Creating MS Word documents on the fly Page 2

Substituting with the actual value

The following code opens the specified MS Word template document, substitutes
the value and saves it as a new file. We defined a Bookmark named “TODAYDATE”
in the document, which will be replaced with today’s date.

<?php
//1. Instanciate Word
$word = new COM("word.application") or die("Unable to instantiate Word");
//2. specify the MS Word template document (with Bookmark TODAYDATE inside)
$template_file = "C:/reminder.doc";
//3. open the template document
$word->Documents->Open($template_file);
//4. get the current date MM/DD/YYYY
$current_date = date("m/d/Y");
//5. get the bookmark and create a new MS Word Range (to enable text substitution)
$bookmarkname = "TODAYDATE";
$objBookmark = $word->ActiveDocument->Bookmarks($bookmarkname);
$range = $objBookmark->Range;
//6. now substitute the bookmark with actual value
$range->Text = $current_date;
//7. save the template as a new document (c:/reminder_new.doc)
$new_file = "c:/reminder_new.doc";
$word->Documents[1]->SaveAs($new_file);
//8. free the object
$word->Quit();
$word->Release();
$word = null;
?>

That’s it. Open the new document (c:/reminder_new.doc) and you will see today’s
date at the bookmark’s location.

1. Initially we instantiated the Word object using this code:

   <?php
   $word = new COM("word.application") or die("Unable to instanciate Word");
   ?>

2. Then we specified the template document that contains the sample output and
   the Bookmark TODAYDATE:

   <?php
   $template_file = "C:/reminder.doc";
   ?>

3. Next we opened the document:

   <?php
   $word->Documents->Open($template_file);
   ?>

4. Then we got today’s date using date() function. The Bookmark TODAYDATE will
   be replaced with this value:

   <?php
   $current_date = date("m/d/Y");
   ?>

5. Next we found the Bookmark in the document and created a new MS Word Range.
   Range is used to perform text substitution or insertion.

   <?php
   $bookmarkname = "TODAYDATE";
   $objBookmark = $word->ActiveDocument->Bookmarks($bookmarkname);
   $range = $objBookmark->Range;
   ?>

6. Then we substituted the bookmark with actual value:

   <?php
   $range->Text = $current_date;
   ?>

7. Saved the template as a new document (c:/reminder_new.doc)

   <?php
   $new_file = "c:/reminder_new.doc";
   $word->Documents[1]->SaveAs($new_file);
   ?>

8. Finally, we free the object:

   <?php
   $word->Quit();
   $word->Release();
   $word = null;
   ?>