Create Word Document using PHP in Linux
Whats the available solutions for PHP to create word document in linux environment?
Answer
real Word documents
If you need to produce "real" Word documents you need a Windows-based web server and COM automation. I highly recommend Joel's article on this subject.
fake HTTP headers for tricking Word into opening raw HTML
A rather common (but unreliable) alternative is:
header("Content-type: application/vnd.ms-word");
header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=document_name.doc");
echo "<html>";
echo "<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=Windows-1252\">";
echo "<body>";
echo "<b>Fake word document</b>";
echo "</body>";
echo "</html>"
Make sure you don't use external stylesheets. Everything should be in the same file.
Note that this does not send an actual Word document. It merely tricks browsers into offering it as download and defaulting to a .doc file extension. Older versions of Word may often open this without any warning/security message, and just import the raw HTML into Word. PHP sending sending that misleading Content-Type header along does not constitute a real file format conversion.