Export Microsoft word xml file into docx

Question

I am trying to create a Microsoft word document without using any 3rd party libraries. What I am trying to do is :

• Create a template document in Microsoft Word
• Save it as an XML File
• Read this XML file and populate the data in PHP

I am able to do it so far. I would like to export it as an *.docx format. However when I do that, it is throwing an exception, when I try to open it.

Error Message : File is corrupt and cannot be opened

However, when I save it as *.doc, I am able to open the word document.

Any idea, what could be wrong. Do I need to use any libraries to export it to an docx file ?

Thanks

Answer 1

Docx is not backwards-compatible with doc. Docx is a zipped format: Docx Tag Info.

I would recommend you to create another template for the docx format, because the formats are so different.

Answer 2

Also, you might want to check that your code is writing the correct encoding. Before I put it in the correct encoding I was getting odd letters that weren't compatible when I converted it into a .docx format. To do this I implemented it in the inputstream:

InputStreamReader isr= new InputStreamReader(template.getInputStream(entry), "UTF-8");
BufferedReader fileContents = new BufferedReader(isr);

I used this with enumeration for the entry, but the "UTF-8" puts it in the right format and eliminates the odd characters. I was also getting "null" typed out at the end of some of the xml's, so I eliminated that by taking it out (I brought the contents of each file into a string so I could manipulate it anyway):

String ending = "null";
while(sb.indexOf(ending) != -1){
sb.delete(sb.indexOf(ending), (sb.indexOf(ending) + ending.length())); 
}

sb was the stringbuilder I put it into. This problem may have been solved with the UTF-8, but I fixed it before I implemented the encoding, so figured I'd include it in case it ends up being a problem. I hope this helps.