<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<META http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<!--*** This is a generated file. Do not edit. ***-->
<link rel="stylesheet" href="../skin/tigris.css" type="text/css">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="../skin/mysite.css" type="text/css">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="../skin/site.css" type="text/css">
<link media="print" rel="stylesheet" href="../skin/print.css" type="text/css">
<title>Apache POI - HWPF - Java API to Handle Microsoft Word Files</title>
</head>
<body bgcolor="white" class="composite">
<!--================= start Banner ==================-->
<div id="banner">
<table width="100%" cellpadding="8" cellspacing="0" summary="banner" border="0">
<tbody>
<tr>
<!--================= start Group Logo ==================-->
<td width="50%" align="left">
<div class="groupLogo">
<a href="http://poi.apache.org"><img border="0" class="logoImage" alt="Apache POI" src="../resources/images/group-logo.jpg"></a>
</div>
</td>
<!--================= end Group Logo ==================-->
<!--================= start Project Logo ==================--><td width="50%" align="right">
<div align="right" class="projectLogo">
<a href="http://poi.apache.org/"><img border="0" class="logoImage" alt="POI" src="../resources/images/project-logo.jpg"></a>
</div>
</td>
<!--================= end Project Logo ==================-->
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>
<!--================= end Banner ==================-->
<!--================= start Main ==================-->
<table width="100%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" summary="nav" id="breadcrumbs">
<tbody>
<!--================= start Status ==================-->
<tr class="status">
<td>
<!--================= start BreadCrumb ==================--><a href="http://www.apache.org/">Apache</a> | <a href="http://poi.apache.org/">POI</a><a href=""></a>
<!--================= end BreadCrumb ==================--></td><td id="tabs">
<!--================= start Tabs ==================-->
<div class="tab">
<span class="selectedTab"><a class="base-selected" href="../index.html">Home</a></span> | <script language="Javascript" type="text/javascript">
function printit() {
if (window.print) {
window.print() ;
} else {
var WebBrowser = '<OBJECT ID="WebBrowser1" WIDTH="0" HEIGHT="0" CLASSID="CLSID:8856F961-340A-11D0-A96B-00C04FD705A2"></OBJECT>';
document.body.insertAdjacentHTML('beforeEnd', WebBrowser);
WebBrowser1.ExecWB(6, 2);//Use a 1 vs. a 2 for a prompting dialog box WebBrowser1.outerHTML = "";
}
}
</script><script language="Javascript" type="text/javascript">
var NS = (navigator.appName == "Netscape");
var VERSION = parseInt(navigator.appVersion);
if (VERSION > 3) {
document.write(' <a title="PRINT this page OUT" href="javascript:printit()">PRINT</a>');
}
</script> | <a title="PDF file of this page" href="index.pdf">PDF</a>
</div>
<!--================= end Tabs ==================-->
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<!--================= end Status ==================-->
<table id="main" width="100%" cellpadding="8" cellspacing="0" summary="" border="0">
<tbody>
<tr valign="top">
<!--================= start Menu ==================-->
<td id="leftcol">
<div id="navcolumn">
<div class="menuBar">
<div class="menu">
<span class="menuLabel">Apache POI</span>
<div class="menuItem">
<a href="../index.html">Top</a>
</div>
</div>
<div class="menu">
<span class="menuLabel">HWPF</span>
<div class="menuItem">
<span class="menuSelected">Overview</span>
</div>
<div class="menuItem">
<a href="quick-guide.html">Quick Guide</a>
</div>
<div class="menuItem">
<a href="docoverview.html">HWPF Format</a>
</div>
<div class="menuItem">
<a href="projectplan.html">HWPF Project plan</a>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<form target="_blank" action="http://www.google.com/search" method="get">
<table summary="search" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
<tr>
<td><img height="1" width="1" alt="" src="../skin/images/spacer.gif" class="spacer"></td><td nowrap="nowrap">
Search Apache POI<br>
<input value="poi.apache.org" name="sitesearch" type="hidden"><input size="10" name="q" id="query" type="text"><img height="1" width="5" alt="" src="../skin/images/spacer.gif" class="spacer"><input name="Search" value="GO" type="submit"></td><td><img height="1" width="1" alt="" src="../skin/images/spacer.gif" class="spacer"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="3"><img height="7" width="1" alt="" src="../skin/images/spacer.gif" class="spacer"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="bottom-left-thick"></td><td bgcolor="#a5b6c6"><img height="1" width="1" alt="" src="../skin/images/spacer.gif" class="spacer"></td><td class="bottom-right-thick"></td>
</tr>
</table>
</form>
</td>
<!--================= end Menu ==================-->
<!--================= start Content ==================--><td>
<div id="bodycol">
<div class="app">
<div align="center">
<h1>Apache POI - HWPF - Java API to Handle Microsoft Word Files</h1>
</div>
<div class="h3">
<a name="Overview"></a>
<div class="h3">
<h3>Overview</h3>
</div>
<p>HWPF is the name of our port of the Microsoft Word 97(-2007) file format
to pure Java. It also provides limited read only support for the older
Word 6 and Word 95 file formats.</p>
<p>The partner to HWPF for the new Word 2007 .docx format is <em>XWPF</em>.
Whilst HWPF and XWPF provide similar features, there is not a common
interface across the two of them at this time.</p>
<p>HWPF is still in early development. It is in the <a href="http://svn.apache.org/viewcvs.cgi/poi/trunk/src/scratchpad/">
scratchpad section of the SVN.</a> You will need to ensure you
either have a recent SVN checkout, or a recent SVN nightly build
(including the scratchpad jar!)</p>
<p>Source in the
<em>org.apache.poi.hwpf.model</em> tree is the old legacy code refactored
into an object model. Source code in the
<em>org.apache.poi.hwpf.extractor</em> tree is a wrapper of this to
facilitate easy extraction of interesting things (eg the Text).
Source code in the <em>org.apache.poi.hdf</em> tree is the old legacy
code.
</p>
<a name="XWPF+Patches+Required%21"></a>
<div class="h4">
<h4>XWPF Patches Required!</h4>
</div>
<p>At the moment, XWPF covers many common use cases for reading and writing
.docx files. Whilst this is a great thing, it does mean that XWPF does
everything that the current POI committers need it to do, and so none of
the committers are actively adding new features.</p>
<p>If you come across a feature in XWPF that you need, and isn't currently
there, please do send in a patch to add the extra functionality! More details
on contributing patches are available on the <a href="../guidelines.html">"Contribution to POI" page</a>.</p>
<a name="HWPF+Pointman+Needed%21"></a>
<div class="h4">
<h4>HWPF Pointman Needed!</h4>
</div>
<p>At the moment we unfortunately do not have someone taking care for HWPF
and fostering its development. What we need is someone to stand up, take
this thing under his hood as his baby and push it forward. Ryan Ackley,
who put a lot of effort into HWPF, is no longer on board, so HWPF is an
orphan child waiting to be adopted.</p>
<p>If <strong>you</strong> are interested in becoming the new HWPF
pointman, you should look into the Microsoft Word internals. A good
starting point seems to be Ryan Ackley's <a href="docoverview.html">overview</a>. Full details on the word format
is available from
<a href="http://www.microsoft.com/interop/docs/OfficeBinaryFormats.mspx">Microsoft</a>,
but the documentation can be a little hard to get into at first... Try reading the
<a href="docoverview.html">overview</a> first, and looking at the existing
code, then finally look up the documentation for specific missing features.</p>
<p>As a first step you should familiarize yourself with the source code,
examples, test cases, and the HWPF patches available at <a href="http://issues.apache.org/">Bugzilla</a> (if any). Then you
should compile an overview of</p>
<ul>
<li>the current HWPF status,</li>
<li>the patches in <a href="http://issues.apache.org/bugzilla/">Bugzilla</a> to be checked
in (and those that should better be ditched),</li>
<li>the available test cases and the test cases still to be written,</li>
<li>the available documentation and the docs to be written,</li>
<li>anything else that seems reasonable</li>
</ul>
<p>When you start coding, you will not yet have write access to the
SVN repository. Please submit your patches to <a href="http://issues.apache.org/">Bugzilla</a> and nag <a href="mailto:dev@poi.apache.org">the dev list</a> until someone commits
them. Besides the actual checking in of HWPF patches, current POI
committers will also do some minor reviews now and then of your source code
patches, test cases and documentation to help ensure software quality. But
most of the time you will be on your own. However, anyone offering useful
contributions over a period of time will be offered committership!</p>
<p>Please do not forget to write <a href="http://www.junit.org/">JUnit</a> test cases and documentation!
We won't accept code that doesn't come with test cases. And please
consider that other contributors should be able to understand your source
code easily. If you need any help getting started with JUnit test cases
for HWPF, please ask on the developers' mailing list! If you show that you
are prepared to stick at it you will most likely be given SVN commit
access. See <a href="../guidelines.html">"Contribution to POI" page</a>
for more details and help getting started.</p>
<p>Of course we will help you as best as we can. However, presently there
is no committer who is really familiar with the Word format, so you'll be
mostly on your own. We are looking forward for you and your contributions!
Honor and glory of becoming a POI committer are waiting!</p>
<div id="authors" align="right">by Nicola Ken Barozzi, Andrew C. Oliver, Ryan Ackley, Rainer Klute</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</td>
<!--================= end Content ==================-->
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<!--================= end Main ==================-->
<!--================= start Footer ==================-->
<div id="footer">
<table summary="footer" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="4" width="100%" border="0">
<tbody>
<tr>
<!--================= start Copyright ==================-->
<td colspan="2">
<div align="center">
<div class="copyright">
Copyright © 2002-2011 The Apache Software Foundation. All rights reserved.<br>
Apache POI, POI, Apache, the Apache feather logo, and the Apache
POI project logo are trademarks of The Apache Software Foundation.
</div>
</div>
</td>
<!--================= end Copyright ==================-->
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left">
<!--================= start Host ==================-->
<!--================= end Host ==================--></td><td align="right">
<!--================= start Credits ==================-->
<div align="right">
<div class="credit">
<a href="http://validator.w3.org/check/referer"><img width="88" height="31" alt="Valid HTML 4.01!" src="../skin/images/valid-html401.png" class="logoImage"></a><a href="http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/"><img width="88" height="31" alt="Valid CSS!" src="../skin/images/vcss.png" class="logoImage"></a><a href="http://forrest.apache.org/"><img border="0" class="logoImage" alt="Built with Apache Forrest" src="../skin/images/built-with-forrest-button.png" width="88" height="31"></a>
</div>
</div>
<!--================= end Credits ==================-->
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>
<!--================= end Footer ==================-->
</body>
</html>
