This may be a silly question, but d

[scottydd]

This may be a silly question, but do you need to have Microsoft Word installed on a IIS server to use COMs in PHP? If not how do you access COMs? I've tried:

$word = new COM("word.application&quot or die("Unable to instanciate Word"

and I get:

Warning: (null)(): Invalid ProgID, GUID string, or Moniker: Invalid syntax in C:\Inetpub\

http://wwwroot\fword.php

on line 9
Unable to instanciate Word

Any thoughts?
Scott

 

[Bastien]

yes, whatever ms office app that you want to access with COM needs to be installed on the server

Bastien

cat, the other other white meat

 

[scottydd]

Can you put Word Viewer, or does it have to be a full version of Word?

 

[scottydd]

OK, I put a full version of Word on my Server and i can get PHP to start and quit an application, but it won't open a file. I get the following error:

Warning: (null)(): Invoke() failed: Exception occurred. Source: Microsoft Word Description: This file could not be found. Try one or more of the following: * Check the spelling of the name of the document. * Try a different file name. (C: est.doc) in C:\Inetpub\

http://wwwroot\fword.php

on line 18

Now one thing i did notice is the "(C: est.doc)", this is not what i have coded. I put in the following:

$word->Documents->Open ("C:\test.doc"

Do i something configured wrong or what?

Thanks for any help...
Scott

 

[sleipnir214]

Don't use backslashes in PHP, even when running on Win32. Use forward slashes instead.

Try your filename as "c:/test.doc"

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[skiflyer]

If com won't go for the forward slashes (it should) you can alternately use the double backslash (\\), I've had to do this for certain commands on Win32

-Rob

 

[sleipnir214]

Now that I think about it, PHP will probably take a single backslash in a string -- so long as that string is delimited with single quotes, not double quotes.

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[scottydd]

Ok, that helped, but now i get the following error:

Warning: (null)(): Invoke() failed: Exception occurred. Source: Microsoft Word Description: Could not open macro storage. in C:\Inetpub\

http://wwwroot\fword.php

on line 16


Any thoughts?
Thanks
Scott

 

[sleipnir214]

Insufficient data for a meaningful answer.

The filename error happened on line 9. What are you trying to do on line 16?

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[sleipnir214]

Of course, it could also be that what you are attempting to do is a generally bad idea.

This Mi¢ro$oft Knowledge Base article (

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;257757)

states:

Microsoft does not currently recommend, and does not support, Automation of Microsoft Office applications from any unattended, non-interactive client application or component (including ASP, DCOM, and NT Services), because Office may exhibit unstable behavior and/or deadlock when run in this environment.

[Their boldface, not mine]

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[skiflyer]

I wouldn't trust the \ inside single quotes, because I think it'll just be used to escape whatever comes next. Not 100% on this, but for example

$some_string = 'This is Rob\'s String';

Translates to This is Rob's String, I'm guessing putting a \ before the R, would just uselessly escape the R. I know that's how it works in regex's for example.

-Rob

 

[sleipnir214]

PHP handles regular expressions differently than everyday strings. For example, inside a single-quoted string literal, the only backslash-escape string that means anything is \'. Everything else is not interpreted.

For example,

print "\n";

will print a new line. However,

print '\n';

will print the literal string \n (backslash n)

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[scottydd]

I know this is real basic, but this is the script that i am trying to run...the line that is getting the error is the Documents->Open line...

<html>
<head>
</head>
<body>

<?php

// create an object instance
$word = new COM(&quot;Word.Application&quot or die(&quot;Word could not be
started&quot;

// pop open the Word application
$word->Visible = 1;

// open document
$word->Documents->Open (&quot;c:/test.doc&quot;

// close the application
$word->Quit();

$word = null;

?>



</body>
</html>

 

[sleipnir214]

Of that I have no doubt. As I have posted earlier in this thread, Mi&cent;ro$oft themselves have stated this is not a good thing to do -- Word was not designed to be operated except in a user-driven GUI environment.

Read the Knowledge Base article, the link to which I have posted. There are some workarounds in there. Although the workarounds are for using COM from ASP, the advice should apply to PHP as well.

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