php - Auto download the file attachment using PHPWord

Question

I'm trying to use PHPWord to generate word documents. And the document can be generated successfully. But there is a problem where my generated word document will be saved on the server. How can I make it available to download straight away?

Sample:

$PHPWord = new PHPWord();
//Searching for values to replace
$document = $PHPWord->loadTemplate('doc/Temp1.docx');
$document->setValue('Name', $Name);
$document->setValue('No', $No);
$document->save('php://output'); //it auto save into my 'doc' directory.

How can i link to the header to download it as follows:

header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename='php://output'"); //not sure how to link this filename to the php://output..

Kindly advise.

Answer 1

php://output is a write-only stream, that writes to your screen (like echo).

So, $document->save('php://output'); will not save the file anywhere on the server, it will just echo it out.

Seems, $document->save, doesn't support stream wrappers, so it literally made a file called "php://output". Try using another file name (I suggest a temp file, as you just want to echo it out).

$temp_file = tempnam(sys_get_temp_dir(), 'PHPWord');
$document->save($temp_file);

In the header, the filename field is what PHP tells the browser the file is named, it doesn't have to be a name of a file on the server. It's just the name the browser will save it as.

header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename='myFile.docx'");

So, putting it all together:

$PHPWord = new PHPWord();
//Searching for values to replace
$document = $PHPWord->loadTemplate('doc/Temp1.docx');
$document->setValue('Name', $Name);
$document->setValue('No', $No);
// // save as a random file in temp file
$temp_file = tempnam(sys_get_temp_dir(), 'PHPWord');
$document->save($temp_file);

// Your browser will name the file "myFile.docx"
// regardless of what it's named on the server 
header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename='myFile.docx'");
readfile($temp_file); // or echo file_get_contents($temp_file);
unlink($temp_file);  // remove temp file