Supported File Formats / Limitations

[Jörg B.]

Hello there,

out of curiosity, is it planned to support .doc (binary 200-2003 / pre .docx) files anytime soon? Additionally, is there a list of .docx file format features that are not supported yet (or not planned at all)?

All the best,
-Jörg B.

[Ivailo Karamanolev]

Hello Jörg B.,

We have the binary doc format in our to-do list, however it has not been decided yet if or when it will be implemented. The main problem with it is that it's a Microsoft proprietary format. We have rather opted for the OpenXML docx format.
As for the supported features - we try to keep the editor features and docx support in sync. This means that as of now, practically every feature supported by the RadRichTextBox is supported in docx. The policy for everything else is to be silently ignored.

Greetings,
Ivailo
the Telerik team

[Jörg B.]

Ivailo,

thanks for your quick reply! I've been having my own experience regarding binary .doc files but as proprietary it is, its usage numbers are still miles ahead of the newer docx / open document format(s) & therefore from a practical point of view a 'must' for me as a developer.

If the control won't support it natively I'll have to use another 3rd party converter (e.g. aspose), but since their .docx supported features do not align with yours (over/underlap), it won't be the best 'experience' from the users point of view and from my point of view supporting it and from my point of view what's supported or not.

So to add my voice to the 'if'-thoughts, a native .doc support would be greatly appreciated!

All the best,
-Jörg

[Iva Toteva]

Hello Jörg B.,

Thank you for the follow-up and for sharing your thoughts on this topic.
Adopting the approach you've chosen, if you notice any bugs in the way docx files are imported for features supported in the RadDocument, you can send over sample documents, so that we can look into the issues and fix them if necessary.

Best wishes,
Iva
the Telerik team

[Jordy]

Hello,
I found out that there are still some functionalities missing inside the RadRichTextBox or RadDocument. Namely the support of Columns in documents. If I import a document that consist of columns it will ben denied and all the text will be from top to bottom.

I hope it will be fixed in the new release like the headers and footers will.

[Iva Toteva]

Hi Jörg B.,

Thank you for the feature suggestion. We also have support for multiple columns in the document on our to-do list.
We will do our best to implement them for Q2, which is expected in mid-July.

Regards,
Iva
the Telerik team

[Richard]

Hi,

I am unable to successfully import a 2 column DocX document into the latest version of the RadRichTextBox (2011.3.1220.40). The DocX document is extremely simple and consists of a 2 column block of text. The sample can be replicated in Word 2010 by entering =Rand(5) into the document to generate some sample text, pressing enter and then setting the number of columns to 2 in the page layout tab. When this document is imported into your control it reverts to one column.

In the thread below you were trying to get this ready for Q2 last year. Has this bug been fixed yet now we are 6 months down the line?

Regards
Andrew

[Boby]

Hello Richard,
Laying out text in multiple columns has been rescheduled, due to the emergence of features of higher priority. As much as we would like to have a clear roadmap that does not change in the meantime and provide the new enhancements in the time frames set, our client feedback has a great influence when determining the release in which a feature will be included. Therefore, some additions get postponed while others step forth. In this case, the multiple columns feature gave way to the headers and footers functionality, the RTF import, the implementation of styles and a number of other features.

To cut the long story short, at this point multiple columns have not been scheduled. You can track our future development plans and rate the priority of the feature using PITS:
PITS issue ID: 8987
Public URL: http://www.telerik.com/support/pits.aspx#/public/silverlight/8987

All the best,
Boby
the Telerik team

[randall]

whats the deal with still not supporting Columns yet?  we are now into 2015 and this is a feature that is really needed!

At this point your competitors are supporting it and if your group does not support this soon my bet is you will be losing a bunch of customers.  We are already looking at the move ourselves because of the limitations.

is there any info if this will be released soon?

 

[Boby]

Hello Randall,

You are right - section columns are still not supported, and I fully understand your concerns, but the feature was postponed up until now.

The public item is migrated to our feedback portal here:
RadRichTextBox: Introduce support for layouting the text in a section in multiple columns
I would suggest you to vote for the item  and subscribe to it to follow its development.

This feature is among the top twenty requests for the WPF suite, so we are currently conducting initial research which will determine the effort needed for its implementation. Once we are ready with the it, we will consider planning the feature for one of the following releases.

That said, we still cannot commit to specific timeframe at this moment, but this definitely came back to our sight recently.

Regards,
Boby
Telerik