout in PowerPoint/PPTX with OpenXML.Presentation

I made a PowerPoint template where one of the text boxes is configured with a font size, a fixed height and width, and "Shrink text on overflow".
I read the PPTX in a web service, replace the text inside the text box, and send the finished document to the client. Regularly the text inside the box is more than would fit within the box with the default font size. However, when the PPTX from the server is opened by the client, the text is still overflowing outside the bounds of the text box. Only after for example duplicating the slide will PowerPoint adapt the font size in the text box to let the text fit.
How can I force PowerPoint to already update the layout when first opening/displaying the document, instead of only when actually modifying the document manually? I tried setting each and every "dirty" attribute inside the slide XML, as I was confident this would force PowerPoint to recalculate the layout, but didn't actually help.
Any ideas on the issue? My only other option would be to open the document via automation on the server and force the layout update there.
Thanks in advance!

Extract text from rectangle on Windows screen without using OCR

Given a rectangle that represents an area on a Windows screen that contains text, what is the best way to extract the text?
I know that it is possible using OCR, but even after significant pre processing, the quality is really poor.
Getting the Window Text using Win32 API does not always work as well.
Assuming that the text was rendered using a font, is it possible to get it from there?
Any directions would be extremely helpful. Thanks!
Given a rectangle that represents an area on window screen, the best way to extract text is indeed OCR. Use a better OCR library like this one from Microsoft.
The reason getting the window text using Win32 API does not work well is because there may be multiple windows in that rectangle. You will have to find out what all windows the rectangle contains and send a message to get the text for each window. It is not impossible but difficult to do and even if you manage to do that, you will run into issues of text alignment, etc. OCR is your best option.
It does seem possible without using OCR, as NirSoft SysExporter can do this:
https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/sysexp.html
This may be suitable for programmatic use as it can be run from a command line:
Starting from version 1.70, you can export the content of Windows
control from command-line, without displaying any user interface.
You may not be able to target it at a specific rectangle on the screen, but maybe the same result could be achieved by first scraping everything followed by some post-processing.
Further basic info:
SysExporter utility allows you to grab the data stored in standard
list-views, tree-views, list boxes, combo boxes, text-boxes, and
WebBrowser/HTML controls from almost any application running on your
system, and export it to text, HTML or XML file.
...
Known Limitations
SysExporter can export data from most combo boxes, list boxes,
tree-view, and list-view controls, but not from all of them. There are
some applications that use these controls to display data, but the
data itself is not actually stored in the control, but in another
location in the computer's memory. In such cases, SysExporter won't be
able to export the data.
Personally I've used it to grab text from what look like label controls.

MS Visio 2010: Saving as .svg sets values to 0

I want to save my Visio shapes as an .svg file to incorporate into a XML document. However, when i save it ALL the values in my shape are set to 0. I've quadruple checked the shape data and all the values are there and the formulas are returning the correct values. The strange thing is, saving as a .svg works in Visio 2007 and all values are correct, but in Visio 2010 all the values are 0. Why is this? Unfortunately this is my first post, so I can't add screenshots as i don't have 10 rep.
The shape is 4 individual rows grouped together. The data is stored in the "Main" shape, i.e all rows grouped together. The cell in the individual shape then references its value from the main shape.
Example of 1 of the 4 main shape row forumlas:
ShapeData Property - Value = Sheet.1!Prop.Row_2 (references main shape rows, stores value)
Text Field Property - Value = Prop.Row_1 (references its single row, containing value of main shape)
The real kick here is I fixed this problem 4 months ago, but my colleagues had more shapes with the same issue. I cannot remember how i fixed it, and the shape that I fixed is identical in terms of structure and data handling.
Something strange that I also noticed is that when i type ".Value" after the Value field text in either the Text Fields or Shape Data properties, the ".Value" gets automatically omitted after I press enter, but then the field produces the right .svg output. However, this does not work when I make that change in the master shape. So effectively, I'd have to go into every single value field and manually type ".Value" and press enter for it to work. I've also tried turning off all shape protection, no joy.
I'm currently in the process of writing a macro to "refresh" all the value fields by adding ".Value" after them to mimic me manually typing that in.
Any help or feedback would be greatly appreciated!
I believe this is upgrade issue (2007->2010). Have seen this a few times. To fix try:
Open the diagram in Visio 2003 (or 2007), but not in Visio 2010
Save it as .VDX (Visio XML Drawing) file
Close it
Open the VDX file again in the same Visio
Save it back as normal VSD file. This should fix the broken VSD file.
Delete the VDX file, it is not needed
If this doesn't work then try sharing the source file (dropbox or whatever).
The problem was that the rows Text Fields were Data Object types. When I removed the Text shape protection and inserted a Shape Data field, the correct values were shown on the .svg output file.

Add text layer to PDF of scanned handwritten notes in OSX

While in class I like to take handwritten notes, afterwards I scan them and then type them up (helps me remember them and also makes them easily searchable). The main issue is I have is I use A LOT of drawings and complex math and converting the math formulas into latex (or word) is very time consuming and the drawings require that I keep the PDF and the text document. What I would like to do is take the basic text that I have typed myself (no OCR) and add a text layer to the PDF's that way the PDF's will be searchable and I can save a lot of time by not converting the math or drawings.
I've looked into Preview, PDFpenPro, acrobat, a couple of linux programs but so far I haven't really found anything that will do this.
Any idea of how I could do this or a program to use?
I also scan my notes. Sometimes I go back and add some text to them using this technique:
Open up the scanned pdf in Preview, then click on the "Edit" button in the top right corner, then the "Text tools" button on the left side (its a little box with Aa in it). From there you can drag open a text box and type into it.
Now the secret trick is that if you save it here as it is and try to open it in your ipad using PDFExpert or some other program then the text might not be there. So here's how to go through that slight hiccup: After you've annotated your notes how you want instead of just saving it as a pdf, use the Print option: File->Print or Command+P. Now click the PDF button on the left to "Save it as a pdf". Now that its printed you can open it and search it in any program that reads pdfs. Attached is an example.
One other thing, it seems like maybe you want to write over your existing handwritten text with typed text? I'm not sure if this is the best way. But if that's what I was trying to do I would:
Scan my notes
Read through them, typing them up as you said
Open the scanned notes in Photoshop or some other program
Draw a giant White Fill White Stroke rectangle over the handwritten text
Save it as a pdf
Do the technique above and copy and paste the typed text from step 2.
I hope this helps. And I wish you luck, I'm still working out the kinks myself for scanned notes but the possibilities have me pretty excited!
EDIT: I just checked out PDFpenPro, which I highly recommend because you don't have to go through that printing trick, you can just save the pdf document after annotating and other programs will recognize the annotations.

How can I change the background color of specific characters in a RTF document?

I'm trying to output RTF (Rich Text Format) from a Ruby program - and I'd prefer to just emit RTF directly without using the RTF gem as I'm doing pretty simple stuff.
I would like to highlight specific characters in a DNA sequence alignment and from the docs it seems that I can either use \highlightN ... \highlight0 or \cbN ... \cb1
The problem is that I cannot get \cb to work in either Word:Mac 2008 or Mac TextEdit (\cf works fine so I know it's not a color table issue)
\highlight does work but seemingly only with two of the possible colors (black and red) and \highlight does not use the custom color table.
By creating simple docs in Word with character shading and saving as RTF I can see blocks of ridiculously verbose RTF code that presumably does what I want, but it is so impenetrable that I'm not seeing the wood for the trees.
Part of the problem may well be that Mac Word is just not implementing RTF properly. I don't have a Windows version of Word handy.
Anyone know the right way to shade blocks of text?
Thanks
--Rob
There is a note in the RTF Pocket Guide that says MS Word does not implement the \cb command. It says MS Word uses \chshdng0\chcbpatN (where "N" is the color number that you would use with \cb). The book recommends using something like the following for compatibility with programs that implement \cbN and/or \chshdng0\chcbpatN: {\chshdng0\chcbpat5\cb5 text}.
Note: The copy of the book I have was published in 2003, so it might be a bit out-of-date.
The sequence of RTF commands that seems to be most universally supported by RTF-capable applications is:
\chshdng10000\chcbpatN\chcfpatN\cbN
These commands:
set the shading to 100 percent
set the pattern foreground and background colors to the color from the color table (we're not actually specifying a shading pattern)
set the character background to the color from the color table
Word was the most difficult application to properly render background colors in:
Despite what the latest (1.9.1) RTF spec says, Word 2013 does not resolve \highlightN colors from the \colortbl. Instead, \highlightN maps to a predefined list of colors. It looks like those colors come from the 1.5 version of the RTF spec.
Regarding \cb, the 1.9.1 spec contains this helpful pointer at the end of the section on Color Table:
Note: Windows versions of Word have never supported \cbN, but it can be emulated by the control word sequence \chshdng0\chcbpatN.
This is almost a useful suggestion, except that if you read the documentation for \chshdngN:
Character shading. The N argument is a value representing the shading of the text in hundredths of a percent.
So, 0 turns out to not be a very useful value; 100 / 0.01 gives us the 10000 we used in the sequence above.
Use WordPad to create RTF documents, not Word. WordPad creates much simpler documents, i.e. approaching human-readable.
I use WordPad every time I need to display formatted text in a WinForms application, and need something that the RichTextBox control can handle being assigned to its Rtf parameter.

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