You can download one of the official distribution files from:

• http://packages.zendframework.com/

Or take a look at the source directly on GitHub.

Feel free to download the framework and try out the latest LiveDocx demo applications. I have not only ported all those from Zend Framework 1, but also added some new ones for Zend Framework 2.

Happy coding!

In the January 2012 issue of the German language magazine PHP Magazin, an interesting little article about generating thumbnail images of MS Word files using LiveDocx was published.

You can download the clipping below:

• Word-Thumbnails mit PHP (in German)

Or follow the link (http://bit.ly/oOyJ4E), mentioned in the article.

The brief article discusses a technique originally published by Philip Norton in his blog back in September 2011.

I will be attending the social event this evening. Feel free to approach me to talk more about using LiveDocx with the Zend Framework and generally in PHP.

You can download the slides to the presentation. You can also contact me, if you have any further questions.

Thank you for attention during the lightening talk.

Template-Based DOCX, DOC & PDF Generation with the Zend Framework

Using current PDF generation libraries in PHP, it is time consuming to get the formatting of a document exactly right. You need to choose between either the HTML-to-PDF approach, or the programmatic approach, in which you define the x and y co-ordinates of each and every element on a page.

In this lightening talk, I would like to present an alternative approach to generating not only PDF files with PHP but, amongst others, also DOCX and DOC, and even TIFF and BMP. It utilizes templates, created in a word processing package, for example Microsoft Word, and the Zend Framework.

The approach supports PHP on Linux, Windows and Mac OS.

The unconference will take place at the Ramada Manchester Piccadilly in Manchester, UK.

A voting process will commence after talk submissions have closed on September 11, 2011, and will remain open until September 28, 2011. Only delegates of PHPNW11 are eligible to vote.

If you are interested in learning about an alternative approach to creating professional, print-ready documents with PHP, vote for me!

See you all in Manchester next month.

October 01, 2011: My proposal got accepted and I will be offering the session at PHPNW11 Unconference. Joind.in Quicklink: http://joind.in/3812.

October 02, 2011: The Ramada Manchester Piccadilly got rebranded Mercure Manchester Piccadilly.

The final step of the tutorial is not directly relevant to this blog, but the first two steps are. To see some PHP code that illustrates how to populate templates with LiveDocx, using the Zend Framework, please take a look at this article: Brief introduction to LiveDocx in PHP.

If you have any questions about the video or need help using LiveDocx, please do not hesitate to use the comment section below.

Thank you Björn for a very easy-to-follow video tutorial.

As LiveDocx is a SOAP service, it is possible to use LiveDocx in any programming language that supports SOAP. Python supports SOAP, hence LiveDocx may be used in Python. However, it is always easiest, if a native adapter is available.

Radoslaw Benkel (@singlespl) has recently published such a native adapter, which makes using LiveDocx in Python a breeze.

Take a look a his GitHub repository for details:
https://github.com/singles/python_livedocx

To use this library, all you have to do is as follows:

from livedocx import LiveDocx
 
ld = LiveDocx()
ld.login('username', 'password')
ld.set_local_template('path/to/template.doc')
 
ld.assign_value('software', 'python_livedocx')
ld.assign_value('license', 'MIT')
 
ld.create_document()
 
data = ld.retrieve_document('PDF')
 
file = open('software info.pdf', 'wb')
file.write(data)
file.close()

If anyone else has written libraries to use LiveDocx in Python and would be willing to share details, please post a comment below.

Thank you, Radoslaw Benkel, for your contribution to the LiveDocx community.

An oft underestimated feature of LiveDocx is support for the Microsoft Word INCLUDETEXT field type, which allows templates to be chained together into one larger template. The entire contents of the sub-templates are brought into the main template in the order in which the fields are inserted, during the merge process. The final document contains the contents of the template and all sub-templates.

To learn more about INCLUDETEXT and how to insert INCLUDETEXT fields into your template, please take a look the following articles:

• WD2000: How to Create a Long Document in Word, Section IncludeText Field

• Using IncludeText Fields – Part 1: Creating Templates

• Using IncludeText Fields – Part 2: Putting It All To Work

Zend\Service\LiveDocx\MailMerge provides two methods to control how or whether sub-templates are included in the main template.

In the default state, all templates, which are referenced in INCLUDETEXT fields are included during the merge process.

If you do not want this to be the case, the method setIgnoreSubTemplates() can be set to true. This disables the inclusion of all sub-templates during the merge process. Using the free public LiveDocx service, you cannot selectively define which templates should be included. It is an all-or-nothing approach.

The premium and licensed versions of the LiveDocx service, on the other hand, allow for more fine grained control. These versions provide the method setSubTemplateIgnoreList(), which takes an array of filenames that should not be included. This way, you can, for example, included sub-templates 2 and 5, but not 1, 3 and 4.

The methods setIgnoreSubTemplates() and setSubTemplateIgnoreList() will be part of Zend Framework 2 when it ships. The latest code updates should be merged into master on the Zend canonical repository within the next few weeks. For the time being, the code is still in my GitHub repository, in the branch livedocx-2.0.

You can clone the latest code at:
https://github.com/jonathanmaron/zf2/tree/livedocx-2.0

Take a look at the following directory for some demonstration applications that illustrate the methods setIgnoreSubTemplates() and setSubTemplateIgnoreList()

/demos/Zend/Service/LiveDocx/MailMerge/templates-ignore/

Feel free to contact me, using the comments section below, if you need any help, or notice any inconsistencies in the code.

June 10, 2011: The code updates mentioned in this post have now been merged into master on the Zend canonical repository.

You can clone the latest code at:
https://github.com/jonathanmaron/zf2/tree/livedocx-2.0

What’s new in this version?

• Exception handling has been migrated to ZF2 practices i.e. Exception/RuntimeException and Exception/InvalidArgumentException.

• Exceptions from the backend service now contain only the message from the backend service. The backend engineers requested this be the case, as it aides support cases.

• The inline documentation has been updated.

• The methods logIn() and logOut() are now protected in scope.

• The methods setIsLoggedIn() and getIsLoggedIn() were added.

• The quality and coverage of unit tests have been vastly improved (63 tests, 203 assertions).

You are welcome to clone the repository and try out the new code for yourself. Feel free to contact me, using the comments section below, if you need any help, or notice any inconsistencies in the code.

June 10, 2011: The code updates mentioned in this post have now been merged into master on the Zend canonical repository.

Why am I forbidden from using the LiveDocx service? What have I done wrong?
I keep getting an Exception, with the message HTTP Error 403 Forbidden.

To be fair, this error message is not great and I will lobby the backend engineers to make it more explicit. But what does it mean?

It means that you are trying to perform one of the following:

• More than 1 concurrent request.

• More than 100 requests in any 60 second period.

The free public service has to restrict usage to ensure that all users get a fair share of the service.

These limitations do not apply to the premium or licensed LiveDocx products.

Feel free to approach me and can talk more about using LiveDocx in PHP. I’ll be hanging round until the end of the unconference and then I’ll be at Leeds PHP on Monday night.

You can download the slides to the presentation.

You can also contact me (@JonathanMaron), if you have any further questions.