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Online collaboration - Word/Excel/Powerpoint - Sharepoint?

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  2 years ago

  by AaronHudson

  Aaron Hudson

  West Midlands, England, United Kingdom

  Joined 6 years ago

  Hi,

  I'm currently in the process of developing an online learning portal using ASP .NET for the school I work for here in the UK, basically we're in need of a SharePoint style feature whereby Word, Excel and PowerPoint (or atleast Word and Excel) documents can be opened in a webbrowser and saved dynamically, without the need to download or upload anything.

   The basic jist being teachers and students are too lazy! I'm fully aware of SharePoint being able to do this, however as a school, we're trying to develop a bespoke system and have succeded so far using the rich infrastructure of ASP .NET, however this task is one I am really struggling to find a solution for.

  My question is therefore simply - can it be done? Is there a plugin or any lump of code I can use to do this. I have used a number of HTML formatters, it simply being able to:
  1. Create an Office document online
  2. Upload
  3. Be able to edit the uploaded document and save, without having to download or reupload
  
  
  

  Can this be done?

  Thank you!

  Aaron Hudson

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• • Reply

  2 years ago

  by brin351

  brin351

  , Australia

  Joined 4 years ago

  To the best of my knoledge there is no easy way to do this with asp.net and IIS because you need  to gain access to a file on a remote server or go to great lengths to create html based editors for the documents - hence share point to the rescue as it integrates with office and the server. 
  
  Office 2007 has made working with documents easier but you still need to program against them using .net not simply open them as an office doc edit and save them back to the source.  
  
  Here is an article about working with office doc and asp.net & web services
  
  
  
  

  http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa701256(office.11).aspx
  
  Regards
  
  

  Brin

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• • Reply

  10 months ago

  by thangnguyen

  Thang Nguyen

  Ho Chi Minh, Viet Nam

  Joined 10 months ago
  Hi Aaron Hudson, I think this is the best solution for you, www.expressocorp.com. expresso.jpgPeople who crunch numbers for a living are still emailing each other Excel files. EXpresso, a Silicon Valley start-up, is offering another option: It lets you upload, modify, share and store your Excel documents online, and chat with others about the changes you’re making. It provides auditing trails too. It’s free for now, during a beta testing period, which makes it compelling. Eventually, however, the company will charge $10 or less per seat for basic use, and up to $80 per seat depending on requested features. The company has gone through significant transformation. It was previously named SmartDB, and last week announced its database assets were sold to Rocket Software. SmartDB had raised $22.4 million over the past decade. The Menlo Park, Calif., company has raised a fresh $2 million. It will use the additional money for sales and marketing as well as supporting PowerPoint and Word. It competes with other, spreadsheet focused startups like EditGrid, and similar products from large companies like Google and smaller companies like Zoho — not to mention Microsoft’s own, evolving online efforts. Xcellery is another online product that lets you collaborate with Excel, so it’s not clear how EXpresso can clearly distinguish itself. The round was led by Individual’s Venture Fund, with previous backers Novus Ventures and Rocket Ventures participating.
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