Khairul's MS-WORD script

jesperdn

Hi there.. I'm trying to make Khairul's script work but it keeps failing.

http://www.phpbuilder.com/columns/yunus20031124.php3

I'm not quite sure under which circumstances the script actually works 🙂 but the scenario I'm trying is where the Word template is located on the server (and not the c-drive) and then it is supposed to open up the clients Word and show the contents (for editing/saving/printing/etc. in Word)

At the moment, the script fails in these lines.

$template_file = "Skabelon.doc";

$word->Documents->Open($template_file);

The script is probably not meant to open documents serverside so how to proceed? Can anyone help? 😃

Weedpacket

I'm sorry? The script is intended to connect to the copy of Word running on the server, open that, and do its stuff there on the server. Not the copy of Word running on the client (which stands a good chance of not existing, and even if it did, being able to open it from the server would represent a hideously large security hole).

If you want the client to open a Word file, just send it to them ([man]fpassthru[/man], probably), under a Content-Type: header of application/msword.

Let the client deal with it in its own way.

jesperdn

Hmm, okay.. The script runs on a secure intranet though and all client do have MS-Word installed. But it sounds like there probably is a better way of doing it..

By using the fpassthru function you mention - does that allow me to manipulate with the contents of the doc-file before the user recieves it?

Thanks for helping, by the way 🙂

jesperdn

Just to elaborate.. 🙂

I need to chance some numbers and dates within the document and then let the client open it.

For instance in such a way that when a user clicks a button on the webpage he or she is prompted with the "Open/SaveAs/Cancel/etc." dialogbox and from there the user is supposed to click "Open" - so it does not matter that it opens a temp-file located on the client.

Weedpacket

I reckon so; fpassthru (or readfile) will take a file and shovel it out to the client. If this will be at all busy (and it's safe to assume that it is) then you'll want to:

Generate a temporary filename (I forget the name of the function that does this).
Create the Word document and save it in a suitable directory on the server under this name.
Send the Content-Type: header to the client and follow it with a suitable call to readfile or fpassthru. You'll probably also want to add other headers to specify the proper name for the file, otherwise the client will use the wrong one.
Delete the temporary file.