Reading file contents using C#

Question

I want to read the contents of following file types using C#:

1. RTF
2. PDF
3. HTML
4. MS Word

Is there any common API in .Net for reading all file type contents?

Answer 1

There is no built in support for reading most of those file types. HTML is plain text so you can use the System.IO/StreamReader to read it, but you must parse it yourself.

There are third party components which will read these file types, but I am not sure if there is one all encompassing component.

For PDFs, I believe iTextSharp allows you to read.

For RTF/Word, You can use the Primary Interop Assemblies

Answer 2

I've used Aspose before it's a very powerful product it's reasonably pricey so would only recommend it if your application also needs to create new word/pdf/rtf documents.

I agree with the other comments about just using System.IO for reading HTML files.