Use Office File API on Linux

• Jan 20, 2023
• 3 minutes to read

This tutorial describes how to create a simple Office File API application for .NET on Linux.

Prerequisites

• .NET Core 3.1 / .NET 6.0 SDK or later

• A code editor. This tutorial uses Visual Studio Code.

• Libgdiplus library. This library is required to use System.Drawing in Office File API applications.

  Add the Mono repository to your system to install the latest libgdiplus version or use the corresponding terminal commands below (depending on your Linux distribution):

  Ubuntu

  sudo apt install -y libgdiplus libc6 libc6-dev
  

  Debian

  sudo apt install -y libgdiplus libc6 libc6-dev
  

  CentOS / RHEL / Fedora

  sudo yum install -y libgdiplus glibc glibc-devel
  

  openSUSE

  sudo zypper install -y glibc glibc-devel libgdiplus0
  

  Alpine

  apk add icu-libs libgdiplus
  

• Install the font libraries below (based on your Linux distribution) to measure, render, and export document text to PDF within your Office File API application:

  Ubuntu

  sudo apt install -y fontconfig libharfbuzz0b libfreetype6
  

  Debian

  sudo apt install -y fontconfig libharfbuzz0b libfreetype6
  

  CentOS / RHEL / Fedora

  sudo yum install -y libicu fontconfig harfbuzz freetype
  

  openSUSE

  sudo zypper install -y libicu fontconfig libharfbuzz0 freetype
  

  Alpine

  apk add icu-libs icu-dev harfbuzz freetype fontconfig libc6-compat libc-dev
  

  Tip

  You can also install the ttf-mscorefonts-installer package to add Microsoft TrueType core fonts (Arial, Times New Roman, Courier New, and so on) to your system. Run the following terminal command to install this package in Debian / Ubuntu and accept the license agreement:

  sudo apt-get install ttf-mscorefonts-installer

• Optional. If your application needs to render JPEG images within PDF files, install the packages below based on your Linux distribution (or any other packages that implement the libjpeg API v6.2 or v8.0):

  Ubuntu

  sudo apt install -y libjpeg-turbo8
  

  Debian

  sudo apt install -y libjpeg62-turbo
  

  CentOS / RHEL / Fedora

  sudo yum install -y libjpeg-turbo
  

  openSUSE

  sudo zypper install -y libjpeg8
  

  Alpine

  apk add libjpeg-turbo
  

Create an Application

Create a folder for you project (OfficeConsoleApp in this example) and open this folder in Visual Studio Code.

Click View → Terminal in the main menu to open the integrated terminal. Use the dotnet new command to create a new console application.

Create a C# project

dotnet new console

Create a VB project

dotnet new console -lang VB

This command adds the following files to your folder:

• OfficeConsoleApp.csproj / OfficeConsoleApp.vbproj

• Program.cs / Program.vb.

Add DevExpress.Document.Processor Package

Obtain your NuGet Feed URL and install the DevExpress.Document.Processor NuGet package as described in the following topic: Use NuGet Packages to Install Office File API Components.

Important

You need a license for the DevExpress Office File API Subscription or DevExpress Universal Subscription to use this package in production code.

Additional Packages

You can install the following packages depending on the features you use:

• DevExpress.Pdf.SkiaRenderer – to enable rendering of PDF page content within your app.
• DevExpress.Drawing.Skia – if you use the System.Drawing.Common package version 6 (without the EnableUnixSupport switch enabled) and higher.

Insert Code

Paste the code below in the Main method of the Program.cs file (or the Program.vb file’s Main procedure for Visual Basic). The following example converts a DOCX file to PDF:

C#

using DevExpress.XtraRichEdit;
// ...

static void Main(string[] args) {
    using (var wordProcessor =
        new RichEditDocumentServer()) {
        // Load a document from a file.
        wordProcessor.LoadDocument("Document.docx", DocumentFormat.OpenXml);
        // Export the document to PDF.
        wordProcessor.ExportToPdf("PdfDocument.pdf");
    }
}

VB.NET

Imports DevExpress.XtraRichEdit
' ...

Sub Main(args As String())
    Using wordProcessor As RichEditDocumentServer = New RichEditDocumentServer()
        ' Load a document from a file.
        wordProcessor.LoadDocument("Document.docx", DocumentFormat.OpenXml)
        ' Export the document to PDF.
        wordProcessor.ExportToPdf("PdfDocument.pdf")
    End Using
End Sub

Run the Application

Type dotnet run in the terminal window to run the program.

dotnet run

The following image illustrates the result: