Way back in 2004, a project I was working on required a web page to be exported as a Word document (.DOC). Without relying on any components, I utilized the Office XML & HTML technique to implement this feature.
I posted my sample on CodeProject to seek feedback. Over the years, I've received some generous comments & feature requests. Many wanted to know how to add a header & footer to the dynamically generated Word document.
With the help of the
Microsoft Office HTML and XML Reference, I devised a
hack to add a lacklustre header and/or footer. Some folks wanted to customize the contents of the header & footer but when they tried with my hack that offered limited functionality, the header/footer text showed up in the document body to their annoyance. This July, an ingenious developer
posted a hack that can overcome this problem, in the Comments section of my CodeProject article. His practical workaround was to pack the duplicating header/footer text inside a table & push it off the page's dimensions with CSS.
For those interested, I adapted his VB.NET snippet into a complete sample in C#. Instead of using a ASP.NET webform as I did in the original code sample in the article, I have used a Generic Handler (.ASHX) to dynamically generate a Word document as it is more suitable for this purpose.
<%@ WebHandler Language="C#" Class="Handler" %>using System;using System.Web;using System.Text;public class Handler : IHttpHandler{public void ProcessRequest(HttpContext context){StringBuilder sbTop = new System.Text.StringBuilder();sbTop.Append(@"<html xmlns:o='urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office' xmlns:w='urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word'xmlns='http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40'><head><title></title><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml><w:WordDocument><w:View>Print</w:View><w:Zoom>90</w:Zoom><w:DoNotOptimizeForBrowser/></w:WordDocument></xml><![endif]-->
<style>p.MsoFooter, li.MsoFooter, div.MsoFooter{margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:widow-orphan;tab-stops:center 3.0in right 6.0in;font-size:12.0pt;}<style><!-- /* Style Definitions */@page Section1{size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in ;mso-header-margin:.5in;mso-header:h1;mso-footer: f1; mso-footer-margin:.5in;}
div.Section1{page:Section1;}table#hrdftrtbl{margin:0in 0in 0in 9in;}--></style></head><body lang=EN-US style='tab-interval:.5in'><div class=Section1><h1>Time and tide wait for none</h1>The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog...
...<table id='hrdftrtbl' border='1' cellspacing='0' cellpadding='0'><tr><td><div style='mso-element:header' id=h1 ><p class=MsoHeader style='text-align:center'>Confidential</p></div></td><td><div style='mso-element:footer' id=f1><p class=MsoFooter>Draft<span style=mso-tab-count:2'></span><span style='mso-field-code:"" PAGE ""'></span>of <span style='mso-field-code:"" NUMPAGES ""'></span></p></div>/td></tr></table></body></html>");string strBody = sbTop.ToString();context.Response.AppendHeader("Content-Type", "application/msword");context.Response.AppendHeader("Content-disposition", "attachment; filename=HeaderFooter.doc");context.Response.Write(strBody);}
public bool IsReusable{get{return false;}}}To clearly understand the code you would have to download the
Microsoft Office HTML and XML Reference which is in .CHM format (as there is no online version of it) & look up the exact meanings of custom CSS properties.
Related links:
HOW TO implement "Download as Word/Excel" functionality through a web pageHOW TO send an email with a Word or Excel file attachment built on the fly HOW TO generate a Word document dynamically with user submitted text formatted with Free Text Box
