PHP COM MS Word Application

[Downugo]

This is my first post here - yay! This is my function that I am calling (just passing test arguments):

function makeDoc($name,$content){
    // starting word
    $word = new COM("word.application") or die("Unable to instantiate Word");
    echo "Loaded Word, version {$word->Version}\n";
 
    //bring it to front
    $word->Visible = 1;
 
    //open an empty document
    $word->Documents->Add();
 
    //do some weird stuff
    $word->Selection->TypeText("This is a test document. Your name is $name and you said: $content");
    $word->Documents[1]->SaveAs("test.doc");
 
    //closing word
    $word->Quit();
 
    //free the object
    $word = null;
}
 

The output from the function is:

Loaded Word, version 12.0
Fatal error: Call to undefined method variant::SaveAs() in C:\wamp\www\...\docgen.php on line 93

Also, I'm assuming that you must have Word installed on the machine? That will be fine for my localhost, but will I also have to put Word on the server when the time comes?

Hey, thanks for your help!
- Scott

[Atli]

Hi Scott. Welcome to Bytes!

Firstly, the first index of a typical array is 0, so you would probably want to do:

$word->Documents[0]->SaveAs("test.doc");
 

Unless Microsoft somehow managed to mess that up as well.

Also, I'm assuming that you must have Word installed on the machine? That will be fine for my localhost, but will I also have to put Word on the server when the time comes?

To use this COM object on any server, that server will have to be running Windows, and it has to have Word installed.

[Downugo]

Thanks Atli,

I changed line 93 (now line 95, or line 14 from the snippet in my first post) so it now reads:

$word->Documents[0]->SaveAs("test.doc");

I thought it was strange that it was accessing the second element of the array.

Now when I call the function (on my local machine still) I get this:

Loaded Word, version 12.0
Fatal error: Uncaught exception 'com_exception' with message '<b>Source:</b> Microsoft Word<br/><b>Description:</b> The requested member of the collection does not exist.' in C:\wamp\www\...\docgen.php:95 Stack trace: #0 C:\wamp\www\...\docgen.php(95): makedoc() #1 C:\wamp\www\...\docgen.php(25): makedoc('Scott', 'Time for winter.') #2 {main} thrown in C:\wamp\www\...\docgen.php on line 95

Just in case it's relevant line 25 reads: makedoc("Scott","Time for winter."); which is just where the function is called from.

What can I fix?

Thanks again,
- Scott

[pbmods]

Heya, Scott.

I looked over the PHP manual page for COM (http://php.net/manual/class.com.php), and I noticed a snippet about 3/4 of the way through the comments that used ActiveDocument instead of Documents[1].

Worth a try....

$word->ActiveDocument->SaveAs(...);
 

[Downugo]

Hey thanks pbmods, that is an awesome suggestions, and to me makes more sense the way you have suggested. After I made the change from

$word->Documents[1]->SaveAs("test.doc");

to

$word->ActiveDocument->SaveAs("test.doc");

it gave me a time a timeout error. When I added set_time_limit(0); at the first of the function and set_time_limit(30); at the end of the function it fixed the timeout error.

Now when I run it (on my localhost still) I get this:

Fatal error: Uncaught exception 'com_exception' with message 'Failed to create COM object `word.application': Server execution failed ' in C:\wamp\www\...\docgen.php:90 Stack trace: #0 C:\wamp\www\...\docgen.php(90): com->com('word.applicatio...') #1 C:\wamp\www\...\docgen.php(29): makedoc('Scott', 'Time for winter.') #2 {main} thrown in C:\wamp\www\...\docgen.php on line 90

Thanks for your help! It shouldn't be this hard! Ha ha.

[pbmods]

Which line is line 90?

[Downugo]

That is the line:

$word = new COM("word.application") or die("Unable to instantiate Word");

[pbmods]

From what I can find from searching the web, it doesn't look like there's a problem with your code. My guess is that it either the COM extension or Microsoft Word is not behaving properly

I'd try reinstalling (upgrading if applicable) PHP and/or Word on your server and see if that helps.

[Downugo]

Hey thanks, that is a great suggestion. I've been staring at the code and looking everywhere for examples and the code looks fine to me. It must be something in the configuration of either word or the configuration of php. I'll look into things further from both of those suggestions. Thanks!

[sukhvir13]

after all i am having error like
Fatal error: Uncaught exception 'com_exception' with message 'Unable to lookup `ActiveDocuments': Unknown name. ' in C:\wamp\www\New Folder\index.php:12 Stack trace: #0 C:\wamp\www\New Folder\index.php(12): unknown() #1 {main} thrown in C:\wamp\www\New Folder\index.php on line 12


and on line 12...$word->ActiveDocuments[0]->SaveAs("Uselesstest.doc");

[sukhvir13]

I written this code...

<?php
$word = new COM("word.application") or die ("Could not initialise MS Word object.");
$word->ActiveDocument->Open("doc1.doc");
// Extract content.
$content = (string) $word->ActiveDocument->Content;
echo $content;
$word->ActiveDocument->Close(false);
$word->Quit();
$word = null;
unset($word);
?>

but it shows following error please help


Fatal error: Uncaught exception 'com_exception' with message '<b>Source:</b> Microsoft Word<br/><b>Description:</b> This command is not available because no document is open.' in C:\wamp\www\New Folder\index.php:3 Stack trace: #0 C:\wamp\www\New Folder\index.php(3): unknown() #1 {main} thrown in C:\wamp\www\New Folder\index.php on line 3

[pbmods]

Heya, sukhvir13.

Try $word->Documents->Open() instead of $word->ActiveDocument.

If that doesn't work, you might be able to get by with $word->Documents->Add() and then $word->ActiveDocument->open().

There might be more info here:
http://php.net/com

[saimhe]

I had similar problems with some (but not all) methods being undefined. Final solution: "[x] Allow to interact with the desktop" among the properties of the Apache service. A real user instead of SYSTEM might also work.

[lgd1019]

Did you solve the problem? I also met the same problem