replace text in word file

Lets say I install word on the server -how would I approach this.

NOTE: the end user is dumb.

I will be creating a form for them to enter n the name, address and other fields which will populate the word template. this should then prompt them to download after they click submit.

The file can be saved and processed on the server but the end user should just have to fillin the fields and click submit and save.

Thanks for your insightful information

Do you have example of 3rd party products?

i'm curios as to why go this route?

Why not:
1) Have your form
2) Save the data to a db of some kind
3) Export the results of the recordset to a word document?

The word document is a letter template.

The letter template would be used on a site where people could use the the form will to fill out their personal details and address on the word document.

What you said is ok but how would i export the results of the recordset to the word document.?

have a link that says 'Export To Word'

something like:
<a href="/page.asp?export=word">Export To Word</a>

on the same page (page.asp)
at the top of the page:

expWord = request.querystring("export")
if expWord = "word" then
  Response.ContentType = "application/vnd.ms-word"
end if

I think I tired this and it ask me to install import features.

In addition, I think it give me an unformatted couriour font document.

Am I correct or is there another method?

you think?

have you tried like I showed?  (I've never had a problem with this method)

try what I said.  Put in the link on your page to link to iteslf with the querystring I posted...

if what I initially posted doesn't work try:

expWord = request.querystring("export")
if expWord = "word" then
   Response.Buffer = True
   Response.ContentType = "application/vnd.ms-word"
   Response.AddHeader "content-disposition", "inline; filename = ASP_Word_Doc.doc"  'you can change this filename to whatever you like
end if
'just make sure this is at the top of your page

on the code above, is the content stored as a varible?

strContent = "xxx" ?

i don't see strContent anywhere in this entire thread

have you tried what I have suggested yet?  (or are we just wasting time here?)

I've tried somethign like this.

It prompts you to save the page and you select "All files" and change the extension.

After that you go and open the file and the content from that page is in the doc and unformatted.

I need to use the original Word template as it contains formatting.


Regards,

ok, since you aren't going to try the solutions (which do work...especially the second one), I do feel you are wasting our time now.

Good Luck to you...I'm done

i see what goes on now.

I'm adding in an export to word/excel/pdf to a time card application I'm building.

I notice that if I have this:
 Response.AddHeader "content-disposition", "inline; filename = ASP_Word_Doc.doc"

the formatting stays, however once I make it an attachment ( Response.AddHeader "content-disposition", "attachment; filename = ASP_Word_Doc.doc" )

I lose the formatting.  What I ended up doing was moving the needed styles to the page directly (CSS), rather than linking the CSS file, and whammo.  it worked

Your above code works, but how do I replace a field in there?

Lets says <FIRSTNAME> in doc with request.form("firstname") from a form?

ok, what you should be doing is adding this code to the page that processes the form, not on the form page itself.

so if you have page1.asp which contains the form.  You then click submit, and it goes to another page(page2.asp) which does the processing.  Process your form results as you wish, display the results, then Have the code on that page to export the results to word

(this is what I said originally in my first post)

I can increase the points to 500 if you can supply/alter the code below.

Lets say in my word document has soem text in it <NAME> - I want to replace it with my form field "name" as below.

If I use:

form.asp
<form action="process.asp?export=word" method="post">
<input type="name">
<input type="submit">
</form>

process.asp
<%
expWord = request.querystring("export")
if expWord = "word" then
   Response.Buffer = True
   Response.ContentType = "application/vnd.ms-word"
   Response.AddHeader "content-disposition", "inline; filename = ASP_Word_Doc.doc"  'you can change this filename to whatever you like
end if
%>

Thanks.

form.asp
<form action="process.asp" method="post">
<input type="text" name="FieldName">
<input type="submit">
</form>

process.asp
<%
expWord = request.querystring("export")
if expWord = "word" then
   Response.Buffer = True
   Response.ContentType = "application/vnd.ms-word"
   Response.AddHeader "content-disposition", "attachment; filename = ASP_Word_Doc.doc"  'you can change this filename to whatever you like, also change this to inline if you want to make the browser attempt to open it first
end if
strFieldName = replace(request.form("FieldName"),"'","''")
response.write("<a href='/process.asp?expWord=word'>" & strFieldName & "</a>")
%>

Hi Kev,

I don't see how the above code will swap the form field "Name" with the text "<NAME>" in the word document but i'll give it a try.

All I see ti doing is putting the name in the link.

Regards,

sorry.

do this instead.  Keep form.asp the way I posted.

make process.asp

<%
   Response.Buffer = True
   response.write(replace(request.form("FieldName"),"'","''"))
   Response.ContentType = "application/vnd.ms-word"
   Response.AddHeader "content-disposition", "attachment; filename = ASP_Word_Doc.doc"  'you can change this filename to whatever you like, also change this to inline if you want to make the browser attempt to open it first
%>

instead

@kevp75, I think what happened is:
1) There is an _existing_ Word document written by user and then saved at web server machine, e.g as C:\template.doc
2) Inside template.doc, there is a word "<NAME>" serving as a place holder, i.e. similar to mail-merge operation
3) mrduckers want to generate a _new_ Word document which is basically a copy of template.doc, but with modified content, i.e. replacing "<NAME>" with "John Doe".

As it has been pointed in several occassions, the code you've given doesn't deal with any existing Word document serving as a template. If I may guess, your idea is to keep/have the template not in an existing Word document but rather in HTML/ASP code.

If the existing Word document is a must, as thefritterfatboy mentioned, it can be done by automating Word application via COM.

very true gete, and it is a good possibility.

though my whole point with it,was to prevent him/her from having to go out and buy word so he/she cn install it on the server

if what gete states is true mrduckers, than you would have to go and make sure word is installed on the server, then give IUSR_machinename read write access to the folder that contains the word document, and follow the fritterfatboy's suggestions

If you need the documents to be Office 2000 friendly, then you will need to install Word on the server. (If this is the case - install Word 2000 - it is much less resource-intesive than Word 2003.)

If you are pretty sure your users will be using Word 2003 (as i suspect most users are), then you can create word documents in XML, as suggested earlier. Microsoft are very keen on developers using XML to create / edit documents on the fly as it is future proof. (We all remember the 1997 - 2000 file format change which caused a lot of problems!) This decision, on paper, is the better option. But obviously you need to consider the real world aspects of your system and whether you need Office 2000 compatability.

Post back once you have made a decision and we can help you through your code to get it working.

I'm not too keen on installing Word on the server as it might effect our other sites/clients.

This doesn't leave too many options right?

Does this mean I need to find a 3rd party component?

no.  It means you need to try what I've been posting this entire thread.

I've given you the answer, now you need to try it out and tell us the results:

form.asp
<form action="process.asp" method="post">
<input type="text" name="FieldName">
<input type="submit">
</form>



process.asp
<%
   Response.Buffer = True
   response.write(replace(request.form("FieldName"),"'","''"))
   Response.ContentType = "application/vnd.ms-word"
   Response.AddHeader "content-disposition", "attachment; filename = ASP_Word_Doc.doc"  'you can change this filename to whatever you like, also change this to inline if you want to make the browser attempt to open it first
%>

Hi Kev,

I already tried this yesterday. The above code doesn't do anything apart from ask me to save the file.

I needed to replace some copy in the word document.

Regards,

I don't mean to be rude.... but why are you trying to do this with ASP?  Why not just open a copy of the document and do a find/replace?  That's what we always used to do with placeholders.  

This is a bit like trying to design a robot to crush the bug in front of you.  It will cost you a substantial amount of time and energy when you could just step on it and be done.

The macro capability in word is pretty incredible.  

That said, Word is pretty much a proprietary file format and unless you rever to saving things as text you are going to eventually find unexpected events (surprises).

If you do store things in text files, then use the file i/o stuff to read a line and write a line.  Read from your template and write to the new file.  Just do a replace command on each line as you read and write it.  This is fast and efficient.  You are still stretching what ASP is for and it will punish you dearly for it with server performance and timeouts.

I'd actually also suggest looking at writing a VB app for this.  This is a classic OLE/OLAP application and auto-generating documents would be quicker in a VB app that was standalone.  Although, frankly the 20 cent solution here is a macro of a find/replace.

If you have *alot* of these you could switch it to a mail merge and specify the output as a new document.

The tool is a only respoitory of documents, manuals and some word document email templates.

From the tool the "client" wants to make things as easy as possible. Eg. populating the word document with the persons details.

I have suggested doign this through macros, but a person word security settings may be too high, and the client thinks the end user it too dumb to turn off.

Nevertheless, I don't think this is acheivable through ASP.


Regards,

UGH.... it may be achievable but a huge PIA (pain in the a)))

Why not store the links to the documents in a DB and just make it easy to find stuff that is a template.

I think Macros are the 30 minute solution.


I did find this when I googled...
http://www.powergrep.com/msword.html

Grep for MS-Word.  You might be able to run it under the covers either on the client side or the server side.

In either case, ASPupload will take some headache out of the file side.  I use it to "replicate" master documents (PDFs) to client specific folders as part of a ASP based process.

so what I would do is have the templates in a safe place.

Have the user "kick-off" the process.
Display some pretty graphics for them.
use Asp Upload to make a copy of the file.
store the filename in SQL.
Call a stored procedure in sql to do your command line dirty work.
Display the results of your "web process" to the user.

Get a coke and enjoy a laugh.... :)

I think security limitations will choke you trying to run command line processes from ASP.  So I'm suggesting circumventing that with SQL Server.  I know you can call all sorts of stuff through stored procedures.

You could also write the stuff to a file and then have a 5 minute job that runs whatever is in the queue (or a 2 minute timer)
and just have the pretty graphics animate for a few minutes and then go look for the result file.  

lol, kick it out to batch, display graphics for 30 seconds, check for file, if done display, else display graphics for 30 more seconds.

Let me know if that helps.

Kev,

Surely the correct order sould be;

process.asp
<%
   szHTML = "<html>My name is <NAME><!-- you can create / save a Word document in HTML. Either put the string here, or load the string from a file --></html>"
   Response.Buffer = True
   Response.ContentType = "application/vnd.ms-word"
   Response.AddHeader "content-disposition", "attachment; filename = ASP_Word_Doc.doc"  'you can change this filename to whatever you like, also change this to inline if you want to make the browser attempt to open it first
   response.write(replace(szHTML,"<NAME>", request.form("name")))

%>

@thefritterfatboy

it may be, but being frustrated as I was  (with all the "I think that won't wotk's") from the questioner, I tried it out exactly how I posted it, and it worked for me...

@the questioner
it's not a good idea to force the document to open in any circumstance, however if you read the comment I put in after the Response.AddHeader line you will see that I mentioned to change the attachment portion of that to inline....

since the answer is in front of your face, and since you are un-willing to do anything other than say "I think that won't work", it is obvious you are one of those people who won't take a suggestion because you are always right and everyone else on the planet is wrong.....good luck to you, hope you can figure it out on your own

Kev, I'm gonna have to agree with ntjock on this one. I think a sense of professionalism needs to be re-introduced into this thread.