2 Steps To Convert HTML To DOCX In PHP (Simple Example)

Welcome to a quick tutorial on how to convert HTML to DOCX using PHP. Need to generate formal Word reports? Capture a webpage into a document? Yes, that can actually be done pretty easily.

That’s the gist of it, but let us walk through more detailed examples in this guide – Read on!

 

 

TLDR – QUICK SLIDES

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

 

STEP 1) DOWNLOAD PHPWORD

• PHP is unable to generate DOCX documents natively. To do that, we are going to use an open-source library called PHPWord.
• The easiest way to get it is to use a package manager called Composer. A small hassle, but Composer does offer quite a bit of convenience for a ton of libraries.
• After you have installed Composer, navigate to your project folder in the command prompt (or terminal).
• Run composer require phpoffice/phpword, and watch it will automatically get the latest version into the vendor/ folder.
• Check out the official PHPWord documentation for more code examples and references.

 

 

STEP 2) PHP CONVERT HTML TO DOCX

<?php
// (A) LOAD PHPWORD
require "vendor/autoload.php";
$pw = new \PhpOffice\PhpWord\PhpWord();
 
// (B) ADD HTML CONTENT
$section = $pw->addSection();
$html = "<h1>HELLO WORLD!</h1>";
$html .= "<p>This is a paragraph of random text</p>";
$html .= "<table><tr><td>A table</td><td>Cell</td></tr></table>";
\PhpOffice\PhpWord\Shared\Html::addHtml($section, $html, false, false);
 
// (C) SAVE TO DOCX ON SERVER
// $pw->save("convert.docx", "Word2007");
 
// (D) OR FORCE DOWNLOAD
header("Content-Type: application/octet-stream");
header("Content-Disposition: attachment;filename=\"convert.docx\"");
$objWriter = \PhpOffice\PhpWord\IOFactory::createWriter($pw, "Word2007");
$objWriter->save("php://output");

The script to generate the DOCX documents is ridiculously simple.

• (A) Start by including the PHPWord library, and creating the object.
• (B) Add a new section to the DOCX document, then simply insert your HTML code.
• (C & D) Output the file, and that’s it!

 

 

EXTRA) PHPWORD SUPPORTS OTHER FILE FORMATS

<?php
// (A) LOAD PHPWORD
require "vendor/autoload.php";
$pw = new \PhpOffice\PhpWord\PhpWord();

// (B) ADD HTML CONTENT
$section = $pw->addSection();
$html = "<h1>HELLO WORLD!</h1>";
$html .= "<p>This is a paragraph of random text</p>";
$html .= "<table><tr><td>A table</td><td>Cell</td></tr></table>";
\PhpOffice\PhpWord\Shared\Html::addHtml($section, $html, false, false);

// (C) PHPWORD SUPPORTS MANY OTHER FORMATS!
$writers = [
  "Word2007" => "docx",
  "ODText" => "odt",
  "RTF" => "rtf",
  "HTML" => "html"
];
foreach ($writers as $format => $extension) {
  $target = "output.$extension";
  $pw->save($target, $format);
}

If you poke around the sample scripts that PHPWord provides in \vendor\phpoffice\phpword\samples , you will notice that it is actually capable of more than just .DOCX – It can also create rich text files, open document text, and even PDFs. So be sure to make full use of it.

 

 

 

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EXAMPLE CODE DOWNLOAD

Click here for the source code on GitHub gist, just click on “download zip” or do a git clone. I have released it under the MIT license, so feel free to build on top of it or use it in your own project.

 

 

 

LINKS & REFERENCES

• Need to convert HTML to PDF as well? Check out my other guide.
• Need to output in Excel? Check out this guide.

 

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