[php] Create Word Document using PHP in Linux

Whats the available solutions for PHP to create word document in linux environment?

There are 2 options to create quality word documents. Use COM to communicate with word (this requires a windows php server at least). Use openoffice and it's API to create and save documents in word format.

OpenOffice templates + OOo command line interface.

1. Create manually an ODT template with placeholders, like [%value-to-replace%]
2. When instantiating the template with real data in PHP, unzip the template ODT (it's a zipped XML), and run against the XML the textual replace of the placeholders with the actual values.
3. Zip the ODT back
4. Run the conversion ODT -> DOC via OpenOffice command line interface.

There are tools and libraries available to ease each of those steps.

May be that helps.

OpenTBS can create DOCX dynamic documents in PHP using the technique of templates.

No temporary files needed, no command lines, all in PHP.

It can add or delete pictures. The created document can be produced as a HTML download, a file saved on the server, or as binary contents in PHP.

It can also merge OpenDocument files (ODT, ODS, ODF, ...)

http://www.tinybutstrong.com/opentbs.php

Take a look at PHP COM documents (The comments are helpful) http://us3.php.net/com

The Apache project has a library called POI which can be used to generate MS Office files. It is a Java library but the advantage is that it can run on Linux with no trouble. This library has its limitations but it may do the job for you, and it's probably simpler to use than trying to run Word.

Another option would be OpenOffice but I can't exactly recommend it since I've never used it.

Following on Ivan Krechetov's answer, here is a function that does mail merge (actually just simple text replace) for docx and odt, without the need for an extra library.

function mailMerge($templateFile, $newFile, $row)
{
  if (!copy($templateFile, $newFile))  // make a duplicate so we dont overwrite the template
    return false; // could not duplicate template
  $zip = new ZipArchive();
  if ($zip->open($newFile, ZIPARCHIVE::CHECKCONS) !== TRUE)
    return false; // probably not a docx file
  $file = substr($templateFile, -4) == '.odt' ? 'content.xml' : 'word/document.xml';
  $data = $zip->getFromName($file);
  foreach ($row as $key => $value)
    $data = str_replace($key, $value, $data);
  $zip->deleteName($file);
  $zip->addFromString($file, $data);
  $zip->close();
  return true;
}

This will replace [Person Name] with Mina and [Person Last Name] with Mooo:

$replacements = array('[Person Name]' => 'Mina', '[Person Last Name]' => 'Mooo');
$newFile = tempnam_sfx(sys_get_temp_dir(), '.dat');
$templateName = 'personinfo.docx';
if (mailMerge($templateName, $newFile, $replacements))
{
  header('Content-type: application/msword');
  header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=' . $templateName);
  header('Accept-Ranges: bytes');
  header('Content-Length: '. filesize($file));
  readfile($newFile);
  unlink($newFile);
}

Beware that this function can corrupt the document if the string to replace is too general. Try to use verbose replacement strings like [Person Name].

<?php
function fWriteFile($sFileName,$sFileContent="No Data",$ROOT)
    {
        $word = new COM("word.application") or die("Unable to instantiate Word");
        //bring it to front
        $word->Visible = 1;
        //open an empty document
        $word->Documents->Add();
        //do some weird stuff
        $word->Selection->TypeText($sFileContent);
        $word->Documents[1]->SaveAs($ROOT."/".$sFileName.".doc");
        //closing word
        $word->Quit();
        //free the object
        $word = null;
        return $sFileName;
    }
?>



<?php
$PATH_ROOT=dirname(__FILE__);
$Return ="<table>";
$Return .="<tr><td>Row[0]</td></tr>";
 $Return .="<tr><td>Row[1]</td></tr>";
$sReturn .="</table>";
fWriteFile("test",$Return,$PATH_ROOT);
?> 

By far the easiest way to create DOC files on Linux, using PHP is with the Zend Framework component phpLiveDocx.

From the project web site:

"phpLiveDocx allows developers to generate documents by combining structured data from PHP with a template, created in a word processor. The resulting document can be saved as a PDF, DOCX, DOC or RTF file. The concept is the same as with mail-merge."

real Word documents

If you need to produce "real" Word documents you need a Windows-based web server and COM automation. I highly recommend Joel's article on this subject.

fake HTTP headers for tricking Word into opening raw HTML

A rather common (but unreliable) alternative is:

header("Content-type: application/vnd.ms-word");
header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=document_name.doc");

echo "<html>";
echo "<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=Windows-1252\">";
echo "<body>";
echo "<b>Fake word document</b>";
echo "</body>";
echo "</html>"

Make sure you don't use external stylesheets. Everything should be in the same file.

Note that this does not send an actual Word document. It merely tricks browsers into offering it as download and defaulting to a .doc file extension. Older versions of Word may often open this without any warning/security message, and just import the raw HTML into Word. PHP sending sending that misleading Content-Type header along does not constitute a real file format conversion.

PHPWord can generate Word documents in docx format. It can also use an existing .docx file as a template - template variables can be added to the document in the format ${varname}

It has an LGPL license and the examples that came with the code worked nicely for me.