FarPoint Spread from GrapeCity

GrapeCity

GrapeCity, inc. is a privately held, multinational software corporation based in Sendai, Japan, that develops its own software products and provides outsourced product development services, consulting services, software solutions, and Customer relationship management solutions and services...

 is a suite of Microsoft Excel

Microsoft Excel

Microsoft Excel is a proprietary commercial spreadsheet application written and distributed by Microsoft for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. It features calculation, graphing tools, pivot tables, and a macro programming language called Visual Basic for Applications...

-compatible spreadsheet

Spreadsheet

A spreadsheet is a computer application that simulates a paper accounting worksheet. It displays multiple cells usually in a two-dimensional matrix or grid consisting of rows and columns. Each cell contains alphanumeric text, numeric values or formulas...

 components available for .NET

.NET Framework

The .NET Framework is a software framework that runs primarily on Microsoft Windows. It includes a large library and supports several programming languages which allows language interoperability...

, COM

COM

COM is the original, yet still common, name of the serial port interface on IBM PC-compatible computers. It might not only refer to physical ports, but also to virtual ports, such as ports created by bluetooth or USB-to-Serial adapters....

, and Microsoft BizTalk Server. Software developers use the components to embed Microsoft Excel-compatible spreadsheet features into their applications, such as importing and exporting Microsoft Excel files, displaying, modifying, analyzing, and visualizing data. Spread components handle spreadsheet

Spreadsheet

A spreadsheet is a computer application that simulates a paper accounting worksheet. It displays multiple cells usually in a two-dimensional matrix or grid consisting of rows and columns. Each cell contains alphanumeric text, numeric values or formulas...

 data at the cell, row, column, or worksheet level.

History

• 1991 Spread released as a DLL
  DLL
  DLL may refer to:* Data link layer, a layer in the OSI network architecture model* Delay-locked loop, a device to reduce clock skew in digital circuits* Doubly linked list, a data structure in computer programming...
  
   control as the initial product offering from FarPoint Technologies, Inc.
• 1990s
  • Spread VBX released.
  • Spread ActiveX
    ActiveX
    ActiveX is a framework for defining reusable software components in a programming language-independent way. Software applications can then be composed from one or more of these components in order to provide their functionality....
    
     released.
  • These components are now known as Spread COM.
• 2003 Spread for Windows Forms released as a completely new managed C# version prompted by the launch of Visual Studio .NET.
• 2003 Spread for Web Forms (now Spread for ASP.NET) released.
• 2006 Spread for BizTalk released.
• 2009 FarPoint Technologies acquired by GrapeCity.

Versions

• Spread for Windows Forms: 5.0
• Spread for Web Forms: 5.0
• Spread COM: 8.0
• Spread for BizTalk: 3.0

Spread for Windows Forms

FarPoint Spread for Windows Forms is a Microsoft Excel-compatible spreadsheet component for Windows Forms applications developed using Microsoft Visual Studio and the .NET

.NET

.NET may refer to:* .NET Framework, a software framework by Microsoft* .net, a top-level domain* .net * .NET Passport, an old name for Windows Live ID* .NET Messenger Service...

 Framework. Developers use it to add grids and spreadsheets to their applications, and to bind them to data sources. In version 4.0, new cell types were added to display barcodes and fractions, and exports for XML and PDF were added.

Spread for ASP.NET

FarPoint Spread for ASP.NET is a Microsoft Excel-compatible spreadsheet component for ASP.NET applications. Developers use it to add grids and spreadsheets to their applications, and to bind them to data sources.

Spread for COM

FarPoint Spread 8 COM allows COM and ActiveX applications to incorporate spreadsheet features. In the 1997 book Visual Basic 5 for Windows for Dummies, Wally Wang lists an early version of Spread COM in Chapter 35: The Ten Most Useful Visual Basic Add-On Programs.

Spread for BizTalk

FarPoint Spread for BizTalk Server allows developers to integrate Microsoft Excel documents into Microsoft BizTalk applications. Spread for BizTalk Server includes two components:

• Spreadsheet Pipeline Disassembler - Parses data from Microsoft Excel (XLS and Excel 2007 XML, CSV, TXT) documents into XML data for processing through Microsoft BizTalk Server receive pipelines.
• Spreadsheet Pipeline Assembler - Assembles data from Microsoft BizTalk applications into Microsoft Excel (XLS or Excel 2007 XML) or PDF documents for transport through Microsoft BizTalk Server send pipelines.

Developers find it a useful tool for organizations with Microsoft BizTalk Server Enterprise Application Integration. Prior to this release, BizTalk users wanting to use Excel data had to manually open the files and copy and paste data between the two applications.

Features

These features are common to all versions.

• Predefined cell types, including:
  • currency
  • date time
  • number
  • percent
  • regular expression
  • button
  • check box
  • combo box
  • hyperlink
  • image
• Formula support, including:
  • cross-sheet referencing
  • over 300 built-in functions
• Import and export:
  • import to Microsoft Excel-compatible files
  • export to Microsoft Excel-compatible files
  • export to HTML files
  • export to XML files
• Design-time spreadsheet designer
• Data-binding with customizable options
• Hierarchical data views, with parent rows and child views
• Grouping of rows or columns
• Sorting by row or column on multiple keys
• Cell spanning
• Multiple row and column headers
• Bound and unbound modes

Spread for Windows Forms

• Support for Microsoft Visual Studio 2010
• Support for Windows Azure AppFabric
• Integrated chart control
• Custom cell types
• Cell notes
• Child controls
• Splitter bars
• Built-in and custom skins and styles
• PDF export
• Microsoft Excel 2007 XML Support (Office Open XML, XLSX)
• Floating Formula Bar
• Range Selection for Formula
• Automatic Completion (type ahead)

Spread for ASP.NET

• Support for Microsoft Visual Studio 2010
• Support for Windows Azure AppFabric
• Integrated chart control
• AJAX-enabled
• Support for Open Document Format (ODF) files
• Multiple edits on multiple rows without server round trips
• Client-side column and row resizing
• Load on demand, which loads data from the server as needed for viewing
• Native Microsoft Excel import and export
• In-cell editing
• Multiple edits on multiple rows without server round trips
• Client-side column and row resizing
• Multiple sheets
• Searching
• Filtering
• Validations
• Cell spans
• PDF export

Spread COM

• Custom cell types
• Cell notes
• Virtual mode for data loading
• Unicode support
• Customizable printing
• Text tips
• Import and export:
  • Microsoft Excel 97
  • Excel 2000
  • Excel 2007 (requires the .NET Framework)
• Enhanced printing
• 64 bit DLL

Spread for BizTalk

• Integration of Microsoft Excel data into Microsoft BizTalk applications
• Design-time spreadsheet schema wizard and spreadsheet format designer

Supported document formats

• Adobe Portable Document Format PDF (*.pdf)
• HTML
  HTML
  HyperText Markup Language is the predominant markup language for web pages. HTML elements are the basic building-blocks of webpages....
  
   Web Page (*.html)
• Microsoft Excel
  Microsoft Excel
  Microsoft Excel is a proprietary commercial spreadsheet application written and distributed by Microsoft for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. It features calculation, graphing tools, pivot tables, and a macro programming language called Visual Basic for Applications...
  
   Workbook (*.xls)
• Plain Text
  Text file
  A text file is a kind of computer file that is structured as a sequence of lines of electronic text. A text file exists within a computer file system...
  
   (*.txt)
• Comma-Separated Values
  Comma-separated values
  A comma-separated values file stores tabular data in plain-text form. As a result, such a file is easily human-readable ....
  
   (*.csv)
• Open Document Format (Spread for ASP.NET)

External links

• FarPoint Spread official site