Tools to manipulate doc file and convert them to pdf

Question

I am looking for some good tools (free or paid, though free tool is always preferred) for doing following operations on word doc files:

1. Manipulation of doc/docx/text files (like replacing some placeholders with DB values) as well as

2. converts doc files to .pdf

Because, I will be using this tool in my WCF service library, So I am looking for a code library and not for a GUI based product.

Please share your experience regarding same.

Thank you!

Answer 1

Aspose has a decent collection of MS Office and PDF manipulation libraries.

Aspose Homepage

On the off chance that you're only looking for PDFs for viewing or archival purposes, you could also setup a PDF print driver and print your office files into a given location using Automation. You could also edit Office files through Automation although this may be tedious.

Answer 2

VSTO would give you access to the save as PDF from the Office applications.

Answer 3

Please see my answer to a related question on SO where I recommend a number of ways to convert your Word document to a format that is more easy to manipulate programmatically (using XSL-FO).