PHP Create Word Document from HTML

In this article, you will learn how to create a word document in doc or docx using PHP. The conversion of HTML into MS Word Document is chiefly utilized in the web application to produce .doc/.docx records with dynamic HTML content. The server-side script is needed to dynamically export data from HTML to Word Document. The MS Word document can be quickly generated with HTML content using a PHP script. There are many third-party libraries available for HTML to Word conversion. But, you can easily convert the HTML content to a Word document using PHP without any external library.

PHP provides features for adding HTTP headers. Like, we can set the HTTP header to download the content or attachment, and we can also set it to show a 'Save as' dialog box while downloading on the browser. So in this example, we have added the content headers to make the generated doc file downloadable. For file formatting, we have utilized word-accommodating CSS. It is important to use the inline CSS instead of external CSS file.

Create And Download Word Document in PHP

Here is the script to generate and download a word document. So, copy and paste this code either on the localhost or on the server, only you will have to change the body element content.

<?php
$filename = 'demo.doc';
header("Content-Type: application/force-download");
header( "Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=".basename($filename));
header( "Content-Description: File Transfer");
@readfile($filename);

$content = '<html xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" '
        .'xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" '
        .'xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" '
        .'xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2004/12/omml"= '
        .'xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40">'
        .'<head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=Windows-1252">'
        .'<title></title>'
        .'<!--[if gte mso 9]>'
        .'<xml>'
        .'<w:WordDocument>'
        .'<w:View>Print'
        .'<w:Zoom>100'
        .'<w:DoNotOptimizeForBrowser/>'
        .'</w:WordDocument>'
        .'</xml>'
        .'<![endif]-->'
        .'<style>
        @page
        {
            font-family: Arial;
            size:215.9mm 279.4mm;  /* A4 */
            margin:14.2mm 17.5mm 14.2mm 16mm; /* Margins: 2.5 cm on each side */
        }
        h2 { font-family: Arial; font-size: 18px; text-align:center; }
        p.para {font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.5px; text-align: justify;}
        </style>'
        .'</head>'
        .'<body>'
        .'<h2>Welcome To eTutorialsPoint</h2><br/>'
        .'<p class="para">'
        .'Our aim is to spread the knowledge. This website is developed for education purpose.'

        .'It contain web development tutorials, interview questions and answers and some useful development resources  ' 
 
        .'This website is fully responsive. We can easily study the resources on the smart phone.' 
        .'</p>' 
        .'</body>' 
        .'</html>'; 

echo $content; 
?>

In the above example, attributes in the HTML tag are MS office attributes. The XML tags in the HEAD element specify the manner in which the contents display in the word document.

<xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:View>Print
<w:Zoom>100
<w:DoNotOptimizeForBrowser/>
</w:WordDocument>
</xml>

The @page css is used to set the style properties of the document. Within this CSS, we can set margins, page breaks, orphans of the generated document.

@page
{
    font-family: Arial;
    size:215.9mm 279.4mm;  /* A4 */
    margin:14.2mm 17.5mm 14.2mm 16mm; /* Margins: 2.5 cm on each side */
}

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