show doc,docx file content php

Question

I have problem that showing the content or docx file in php(laravel 5).
I did not find any solution to show the content. I use phpword lib for reading, I read the document of phpword but not find the solution.
Here is my code:
+upload in html:

<form method="post" action="doc/upload" enctype="multipart/form-data">
            {{csrf_field()}}
            <input type="file" name="file" accept=".doc, .docx"/>

            <button class="btn btn-primary" style="margin-top: 5px"><span class="glyphicon glyphicon-import" aria-hidden="true"></span> Upload</button>
        </form>

+ process:

public function upload(Request $request){
    $file = $request->file('file');
    $phpWord = \PhpOffice\PhpWord\IOFactory::load($file);
    //i use this line below for showing but it can not show exactly 
    $phpWord->save('php://output');
}

+result:

you are missing the header informations, i.e. the browser doesn't get enough information on how handle the output. Check http://stackoverflow.com/questions/33872714/php-word-send-generated-file-to-browser-as-output-without-saving-it-on-disc for similar question. — ejuhjav, Jun 07 '16 at 10:36
You can refer this link : https://stackoverflow.com/a/72698699/5783617 — Pawan Verma, Jun 21 '22 at 09:50

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 14 '17 at 15:07

I was also looking for the answer for this and here's my code to read a docx file using PHPWord. I'm completing the steps from installation (this is for laravel 5)

Step 1. add https://github.com/PHPOffice/PHPWord in your composer file. (composer.json)

"require": {
       "phpoffice/phpword": "v0.13.*"
    }

Step 2. Add to your controller the IOFactory.

use PhpOffice\PhpWord\IOFactory;

Step 3. create a reader and load the file.

$phpWord = IOFactory::createReader('Word2007')->load($request->file('file')->path());

Step 4. You can already check the $phpWord for properties and contents of the document.

Step 5. If you want to extract the contents of document. use code below

$phpWord = IOFactory::createReader('Word2007')->load($request->file('file')->path());

foreach($phpWord->getSections() as $section) {
            foreach($section->getElements() as $element) {
                if(method_exists($element,'getText')) {
                    echo($element->getText() . "<br>");
                }
            }
        }

Thanks, to my shame I wasn't able to find any advanced documentation regarding reading Word documents, do you have a link by any chance? — Sergey Neskhodovskiy, Jun 18 '17 at 20:05
@SergeyNeskhodovskiy , sorry don't have any documentation, i just found the solution online and trial and error. — Rabb-bit, Jun 20 '17 at 08:40
Documentation is here i think : https://phpword.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ — Aman Deep, Apr 22 '21 at 03:45

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 15 '16 at 01:05

If you want to show all word doc contetns, then the best way would be to save the word file as html and then show html contents in an Iframe.

$objWriter = \PhpOffice\PhpWord\IOFactory::createWriter($phpWord, 'HTML');
$objWriter->save('doc.html');

if you want to grab just the plain text contents from the doc, you might try something like this

foreach($phpWord->getSections() as $section) {
    foreach($section->getElements() as $element) {
        if(method_exists($element,'getText')) {
            echo($element->getText() . "<br>");
        }
    }
}

Hope this helps.

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 26 '21 at 06:43

For those who are looking for a simpler (and in my case, much more accurate) way of converting a Microsoft Word document to plain text, I would recommend taking a look at this thread found here: How to extract text from word file .doc,docx,.xlsx,.pptx php

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Nov 18 '22 at 10:59

From the Rabb-bit's answer, The loop was not working for me so this may help. We just need to load the file and then can get the content without formatting from a doc/Docx file.

$phpWord = IOFactory::load( $filePath );

foreach($phpWord->getSections() as $section) {
        foreach($section->getElements() as $element) {
            if (method_exists($element, 'getElements')) {
                foreach($element->getElements() as $childElement) {
                    if (method_exists($childElement, 'getText')) {
                        $content .= $childElement->getText() . ' ';
                    }
                    else if (method_exists($childElement, 'getContent')) {
                        $content .= $childElement->getContent() . ' ';
                    }
                }
            }
            else if (method_exists($element, 'getText')) {
                $content .= $element->getText() . ' ';
            }
        }
    }

show doc,docx file content php

4 Answers4