Need a Point to the right direction!

lanjoky

Is there any way (php function or otherwise) to access the contents of a word file (.doc) when microsoft word is not loaded on the web server. Any help you guys can provide would be greatly appreciated!!

Thanks in advance!

goldbug

Looking at this: http://www.devshed.com/Server_Side/PHP/PHPandCOM/page5.html
It seems you might have to have word installed in order to be able to (fully) access the COM object. Dunno of any other way tho. Surely there is someone out there who does 🙂

lanjoky

I beleive .... though I am not positive... to use a com object with word ... word has to be installed on the machine .... but my webserver is an oracle / unix machine and cant run word ... hence my movement away from com objects .... but I appreciate the article as it came in handy for another little project I am working on 😃 ....

I have been searching high and low and cant find out how to access the content of a word document with out using com objects and therefoer having word loaded on the machine ... it just doesnt seem logical that there is no way of accomplishing this ... surely there has to be some sort of way!

Thanks again for you response goldbug .... Anyone else got any suggestions on how to handel this?

Weedpacket

Maybe someone's written a Word document reader that runs on Un*x systems, that could be used to extract the text - it would save the effort of parsing the document format yourself 🙂.

At Sourceforge there's a Proprietary Document Handling System project which would be nice (generates PostScript text), but appears to be totally moribund 🙁. But the principle of what I mean is there.
[edit: Debian distros appear to have something called antiword. Also found at Sourceforge word2x]

lanjoky

Thanks weed will look into that stuff and see what I can find 😃 ...

lanjoky

One problem I find is that in using these Apps I somehow have to get them installed on the machine ... Though I am not positive ... I would doubt that a commercial host would allow me to do this ... How would you go about "parsing the page formation" is there a reference somewhere I can refer to?

Thanks for the help .... really appreciate it!

Weedpacket

Originally posted by lanjoky
"parsing the page formation" is there a reference somewhere I can refer to?

I know of Wotsit.org; dunno how current their MS Word info is (much tends to be reverse-engineered).

lanjoky

Thanks Weed