PDF or Word creation documents with Yii?

Question

Hello I'm building an application with Yii that will now generate reports. My client wants to edit the reports after these are generated. I think the best option is creating a Word document so my client will be able to edit it, but I can't find information or extensions to create Word documents with Yii Framework.

I've also seen but not test yet a couple of PDF extensions such as DOMPDF, tcpdf and Zend_PDF. But if I generate a PDF report, then, how is my client going to edit this file?

Guys I need recommendations on how to tackle this requirement. Generate Word or PDF documents? Which will be the fastest to develop solution?

Answer 1

UPDATE 1: At the moment I got PDFs working. This is how I did it: First I downloaded TCPdf from its site and open it in Yii as a 3rd-party library. Then:

Controller: protected/controllers/mycontroller.php
public function actionGeneratePdf() {
    Yii::import('application.vendors.*');
    require_once('tcpdf/tcpdf.php');
    require_once('tcpdf/config/lang/eng.php');
    $pdf = new TCPDF();
    $pdf->SetCreator(PDF_CREATOR);
    $pdf->SetAuthor('Nicola Asuni');
    $pdf->SetTitle('TCPDF Example 001');
    $pdf->SetSubject('TCPDF Tutorial');
    $pdf->SetKeywords('TCPDF, PDF, example, test, guide');
    $pdf->SetHeaderData('', 0, PDF_HEADER_TITLE, '');
    $pdf->setHeaderFont(Array('helvetica', '', 8));
    $pdf->setFooterFont(Array('helvetica', '', 6));
    $pdf->SetMargins(15, 18, 15);
    $pdf->SetHeaderMargin(5);
    $pdf->SetFooterMargin(10);
    $pdf->SetAutoPageBreak(TRUE, 0);
    $pdf->SetFont('dejavusans', '', 7);
    $pdf->AddPage();
    $pdf->writeHTML("<span>Hello World!</span>", true, false, true, false, '');
    $pdf->LastPage();
    $pdf->Output("example_002.pdf", "I");
}

View: Wherever you want to place a trigger to your controller:
echo CHtml::link('Generate PDF', array('mycontroller/generatePdf'));

Anyway I want to be able to generate a word document as the requirement says the report is going to be edited by the user after generation.

UPDATE 2: For the Word document's report generation this is what I am doing.

Answer 2

Extensions are available in Yii to generate PDF documents. tcpdf (http://www.yiiframework.com/extension/tcpdf/) for example..

Check this article on a general roundup of options available for PDF and Excel http://www.yiiframework.com/wiki/74/

However, if you need to create word documents, then you can try the following

Write a extension in Yii to generate word document (please see this link which shows how to do it in PHP/Linux - Create Word Document using PHP in Linux)

Answer 3

To create word document you can use phpword library And to use, extract the library to folder protected\extensions\PHPWord In this folder after extract you will have folders: Examples, PHPWord and one file: PHPWord.php . In your controller/code you need to call like in this example:

    spl_autoload_unregister(array('YiiBase','autoload'));
    Yii::import('ext.phpword.phpword', true);
    $PHPWord = new PHPWord();
    spl_autoload_register(array('YiiBase','autoload'));
    $document = $PHPWord->loadTemplate($path);
    $document->setValue('Value1', 'Sun');
    ....
    $document->save('path\file.docx');