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The RTF2FO Web Service is an extension of Novosoft RTF2FO product. You can convert your RTF files to FO and PDF ones and FO files to PDF ones with it.
RTF2FO Web Service uses modern Web Services technology to significantly increase a field of application of the RTF2FO product. This is reached by enhancing ability to access to the RTF2FO functionality through Web Service. This means adds platform interoperability and, for example, allows .NET users to get access to the RTF2FO features distantly, i.e. without need for local running the product and even without need to run any Java application.
Try the RTF2FO Web Service with the .NET Client Application.
RTF2FO Web Service .NET Client requires .NET Framework to be installed on your PC. Setup program attempts to detect the Framework, and aborts installation if you do not have .NET Framework installed. If Setup aborts please download and run
Microsoft .NET Framework Redistributable,
and run again RTF2FO Web Service .NET Client Setup after .NET Framework installation.
To install RTF2FO Web Service .NET Client you need to download and unpack Setup program archive into any folder on your PC, and run Setup.exe.
The RTF2FO Web Service is an extension of Novosoft RTF2FO product (see http://www.rtf2fo.com). RTF2FO is a Java-based application allowing users to convert prevailing Rich Text Format (RTF, see http://msdn.microsoft.com for more details) files to a promising, portable FO XML format (see http://www.w3.org/TR/xsl ).
RTF2FOWS (means RTF2FO Web Service) uses modern Web Services technology to significantly widen the field of application of the RTF2FO product. This is achieved through enhanced ability to access the RTF2FO functionality through a Web Service. It means wider platform interoperability that, for example, allows the .NET users to access the RTF2FO features distantly, i.e. without running the product locally, or, furthermore, without running any Java application.
The following picture illustrates basic architectural components, and the way they interact with each other.
The RTF2FO Web Service is deployed on the server side. It implements basic converting algorithms by delegating requests to appropriate Java components (RTF2FO or/and FOP). The Web Service is published in the Microsoft Public UDDI registry. Because of the registration with UDDI, any client application can dynamically retrieve an access point to an appropriate Web Service. The registration makes it possible to change the location of a Web Service without changing client's configuration. One would just change the access point value in the UDDI registry.
On a client's side there is a .NET client consisting of two components. The first component is a .NET assembly DLL responsible for interactions with an appropriate Web Service. This component is implemented as an independent part. Thus developers would create .NET applications that use RTF2FO through this DLL. The following conversions are supported:
- RTF > FO XML
- FO > PDF
- RTF > PDF (a combination of the above conversions)
The second component is a simple .NET Windows application which illustrates how the assembly can be used. It allows users to open files for conversion, to convert files, and to save results into the local file system.
The interaction between clients and the Web Service is done through the SOAP protocol based on the HTTP transport protocol. Although SOAP does not limit the size of data packets, some servers on the way, for example firewalls, may truncate large requests and responses. The RTF2FO Web Service provides the way for packetized file transfer for large files. The following algorithm describes the typical scenario. When it is required, the Base64 coding algorithm is used to transfer non-character data (e.g. pictures, pdf-files, etc.).
- User chooses a file to be converted.
- Transaction begins.
- File(s) sending. Each file is split into several SOAP request packets of the size determined by configuration settings.
- Conversion on the server side.
- File(s) receiving. The files are reconstructed from SOAP response packets.
- Transaction is complete, resources are freed.
As we have mentioned earlier, registration with UDDI significantly improves the architecture of this system because of the separation of the Web Service location and the client configuration. But it would be too costly to search every time for the access point of a Web Service within UDDI. To solve this problem, the .NET client interacts with UDDI only when it is necessary. The following scenario illustrates the basic algorithm:
- The .NET client tries to interact with a Web Service as usual by using the access point cached.
- If an exception occurs, the client tries to find a corresponding Web Service access point in UDDI.
- If the found access point does not match the cached access point, the client caches a new access point, and tries to use it. Otherwise, a corresponding message is displayed to user.
- If an exception occurs again, a corresponding message is displayed to user.
RTF2FO Web Service is a trial version. Hence, there is a limit on the size of a file that can be converted. In the current version, you can convert files up to 1M only.
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