Parsing/edition docx file with PHP - php

Question

I've been asked to write a php script that should read/parse a docx file and do some operations such as duplicate a specific paragraph/table and fill-in some variables (#myvar or $myvar) with values.
What do you guys recommand, use the word/document.xml file directly or convert the whole document to an HTML file and then parse it using DOM(I don't like this solution :( )?
the structure of the docx to parse is not defined yet, it's my job to do that ! And it has to be as general as possible.
To have a clear idea about what I'm doing, the docx file is a CV model that I have to fill-in with data from DB.
P.S: I don't know how to efficiently parse/modify the XML file using Xquery since the only solution I have is to use variables (plain text with $ or #..) inside that docx
thanks for your help :)

Answer 1

There are 2 major PHP libraries able to create Word documents. Here's a description of features from both that might help you solve your problem:
PHPWord (opensource) - allows to load template documents and replace values... take a look at this example in library's source code, maybe you can define a CV template and use this to work a solution out;
PHPDocX (free with basic features, paid for more advanced features) - allows templates and search and replace of content in documents (probably only in paid versions though).

Answer 2

This is a old question, but I thought I give some pointers as I have been struggling with this for some time and have ended up writing my own package at github: wrklst/docxmustache.
Here are some solutions I know of:
Free solutions:
https://github.com/PHPOffice/PHPWord (as mentioned above, cumbersome and not very capable)
http://www.tinybutstrong.com/opentbs.php (works but is highly cumbersome, also introduces a lot of security issues if you plan to allow user supplied templates)
Partially Free and Paid:
https://www.phpdocx.com
http://www.docxpresso.com (looks like one of the more complete solutions to me, at 199 eur for a server license its not too expensive either)
https://modules.docxtemplater.com
I worked with opentbs quite a bit but I am not happy with it and I am currently trying to evaluate to write my own solution that is more geared to my specific needs. Generally you need:
- A zip calss to unzip/rezip the docx file
- A template engine to replace values, I am using mustache (https://github.com/bobthecow/mustache.php)
- If you are planning to replace images as well you need to more advanced file, reference and xml handling. Php's SimpleXMLElement should be sufficient to handle all the xml manipulation.
Off course you can always convert the docx into a more accessible format, but that will greatly mess with any styling. If thats not an issue I recommend to use libreoffice to convert your docx into any format that libreoffice supports. on linux based servers you can easily access it via command line, here an example with symfony for command execution:
$command = "soffice --headless --convert-to html ".$inputfile.' --outdir '.$outputfile.'/');
$process = new \Symfony\Component\Process\Process($command);
$process->start();
while ($process->isRunning()) {}
// executes after the command finishes
if (!$process->isSuccessful()) {
throw new \Symfony\Component\Process\Exception\ProcessFailedException($process);
}
Check out my package wrklst/docxmustache if you want to see this in context.
good luck!