I'm using a JTree to browse the content of a folder and I want that when a user click on a file, the software shows a preview of it (a screenshot of its first page).
The files are mostly Office documents and PDF.
I manage to do it for PDF file using a module downloaded from Sun, but I'd like to know if there is a way to do it using any software (JARs preferably) or even the built-in Windows API.
I was thinking of converting the file to PDF then do a preview of this PDF but this isn't optimal.
Any ideas ?
I've got the similar problem and the best I found after couple of days of googling is following.
Alfresco has the same problem and resolved it with :
- An open office which runs in server mode (socket) and all the office documents are sent by alfresco to open office in order to convert them in PDF
- Those PDF are converted to .swf viewer thanks to SWFTOOLS
- This .swf is integrated in the HTML
- For images, it uses ImageMagick to create small version of the file I suppose
Personnaly, I will try to implement it this way :
- Converting office documents to PDF thanks to open office in socket mode
- Transform the first page of the PDF into a PNG thanks to JPedal library (the LGPL version)
- Diplay that PNG to the end user
- For images I would perhaps use ImageMagick too ... but for now, I'm using Seam Image.scaleToFit API
I had the same problem too and stumbled over this thread. Starting with the solution from Anthony I am using Libre Office in socket mode to convert office documents directly to a PNG. Unfortunately this isn't posible from PDF's. Here is a good overview which ways are possible.
unoconv --connection 'socket,host=127.0.0.1,port=2220,tcpNoDelay=1;urp;StarOffice.ComponentContext' -f png -e PageRange=1 your_file_name.extension
Little reference to start Libre Office in socket mode: click me
I asked this a long time ago: solution
