Create a Word document from FileMaker

[Nicolaus Busch]

Hi forum,

I am developing a solution called Litlink used to work with bibliographical data on a rather complex level. What I'm trying to achieve is this: the user has defined authors and books and generated so-called "cards" containing quotations and commentary. He has combined a set of those cards into a project and defined the sort order.

Now I want to create a word document that contains the quotations as a paragraph of the style "Quotation", the commentary as a paragraph with the Style "Standard" and the calculated bibliographical reference as a footnote linked to the quotation.

I saw that the word file format is basically a zip-file that contains among other stuff an XML file where all the real magic is stored, but I have no clue how to produce this.

Has anyone done this before? Any helpful hints maybe or better ideas how to achieve this if not by using XML?

[comment]

This cannot be done natively in Filemaker, because (as you have noticed), the final result needs to be zipped - see:

http://fmforums.com/forum/showtopic.php?tid/200783/

You might consider using the older WordML format, or rtf.

[TheTominator]

If you use the free ScriptMaster 3.0 plug-in, you can give yourself the ability to Zip a file.

Combine this with XML export and a sufficiently clever XSLT filter and you're all set to create Word's new .docx format.

[fseipel]

Scriptmaster has already been suggested as a means of zipping the output. You may want to consider using it with the POI library: http://poi.apache.org/, but its Word support is still minimal for Office 2007.

The new POI preview release supports Office 2007 (OpenXML format); it can read/write Word, Office, and Excel files from Java; so if its jars are registered it opens up some interesting possibilities.

If it isn't essential that Word file generation run on Macs, the use of COM/VBSCRIPT might be considered; easy to read code, easy to generate; total control of content including table generation, etc. http://www.activexperts.com/activmonitor/windowsmanagement/scripts/msoffice/word/ among many other references. To use, place VBScript in a global field, export that field to a file with extension .VBS, and open the file to run it.

An example is attached which generates a simple Word file from Filemaker using a VBScript. If you set filename to .DOC it saves as Office 2003 format; if you set it to .docx, then it saves it in Office 2007/XML format. This runs only on Windows computers.

Generate_Word_File.zip

[Neuronal Nerd]

I would like to do this on a mac. Is this possible? I'm not familiar with applescript, but I'd try learning if it can be done.

[jabrane]

Hi evyOne;

I m interested by your post and Im happy to found this exempl "geberate word file" , well; In my DB application ,usnig FM pro11, I export records in an .xls file from server ; however , I want to generate Template word file wich conatin records from the excel file ..

I create an excel  macro which do the works ( save records from excel file to word template) But; I want to RUN this "Macro " from the FM DB !! Is that possible?? Thks

[fseipel]

Yes, you can either set up an event to run on open, every time the Excel file is opened, or have the on open event check for a signal file or registry entry to determine whether to run macro.  There is no command line switch to run a macro in MS Excel.  Alternately you can launch a VBSCRIPT which can run the macro.  See http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2050505/way-to-run-excel-macros-from-command-line-or-batch-file Other Office apps, such as Access, DO allow you to run a macro from command line, but not Excel.

[foodmore]

considering you need to zip a file, i am not sure about whether this word document add-on c# can generate word files like you need. but it is worth a shot.

here is some sample demo codes:

using RasterEdge.Imaging.Basic;
using RasterEdge.Imaging.Basic.Core;
using RasterEdge.Imaging.Basic.Codec;
using RasterEdge.Imaging.MSWordDocx;


namespace RE__Test
{
public partial class Form1 : Form
{
public Form1()
{
InitializeComponent();
}

public static string FolderName = "c:/";

private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
string fileName = FolderName + "SampleNew.docx";

REDocument doc = new REDocument(1);

REFile.SaveDocumentFile(doc, fileName, new DOCXEncoder());//save new word

}

}
}