Web-based document merge solution?

Question

We are looking for a web-based document merge solution.

Our application is a web-based project management tool built using Xataface - PHP on Windows IIS + mySQL. We have a function that allows the user to generate a status report in Microsoft Word format based on data in the tool.

Currently this function is implemented using LiveDocX. We have a status report template, and LiveDocX performs the merge into the template using data from our project management tool.

The main drawback is LiveDocx is web-service based. We are looking to replace LiveDocX in order to reduce our dependence on the up-time of a third-party web-service that we cannot control.

Does anyone have any suggestions on a web-based document merge solution that I can install on my IIS or PHP based server?

Answer 1

In reading your question, I'm not sure if what you're after is actual mail merge or just simply populating a single Word template server-side. In either case, here are some things to get your started:

• For mail merge (multiple document results based on multiple records, say, from a database), you can use either the Open XML SDK for a VS solution or access the Open XML directly. In that case, these are good articles to start with:
  • Mail Merge in WordProcessingML
  • Mail Merging with a Custom Client Using the Open XML SDK 2.0
• For direct single-document population with data, these are good libraries that use PHP:
  • PHP Word
  • PHP OpenXML API (not incredibly mature, but a starting point)