1. “Real time” collaboration inside
a Word document using Alfresco
Alfresco Tech Talk
26 June 2009
by
Jason Harrop, Plutext

2. Agenda
• Part 1: Collaboration inside a Word document
• Part 2: Inline editing

3. About Plutext
• We help organisations exploit their Word documents,
outside the Microsoft silo (eg in Java, or sans SharePoint)
• Core product:
– Plutext collaboration in Word (on Alfresco)
• Components:
– docx4all – embeddable Java application/applet
– docx4j open source project
+ =
• Prototypes:
– Alfresco inline docx editors
– docx wiki (in Alfresco)

4. Part 1:
COLLABORATION INSIDE A WORD DOCUMENT

5. The problem with Word today
• It doesn’t matter how you try to open the document…
– Choose offline editing in Alfresco Explorer (or Share)
– Via CIFS or WebDAV (and with or without Alfresco’s Word Add-In)
– Via the SharePoint API
• Only one user can be in “the document” at any time
• Fundamental limitation of Microsoft Word
• .. so you get a proliferation of copies
– the user’s working copy
– copies made by users and collaborators
• Which the document owner has to reconcile
– Tedious, time consuming, and
– Error prone
• .. and which pollute your search index etc.

6. Basic Demo
pdates/adds/moves/deletes
onflict handling

7. Docx4all: cross platform docx editing, with collaboration.

8. Under the hood
Alfresco repository
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Plutext AMP
C# VSTO Word 2007 Add-In JCR
Web SOAP
Services
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Java Swing App

9. More demo
etting up a document
ontent controls
heck in comments
nvite users
udit trail
ecent changes
ersion history

10. Sweet spot?
• High value documents (looming deadlines: even better)
• Document written/edited by > 1 person,
so merging copies is a pain
• Using Alfresco 3.1 Enterprise or Labs 3d, or later
• Most (not necessarily all) users on Word 2007

11. Under the hood – future*
Alfresco repository
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Sharepoint
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Plutext
CMIS
AMP
C# VSTO Word Add-In
Web WebDAV
Services
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Java Swing App
Web browser * This page contains forward looking statements (which will probably largely pan out)

12. Part 2:
INLINE EDITING

13. Alfresco can give you a preview of a docx

14. How did we do that?
• Labs (current svn tip = r14939), with
– OpenOffice 3.1
– pdf2swf
• api/node/noderef/content/thumbnails/webpreview does
what it should, as long as web-preview.js invokes it
• need node.previews to include “webpreview”
so Alfresco.WebPreview gets that value.
(.. I just hard coded it in web-preview.get.html.ftl )

15. .. however this is not inline editable
• There are a number of solutions around for editing documents in
the web browser, including:
– Google Docs
– Zoho
• The problem with these is that:
– On load (import), they convert your Office document to their own internal
format, and
– On save (export), they convert it back to the Microsoft format
Result: two conversions; many documents will lose formatting or their “in-
process” state. (This is why OpenOffice never displaced M$ Office)
• Key Requirement: an inline editor’s native format needs to be
Microsoft’s “Open XML” Office format – now an ISO standard.
This is the only way to ensure nothing gets lost!

16. At the SF meetup, I demo’d simple inline editing in the Explorer (JSF)
client. This uses Javascript in the browser to manipulate the raw OpenXML
DOM.
See my post “HOW-TO add an inline editor” in the Alfresco forums for the
steps needed to add an inline editor to Alfresco.

17. Here is docx4all – our Swing app - performing the same role (running as an
applet in the browser, and using WebDAV GET/PUT to load/save)

18. Aside – alt-drag to liberate the applet!

19. You can have a wiki of docx documents
Ingredients:
• Display docx inline in web browser
• Edit inline
• Hyperlinks:
– Click to follow
– Creating one (via the browser or Word) creates target docx (if nec)
Why?
• Knowledge workers can publish Office documents directly to the
wiki, and edit them any conversions
• Cut/paste wiki content into new documents, without loss of
formatting
• No need to learn new editing tools
– Create/edit wiki pages in Word 2007 (or your web browser)
• A single standard for corporate document formats
– Open XML ISO standard documents

20. Feedback please!
Please let me know which bits you think would be most useful.
jason@plutext.org
Thanks!
-------------------------
• Blog: http://dev.plutext.org/blog
• Collaboration test drive: http://alpha.plutext.org/alfresco/register.html
• Docx4j download, forums: http://dev.plutext.org/
• Docx4all: http://dev.plutext.org/trac/docx4all/wiki/Collaboration
• Twitter: jasonharrop