I’m working on a project where users need to view uploaded documents (mostly Word and some RTF files) directly in the browser. We want to keep the original formatting intact without requiring extra software like Microsoft Word or Adobe Acrobat.
We’ve been thinking about using Google Docs for this. It seems like there are ways to batch upload files, but I’m not sure about the API options. Does anyone know if it’s possible to let users view these docs on our site without logging into Google or being redirected?
The main goals are:
Keep users on our website
Preserve document formatting
Avoid needing external applications
Has anyone tackled a similar problem before? Any suggestions or alternatives would be super helpful. Thanks in advance for your input!
hey, have u tried using office online? microsoft has this cool thing where u can embed their viewer in ur website. it works gr8 for word docs and keeps the formatting intact. no need for users to leave ur site or install anything. might be worth checkin out!
Have you considered using a JavaScript-based solution like Mammoth.js? It’s a library specifically designed for converting Word documents to HTML while preserving most of the formatting. You could pair this with a simple RTF to HTML converter for those files.
The workflow would be:
Upload documents to your server
Use Mammoth.js (or similar) to convert to HTML on the fly
Display the HTML in an iframe or div on your page
This approach keeps everything in-browser, maintains formatting reasonably well, and doesn’t require external apps. It’s not perfect, but it’s lightweight and gets the job done for most use cases. Just be aware that some complex formatting might not translate perfectly.
I’ve dealt with a similar challenge in a project for a legal firm. We ended up using PDF.js, an open-source library developed by Mozilla. It’s a powerful tool that can render PDFs directly in the browser without external dependencies.
For Word and RTF files, we implemented a server-side conversion process. We used LibreOffice’s command-line tools to convert these documents to PDF format on upload. This approach preserved formatting well and allowed us to use PDF.js for all document types.
The solution worked great for us. Users could view documents seamlessly without leaving our site or needing additional software. The only downside was the extra server processing for non-PDF files, but the improved user experience was worth it.
If you’re open to a bit of server-side work, this approach might be a good fit for your needs too. It ticks all your boxes: keeps users on-site, preserves formatting, and avoids external apps.