Provided by: libmsoffice-word-html-writer-perl_1.07-1_all 
NAME
MsOffice::Word::HTML::Writer - Writing documents for MsWord in HTML format
SYNOPSIS
use MsOffice::Word::HTML::Writer;
my $doc = MsOffice::Word::HTML::Writer->new(
title => "My new doc",
WordDocument => {View => 'Print'},
);
$doc->write("<p>hello, world</p>",
$doc->page_break,
"<p>hello from another page</p>");
$doc->create_section(
page => {size => "21.0cm 29.7cm",
margin => "1.2cm 2.4cm 2.3cm 2.4cm",
page_numbers => 50, # initial page number within this section
},
header => sprintf("Section 2, page %s of %s",
$doc->field('PAGE'),
$doc->field('NUMPAGES')),
footer => sprintf("printed at %s",
$doc->field('PRINTDATE')),
new_page => 1, # or 'always', or 'left', or 'right'
);
$doc->write("this is the second section, look at header/footer");
$doc->attach("my_image.gif", $path_to_my_image);
$doc->write("<img src='files/my_image.gif'>");
my $filename = $doc->save_as("/path/to/some/file");
DESCRIPTION
Goal
The present module is one way to programatically generate documents targeted for Microsoft Word (MsWord).
It doesn't need MsWord to be installed, and doesn't even require a Win32 machine (which is why the module
is not in the "Win32" namespace).
MsWord and HTML
MsWord can read documents encoded in old native binary format, in Rich Text Format (RTF), in XML (either
ODF or OOXML), or -- maybe this is less known -- in HTML, with some special markup for pagination and
other MsWord-specific features. Such HTML documents are often in several parts, because attachments like
images or headers/footers need to be in separate files; however, since it is more convenient to carry all
data in a single file, MsWord also supports the "MHTML" format (or "MHT" for short), i.e. an
encapsulation of a whole HTML tree into a single file encoded in MIME multipart format. This format can
be generated interactively from MsWord by calling the "SaveAs" menu and choosing the .mht extension.
Documents saved with a .mht extension will not directly reopen in MsWord : when clicking on such
documents, Windows chooses Internet Explorer as the default display program. However, these documents
can be simply renamed with a .doc extension, and will then open directly in MsWord. By the way, the same
can be done with XML or RTF documents. That is to say, MsWord is able to recognize the internal format
of a file, without any dependency on the filename. There is one unfortunate restriction, however : when
the extension is .docx, MsWord does not accept any internal format different from OOXML. So one has to
either stick with the .doc extension, or choose a specific extension like .mswhtml and then associate
this extension to the MsWord program : to do so, type the following command in a windows console
assoc .mswhtml=Word.Document.12 # for Office 2010, or .8 for Office 2003
Features of the module
"MsOffice::Word::HTML::Writer" helps you to programatically generate MsWord documents in MHT format. The
advantage of this technique is that one can rely on standard HTML mechanisms for layout control, such as
styles, tables, divs, etc. Of course this markup can be produced using your favorite HTML templating
module; the added value of "MsOffice::Word::HTML::Writer" is to help building the MIME multipart file,
and provide some abstractions for representing MsWord-specific features (headers, footers, fields, etc.).
Advantages of MHT format
The MHT format is probably the most convenient way for programmatic document generation, because
• unlike Excel, MsWord native binary format (used in versions up to 2003) is unpublished and therefore
cannot be generated without the MsWord executable.
• remote control of the MsWord program through an OLE connection, as in Win32::Word::Writer, requires a
local installation of Microsoft Office, and is not well suited for server-side generation because the
MsWord program might hang or might open dialog boxes that require user input.
• generation of documents in RTF is possible, but authoring the models requires deep knowledge of the
RTF structure --- see RTF::Writer.
• authoring models in XML also requires deep knowledge of the XML structure.
Instead of working directly at the XML level, one could use the OpenOffice::OODoc distribution on
CPAN, which provides programmatic access to the "ODF" XML format used by OpenOffice. MsWord is able
to read and produce such ODF files, but this is not fully satisfactory because in that mode many
MsWord features are disabled or restricted.
The XML format used by MsWord is called "OOXML"; to my knowledge, there is no CPAN module providing
an API to this format.
By contrast, "MsOffice::Word::HTML::Writer" allows you to produce documents even with little knowledge of
MsWord. Besides, since the content is in HTML, it can be assembled with any HTML tool, and therefore
also requires little knowledge of Perl.
One word of warning, however : opening MHT documents in MsWord is a bit slower than native binary or RTF
documents, because MsWord needs to parse the HTML, compute the layout and convert it into its internal
representation. Therefore MHT format is not recommended for very large documents.
Usage
"MsOffice::Word::HTML::Writer" is used in production at Geneva courts of law, for generating thousands of
documents per day, from hundreds of models, with an architecture of reusable document parts implemented
by Template Toolkit mechanisms (macros, blocks and views).
METHODS
General convention : method names that start with a verb may change the internal state of the writer
object (for example "write", "create_section"); method names that are nouns return data without modifying
the internal state (for example "field", "content", page_break).
new
my $doc = MsOffice::Word::HTML::Writer->new(%params);
Creates a new writer object. Optional parameters are :
title
document title
head
any HTML declarations you may want to include in the "head" part of the generated document (for
example inline CSS styles or links to attached stylesheets).
hf_head
any HTML declarations you may want to include in the "head" part of the headers and footers HTML
document (MsWord requires headers and footers to be specified as "div"s in a separate HTML document).
WordDocument
a hashref of options to include as an XML island in the HTML "head", corresponding to various options
in the MsWord "Tools/Options" panel. These will be included in a XML element named
"<w:WordDocument>", and all children elements will be automatically prefixed by "w:". The hashref may
contain nested hashrefs, such as
WordDocument => { View => 'Print',
Compatibility => {DoNotExpandShiftReturn => "",
BreakWrappedTables => ""} }
Names and values of options must be found from the Microsoft documentation, or from reverse
engineering of HTML files generated by MsWord.
Parameters may also be passed as a hashref instead of a hash.
write
$doc->write("<p>hello, world</p>");
Adds some HTML into the document body.
attach
$doc->attach($localname, $filename);
$doc->attach($localname, "<", \$content);
$doc->attach($localname, "<&", $filehandle);
Adds an attachment into the document; the attachment will be encoded as a MIME part and will be
accessible under "files/$localname".
The remaining arguments to "attach" specify the source of the attachment; they are directly passed to
"open" in perlfunc and therefore have the same API flexibility : you can specify a filename, a reference
to a memory variable, a reference to another filehandle, etc.
create_section
$doc->create_section(
page => {size => "21.0cm 29.7cm",
margin => "1.2cm 2.4cm 2.3cm 2.4cm"},
header => sprintf("Section 2, page %s of %s",
$doc->field('PAGE'),
$doc->field('NUMPAGES')),
footer => sprintf("printed at %s",
$doc->field('PRINTDATE')),
new_page => 1, # or 'always, or 'left', or 'right'
);
Opens a new section within the document (or, if this is called before any "write", setups pagination
parameters for the first section). Subsequent calls to the "write" method will add content to that
section, until the next "create_section" call.
Pagination parameters are all optional and may be given either as a hash or as a hashref; accepted
parameters are :
page
Hashref of CSS page styles, such as :
size
Paper size (for example "21cm 29.7cm")
margin
Margins (top right bottom left).
header_margin
Margin for header
footer_margin
Margin for footer
page_numbers
Initial value for page numbers within this section
paper_source
Parameters for paper source within this section (values for these parameters must be reverse
engineered from MsWord HTML output)
header
Header content (in HTML)
first_header
Header content for the first page of that section.
footer
Footer content (in HTML).
first_footer
Footer content for the first page.
new_page
If true, a page break will be inserted before the new section. If the argument is the word 'left' or
'right', one or two page breaks will be inserted so that the next page is formatted as a left (right)
page. If the argument is a numeric true value, it is translated into the word 'always', which tells
MsWord to insert a page break in any case.
save_as
my $filename = $doc->save_as("/path/to/some/file");
Generates the MIME document and saves it at the given location. If no extension is present, file
extension .doc will be added by default to the filename; this is returned as the result from the method
call.
content
Returns the whole MIME-encoded document as a single string; this is used internally by the "save_as"
method. Direct call is useful if you don't want to save the document into a file, but want to do
something else like embedding it in a message or a ZIP file, or returning it as an HTTP response.
page_break
$doc->write($doc->page_break);
Returns HTML markup for encoding a page break within the same section. Another way of inserting a page
break is to create a new section with an "new_page" parameter -- see "create_section".
tab
my $html = $doc->tab($n_tabs);
Returns HTML markup for encoding one or several tabs. If $n_tab is omitted, it defaults to 1.
field
my $html = $doc->field($fieldname, $args, $content,
$prevent_html_entity_encoding);
Returns HTML markup for a MsWord field.
Optional $args is a string with arguments or flags for the field. See MsWord help documentation for the
list of field names and their associated arguments or flags.
Optional $content is the initial displayed content for the field (because unfortunately MsWord does not
immediately compute the field content when opening the document; users will have to explicitly request to
update all fields, by selecting the whole document and then hitting the F9 key).
Optional $prevent_html_entity_encoding is a boolean that prevents the automatic translation of "<", ">"
and "&" characters into HTML entities <, > and "&". This is useful if you want to insert some
rich text.
Here are some examples :
my $header = sprintf "%s of %s", $doc->field('PAGE'),
$doc->field('NUMPAGES');
my $footer = sprintf "created at %s, printed at %s",
doc->field(CREATEDATE => '\\@ "d MM yyyy"'),
doc->field(PRINTDATE => '\\@ "dddd d MMMM yyyy" \\* Upper');
my $quoted = $doc->field('QUOTE', '"hello, world"', 'hello, world');
quote
my $html = $doc->quote($text, $prevent_html_entity_encoding);
Shortcut to produce a QUOTE field (see last field example just above).
The optional $prevent_html_entity_encoding argument is explained in the "field" method.
AUTHORING MHT DOCUMENTS
HTML for MsWord
MsWord does not support the full HTML and CSS standard, so authoring MHT documents requires some trial
and error. Basic divs, spans, paragraphs and tables, are reasonably supported, together with their
common CSS properties; but fancier features like floats, absolute positioning, etc. may yield some
surprises.
To specify widths and heights, you will get better results by using CSS properties rather than attributes
of the HTML table model.
In case of difficulties for implementing specific features, try to see what MsWord does with that feature
when saving a document in HTML format (plain HTM, not MHT!). The generated HTML is quite verbose, but
after eliminating unnecessary tags one can sometimes figure out which are the key tags (they start with
"o:" or "w:") or the key attributes (they start with "mso-") which correspond to the desired
functionality.
Collaboration with the Template Toolkit
The Template Toolkit (TT for short) is a very helpful tool for generating the HTML. Below are some hints
about collaboration between the two modules.
Client code calls both TT and Word::HTML::Writer
The first mode is to use the Template Toolkit for generating various document parts, and then assemble
them into "MsOffice::Word::HTML::Writer".
use Template;
my $tmpl_app = Template->new(%options);
$tmpl_app->process("doctmpl/html_head.tt", \%data, \my $html_head);
$tmpl_app->process("doctmpl/body.tt", \%data, \my $body);
$tmpl_app->process("doctmpl/header.tt", \%data, \my $header);
$tmpl_app->process("doctmpl/footer.tt", \%data, \my $footer);
use MsOffice::Word::HTML::Writer;
my $doc = MsOffice::Word::HTML::Writer->new(
title => $data{title},
head => $html_head,
);
$doc->create_section(
header => $header,
footer => $footer,
);
$doc->write($body);
$doc->save_as("/path/to/some/file");
This architecture is straightforward, but various document parts are split into several templates, which
might be inconvenient when maintaining a large body of document templates.
HTML parts as blocks in a single template
Document parts might also be encoded as blocks within one single template :
[% BLOCK html_head %]
<style>...CSS...</style>
[% END; # BLOCK html_head %]
[% BLOCK body %]
Hello, world
[% END; # BLOCK body %]
etc.
Then the client code calls each block in turn to gather the various parts :
use Template::Context;
my $tmpl_ctxt = Template::Context->new(%options);
my $tmpl = $tmpl_ctxt->template("doctmpl/all_blocks.tt");
my $html_head = $tmpl_ctxt->process($tmpl->blocks->{html_head}, \%data);
my $body = $tmpl_ctxt->process($tmpl->blocks->{body}, \%data);
my $header = $tmpl_ctxt->process($tmpl->blocks->{header}, \%data);
my $footer = $tmpl_ctxt->process($tmpl->blocks->{footer}, \%data);
# assemble into MsOffice::Word::HTML::Writer, same as before
Template toolkit calls MsOffice::Word::HTML::Writer
Now let's look at a different architecture: the client code calls the Template toolkit, which in turn
calls "MsOffice::Word::HTML::Writer".
The most common way to call modules from TT is to use a TT plugin; but since there is currently no TT
plugin for "MsOffice::Word::HTML::Writer", we will just tell TT that templates can load regular Perl
modules, by turning on the "LOAD_PERL" option.
The client code looks like any other TT application; but the output of the process method is a fully-
fledged MHT document, instead of plain HTML.
use Template;
my $tmpl_app = Template->new(LOAD_PERL => 1, %other_options);
$tmpl_app->process("doc_template.tt", \%data, \my $msword_doc);
Within "doc_template.tt", we have
[% # main entry point
# gather various parts
SET html_head = PROCESS html_head;
SET header = PROCESS header;
SET footer = PROCESS footer;
SET body = PROCESS body;
# create Word::HTML::Writer object
USE msword = MsOffice.Word.HTML.Writer(head=html_head);
# setup section format
CALL msword.create_section(
page => {size => "21.0cm 29.7cm",
margin => "1cm 2.5cm 1cm 2.5cm",
header_margin => "1cm",
footer_margin => "0cm",},
header => header,
footer => footer
);
# write the body
CALL msword.write(body);
# return the MIME-encoded MsWord document
msword.content(); %]
[% BLOCK html_head %]
...
Inheritance through TT views
The above architecture can be refined one step further, by using TT views to encapsulate documents. Views
have an inheritance mechanism, so it becomes possible to define families of document templates, that
inherit properties or methods from common ancestors. Let us start with generic_letter.tt2, a generic
letter template :
[% VIEW generic_letter
title="Generic letter template";
BLOCK main;
USE msword = MsOffice.Word.HTML.Writer(
title => view.title,
head => view.html_head(),
);
view.write_body();
msword.content();
END; # BLOCK main
BLOCK write_body;
CALL msword.create_section(
page => {size => "21.0cm 29.7cm",
margin => "1cm 2.5cm 1cm 2.5cm"},
header => view.header(),
footer => view.footer()
);
CALL msword.write(view.body());
END; # BLOCK write_body
BLOCK body;
view.letter_head();
view.letter_body();
END; # BLOCK body
BLOCK letter_body; %]
Generic letter body; please override BLOCK letter_body in subviews
[% END; # BLOCK letter_body;
# ... other blocks for header, footer, letter_head, etc.
END; # VIEW generic_letter
[% # call main() method if this templated was loaded directly
letter.main() UNLESS component.caller %]
This is quite similar to an object-oriented class : assignments within the view are like object
attributes (i.e. the "title" variable), and blocks within the view are like methods.
After the end of the view, we call the "main" method, but only if that view was called directly from
client code. If the view is inherited, as displayed below, then the call to "main" will be from the
subview.
Now we can define a specific letter template that inherits from the generic letter and overrides the
"letter_body" block :
[% PROCESS generic_letter.tt2; # loads the parent view
VIEW advertisement;
BLOCK letter_body; %]
<p>Dear [% receiver.name %],</p>
<p>You have won a wonderful [% article %].
Just call us at [% sender.phone %].</p>
<p>Best regards,</p>
[% view.signature(name => sender.name ) %]
[% END; # BLOCK letter_body
END; # VIEW advertisement
advertisement.main() UNLESS component.caller %]
TO DO
Many features could be added; for example:
- link same header/footers across several sections
- multiple columns
- watermarks (I tried hard to reverse engineer MsWord behaviour,
but it still doesn't work ... couldn't figure out all details
of VML markup)
Contributions welcome!
AUTHOR
Laurent Dami, "<dami AT cpan DOT org>"
BUGS
Please report any bugs or feature requests to
<https://github.com/damil/MsOffice-Word-HTML-Writer/issues>.
SUPPORT
You can find documentation for this module with the perldoc command.
perldoc MsOffice::Word::HTML::Writer
or at the CPAN web site <https://metacpan.org/pod/MsOffice::Word::HTML::Writer>.
SEE ALSO
Win32::Word::Writer, RTF::Writer, Spreadsheet::WriteExcel, OpenOffice::OODoc.
COPYRIGHT & LICENSE
Copyright 2009-2022 Laurent Dami, all rights reserved.
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl
itself.
perl v5.34.0 2022-02-19 MsOffice::Word::HTML::Writer(3pm)