How to generate a word docx from a template with PHP ?

Hey folks,

A lot of clients of mine asked for docx generation in the past.

The only solution that I knew of in PHP is the SOAP client phplivedocx.

first of all It was kinda slow and I didn’t want to relly on a service and more importantly It was missing the “nested block” feature.

So I decided to create my own class !

Have fun & fork me if you need another feature !

http://github.com/djpate/docxgen

DOCXGEN

Features

Create valid docx based on a template
Nested blocks on infinite levels

How to create your template

Simply open up word 2007+

If you want to map a single field you can just use #NAME# but you could use anything you like since it’s just a search & replace

To create a block

[start blockname] your content [start somenestedblock] [end somenestedblock] [end blockname]

blockname should be unique
blockname has to match w+ reg ex (a-zA-Z_)
fields mapped in block has to be unique

Please check out full template in the repo

How to setup

require("phpDocx.php"); $phpdocx = new phpdocx("mytemplate.docx");

How to assign values

$phpdocx->assign("#TITLE1#","Hello !"); // basic field mapping $phpdocx->assignBlock("members",array(array("#NAME#"=>"John","#SURNAME#"=>"DOE"),array("#NAME#"=>"Jane","#SURNAME#"=>"DOE"))); // this would replicate two members block with the associated values $phpdocx->assignNestedBlock("pets",array("#PETNAME#"=>"Rex"),array("members"=>1)); // would create a block pets for john doe with the name rex $phpdocx->assignNestedBlock("pets",array("#PETNAME#"=>"Rox"),array("members"=>2)); // would create a block pets for jane doe with the name rox $phpdocx->assignNestedBlock("toys",array("#TOYNAME#"=>"Ball"),array("members"=>1,"pets"=>1)); // would create a block toy for rex $phpdocx->assignNestedBlock("toys",array("#TOYNAME#"=>"Frisbee"),array("members"=>2,"pets"=>1)); // would create a block toy for rox

How to save

$phpdocx->save("somefile.docx");

More info

Why this pclzip ?

I’m using pclzip for the zip process because the zip utility provided with php can cause issue with office

What’s the licence ?

GPL

Anything else ?

I’m using three function from the TBS library so congrats to them

This entry was posted by Christophe Verbinnen on May 18, 2011 at 2:44 pm, and is filed under PHP, Uncategorized. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

21 comments

Benoît (95 days)

About your problem to add image, i resolved the problem with these steps:
1- Declare in template docx image file with name FILE.png
2- Define docx object and add parameter with assignNestedBlock or assignBlock:
$phpdocx->assignNestedBlock(“imgmodels”,array(array(“FILE.png”=>”$entry”)),array(“files”=>1));
3- Add the image in media/ directory by using:
$phpdocx->addImage(“$entry”,$dir . “/” . $entry);

For that, i modified your class in assignNestedBlock() and assignBlock() functions by adding the following lines:
foreach($row as $id => $val){
# If Id is image, it gets the reference id to be replaced by the value
if (preg_match(“/img/”,$blockname)) {
if (preg_match(“/name=\”$id\”.+r:embed=\”(\S+)\” cstate=\”print\”/”,$current_block,$matcharray)) {
$id = $matcharray[1];
// The keyword phpdocx_ is added by addImage function
$val = “phpdocx_” . $val;
}
$current_block = str_replace(“\”$id\”",”\”" . $this->filter($val) . “\”",$current_block);
} else {
$current_block = str_replace($id,$this->filter($val),$current_block);
}
}

Thanks
Benoît

Reply ↓
- Christophe Verbinnen (91 days)
  
  can you do a pull request on github?
Benoît (95 days)

Hello,
Thanks very much for your class !

I need to customize header then i modify the class with the following line:
Save() function:
$this->content = file_get_contents($this->tmpDir.”/word/document.xml”);
// Parameters can be used in header
$this->header = file_get_contents($this->tmpDir.”/word/header1.xml”);
$this->clean();

$this->content = $this->parseBlocks($this->content);

foreach($this->assigned_field as $field => $value){
$this->content = str_replace($field,$value,$this->content);
$this->header = str_replace($field,$value,$this->header);
}

compact() function:
file_put_contents($this->tmpDir.”/word/header1.xml”,$this->header);

Thanks !
Benoît

Reply ↓
Penni (134 days)

Great!! This is a tool, which I’ve been looking for days!
I hope, you’re still active in this project?
Well, I’ve got a problem with the german Umlauts. I cannot create any files with ä,ö or ü in it, because Word tells me there’s a problem in the docx file content. Do you know how I can fix it?

Reply ↓
Marco Sillano (185 days)

Good work!
I make a port of phpdocx for odt (Open Office) documents, and i built on top some interface stuff to mySQL.
The resulting class is otdphpsql.php, and that class allows to add, delete, modify reports at run time only using a DB table.
Hope this will be util.

Reply ↓
- Christophe Verbinnen (184 days)
  
  Nice work !
H (185 days)

How do i add a page break? I am creating letters and each letter must be on a seperate page. How can i achieve this?

Reply ↓
rencontres (200 days)

Nice, thanks !!

Reply ↓
Rafael Ramos (228 days)

It’s buggy when you insert a block or nested blocks with a lot of information… I don’t know if its phpdocx or pclzip :s… any ideas???

Reply ↓
João (236 days)

Hello,

Your script could allow entering text in the file. without making comparisons with text already on the file

Insert text at the beginning .. the end .. in the middle …

it was very good:)

Reply ↓
Cruiz (249 days)

And simply, why don’t use the real PHPdocx?

http://www.phpdocx.com

Greetings

Reply ↓
GerarD (328 days)

Hi there..!.. this is working really good.!.. I hope u get done the img feature soon.. =)..

Reply ↓
- Christophe Verbinnen (326 days)
  
  I started working on it but for some reason it’s not working I’m investigating…
Alan Hart (329 days)

This looks a lot simpler than Livedocx – I might give it a go. Thanks for creating it.

What happens if you create a table and put [start blockname] in the cell at the start of a row, and [end blockname] in the next row of the table?

Can you use this technique to create a variable number of table rows? And do the block control [phrases] have to appear in a line all on their own?

Thanks

Alan

Reply ↓
GerarD (362 days)

Nevermind, Must be a typo on my template or my code cuz’ today is working fine =)…

Thanks a lot for the new Download Method… hope you could finish the images method this week… I’ll be following your progress in github..

Good luck and Good Day sir.. =)

Reply ↓
GerarD (362 days)

Nice man.!.. Thanks a lot. I really love this class… And is nice to know that your working on it.. =)

BTW, there’s a problem with the assignblock. When i use two blocks, works fine, but when i need more than 2 it just throws a warning: “Undefined index: bloquec”…
Don’t know if it’s just me, or is a bug but would be nice to check it out…

Reply ↓
- Christophe Verbinnen (362 days)
  
  Could you start an issue on github so I can check it out.
  I need your template and your code
GerarD (363 days)

Will love to know how to add imgs to my doc… =(

Reply ↓
- Christophe Verbinnen (363 days)
  
  I’ll try to add this feature on monday. I just checked and it shouldn’t be too hard to impletement….
- x6f6b (345 days)
  
  good work!
  any progress on the adding image feature yet?
- Christophe Verbinnen (345 days)
  
  I’ve been kinda of busy but will try to give it a go soon !