Send entire Word form by email?

[cooterbrown]

Hi all,

Although I have experience in other areas of IT and development, I'm very new to programming, so please excuse my obvious ignorance...

I need to allow the user to send an active form (entire filled in form with fields, not just the data) the user will access from a website to a hard line fax machine. This hard line fax requirement is generated by the lack of expertise in even basic internet/email usage on the receiving end. The form is currently an active Word form, but it looks like a PDF may be a better way to go. I don't know how to accomplish this task without VB macros. I will however, learn whatever is necessary to accomplish the task. The end user is not flexible about the appearance of the form however.

There are multiple users of various level of "expertise" but only one recipient with a very low level of expertise.

So, I have tested the Word form submittal via a command button. The email to fax function works, but the form was submitted with a VB script and macros had to be allowed by the user, so I expect this will not be acceptable. Also, this was limited by the user's email client and dependent upon the client. It really needs to be independent of the user client if at all possible.

It appears this may be doable with PHP. I'm running up on a deadline so any help is appreciated.

Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance.

[Josh Connerty]

So you are trying to send a windows word document over fax to someone via a webform?

[cooterbrown]

So you are trying to send a windows word document over fax to someone via a webform?

No, that's not exactly what they want, sorry for not being clear... That might be the best option though....

What they have is a proprietary Word form with about 50 fields (converting it to PDF is OK, it just has to look the same) and the sequence needs to be as follows:

1) user goes online and either accesses or downloads their form

2) user fills out fields in form and submits by a command or other button on the form.

3) Form is received as entire form (not just field data) by fax. I can use email to fax so for the sake of programming send to email is OK.

I had this working with VB in Word using "send for review" but the user will have to allow macros, which of course is not good....

Thanks, I hope this clarifies the question. Can it be done this way?

[Josh Connerty]

Rihgt. It is quite difficult and I don't have much knowledge of this. Could you not convert the word document into a .exe file and then have the user fill it out and on the send button have it converted into a word form then emailed to the user?

[cooterbrown]

It's a challenge, for me at least. I keep thinking there should be a way to send the entire form emailed as an attachment which is fine. I don't see it yet though.

I'm not sure on the .exe file, I'll take a look at that.

I really appreciate your help.

Thanks

[Josh Connerty]

Is it of upmost importance that the form is in word?

[cooterbrown]

It can be a PDF or actually anything as long as it comes off the fax looking like the form the boss made himself, and can be filled out by the user who accesses it from the web site.

[Josh Connerty]

Tehn you could make a web form having all of the fields the word document does and then create a new word document insert in parts all of the bits of the word document devided by the user input if you get my drift.

For example:

This is the word document it has some text here...

Here...

and here...

The first form field is here \/
Name:

Second here \/
Age:

Third here \/
Country of Residence:

The document will finish in just a few lines

a few more...

And another...

This is the last line.

So what you would do is create an different kind of PHP variable (presuming you have some knowledge of PHP).

// Use these variables to strip slashes and condition the data etc.
$name = $_POST['name'];
$age = $_POST['age'];
$country = $_POST['countryofresidence'];

$word_doc = <<<EOD
This is the word document it has some text here...

Here...

and here...

The first form field is here \/
Name: $name

Second here \/
Age: $age

Third here \/
Country of Residence: $country

The document will finish in just a few lines

a few more...

And another...

This is the last line.
EOD;

You might have to do some looking up here though, we need to open a new file and insert the contents. The only issue being is that if you can't open a word document with Notepad, you may have hit a flaw.

I personally hardly ever use word and this is a new PC so I have no word docuemnts saved. I will make one identical as to what I have demonstarted and then get back to you.

[Josh Connerty]

If you try doing it don't be shocked!

It doesn't make sense, obviously there is some structure to it, try googling for a word document view PHP, I know there is one out there for excel so there is more than likely one for word.

The only issue being that it would be difficult to edit a word document using only plain text...

[cooterbrown]

Thank you for your help. I do have some basic knowledge of PHP, but ONLY basic.

They really want this form, even on the user side, to appear the same. I have told them they may have to live with a web form though. Leave it too me to get involved in something this obscure!

I'll go back to Google with the terminology you suggest, that may be why I did not find anything.

Once again, thanks.

[Josh Connerty]

No Problem, by the way I will post a link to the excel API I mentioned.