generating .txt .doc or .pdf

[freelance84]

 

There is a section in my site in which i will need to give the user 3 options:

 

Generate Specific User Text As:

            1.  pdf

            2. .doc

            3. .txt

            4. print in html

 

The 4th option is simple. The other three are completely new to me.

 

I know little bit about fopen, fwrite and fclose, however these are commands that write files to the server. I need to write files to the users computer.

 

Is the best way for this to be:

1. the user clicks .txt

2. the .txt is written to the server

3. the .txt is then downloaded to the users computer by the user

4. the .txt is then deleted from the server

 

All 4 steps to be done with one click from the user.

 

Might there not be traffic problems if lots and lots of users are doing this at the same time?

 

Any pushes in right direction here would be great, there seems to be hundreds of sites saying different solutions

 

 

[JonnoTheDev]

I need to write files to the users computer

Impossible.

 

1. the user clicks .txt

2. the .txt is written to the server

3. the .txt is then downloaded to the users computer by the user

4. the .txt is then deleted from the server

This is correct.

 

Might there not be traffic problems if lots and lots of users are doing this at the same time?

No, just make sure you give each file created a unique name so one user cannot overwrite anothers if running at the same time.

 

You can create word documents using fopen(), fwrite(), etc and save the file with a .doc extension, However if you want a properly formatted document you require COM objects (windows servers only).

 

For PDF generation I recommend the following http://www.fpdf.org/

 

[freelance84]

Brilliant thanks neil 

[freelance84]

Is it only possible to create fully formatted word documents on windows servers (i'm on a linux server at the moment)?

[JonnoTheDev]

Windows, as you would need MS Word installed on the server.

http://www.php.net/manual/en/intro.com.php

[freelance84]

Ah i see.

 

I've just been having a browse through the openOffice version at:

http://www.odtphp.com/index.php?i=home

 

Have you or anybody else had any experience with this?

 

 

[FredFogg]

Is there any example code of how to do this?  I am somewhat new to PHP and am still learning.  I want to query a MySQL database and write out the result to a txt file the user can download.

 

1. the user clicks .txt

2. the .txt is written to the server

3. the .txt is then downloaded to the users computer by the user

4. the .txt is then deleted from the server