Introduction
In this article I explain how to create a Word document file by PHP. A document file is created using HTTP headers. This is very simple and useful in PHP when the user opens a PHP application in a Word document then you can use that and easily create a document file using PHP but this file is not a pure document file but certainly it can be opened in a document application.
Example
<?php
//header part
header("Content-type: application/vinod.ms-word");
header("Content-Disposition: attachment;Filename=MCN.doc");
//starting html tag
echo "<html>";
echo "<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=Windows-1252\">";
//body part start here
echo "<body>";
//print the content
echo "<b>This is my first document created by PHP</b>";
echo "</body>";
//end html tag
echo "</html>";
?>
Output
For opening and saving a document:
![mysqli1.jpg]()
This document file you can only read, not write, the file.
![mysqli2.jpg]()
In the next example I will explain a document file with a COM object. Here COM only works in Windows and COM functions are only available for the Windows version of PHP. First a Word document is saved then is sent the browser to be read. In this example I will use the "sys_get_temp_dir()" function; this function returns a directory path used for a temp directory.
Example 1
<?php
$doc = new Com("word.application");
$doc->Visible =0;
$doc->document->Add();
// set here page margins
$doc->selection->pageSetup->leftMargin = '2';
$doc->selection->pageSetup->rightMargin = '2';
//settings your font
$doc->selection->font->name = 'Arial';
$doc->selection->font->size = 10;
// here add text
$doc->selection->typeText("TEXT!");
// Save the doc file
$f_name = tempnam(sys_get_temp_dir(), "word");
$doc->document[1]->SaveAs($f_name);
$doc->quit();
unset($doc);
header("Content-type: application/vinod.ms-word");
header("Content-Disposition: attachment;Filename=MCN.doc");
readfile($f_name);
unlink($f_name);
?>
In the next example I will explain with a database. Such as:
Example 2
<?php
$con = new COM("ADODB.Connection") or die("Cannot start ADO");
$con->Open("Provider=SQLOLEDB; Data Source=localhost;
Initial Catalog=database; Username=root; Password=");
$rs = $con->Execute("SELECT * FROM courses");
$num_columns = $rs->Fields->Count();
echo $num_columns . "\n";
for ($i=0; $i < $num_columns; $i++) {
$fld[$i] = $rs->Fields($i);
}
$rowcount = 0;
while (!$rs->EOF) {
for ($i=0; $i < $num_columns; $i++) {
echo $fld[$i]->value . "\t";
}
echo "\n";
$rowcount++;
$rs->MoveNext();
}
$rs->Close();
$con->Close();
$rs = null;
$con = null;
?>