Headers for MSOffice 2007 / 97 Download with PHP

Question

We're trying to send uploaded attachements (served from a database as blob) through php with Zend Framework to a client.

This code works fine for Excel97 / Word97.

  if ($this->getResponse()->canSendHeaders(false)) {
            $response = $this->getResponse();

            $response->setHeader('Pragma', 'public', true)
                     ->setHeader('Expires', '0', true)
                     ->setHeader('Cache-Control', 'must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0', true)
                     ->setHeader('Content-Type', 'application/force-download', true)
                     ->setHeader('Content-Type', 'application/octet-stream', true)
                     ->setHeader('Content-Type', 'application/download', true)
                     ->setHeader('Content-Disposition', "attachment;filename=$filename", true)
                     ->setHeader('Content-Transfer-Encoding', 'binary', true)
                     ->setBody($data) // binary
                     ->sendHeaders();
        } 

But is not working for excel2007 / word2007. It reports "file has an error" and trys to fix it.

Any suggestions?

Answer 1

Different MIME types: http://filext.com/faq/office_mime_types.php, at least that solved the problem for me when I had a similar one

Answer 2

You should send the correct Content-Type for the given file format. That should be application/msword/application/vnd.ms-excel if you're sending old .doc- or .xls-files and application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document or application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet for the newer x-type files .docx and .xlsx respectively (don't know which version you're serving).

Further more, as far as I know, the newer Office programs check if the file extension matches the file content, so you'll get errors or warnings when opening .doc-files with an .docx-extension.

A ...->setHeader('Content-Type', '<<the appropriate content-type>>', true) should be sufficient.