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| Aug 25, 1999 |
 |
| By Gardiner B. Jones |
| ASP Tricks |
| Data Access |
| enter the discussion |
BuildDoc.asp is an Active Server Page (ASP) that reads the
output of a Web page form, and creates as output a Microsoft Word document
containing a table of changed data within the form. Forms are no longer limited
to containing static information. With database connectivity, the increasing use
of Dynamic HTML (DHTML), and the growing interest in XML, it has become common
practice in business Web pages for the data contained in them to be dynamic.
That is, what is shown in the form may change based on user interaction (see the
sample input form below).
The business need filled by BuildDoc is to enable sales
associates to create form letters from the changed records of a Web page table.
Only the data modified by the sales person is sent to Word, where it is
formatted into a table. Obviously, all samples here are fictitious.
BuildDoc will read all of the information on the form,
identifying which rows have been changed, and then creates the Microsoft Word
document using only the information contained within the changed rows (see the
sample output document below). BuildDoc uses a template file
(buildDoc.dot) that contains the address header, and some preformatted text. It
then writes a table into the document that has a row for each modified row from
the Web page form.
We start by reading all of the Web page form fields into hidden form fields
on the receiving Web page. In the source code below, note the "
onLoad " call in the body tag. It calls the buildDoc VBScript
subroutine, passing three parameters to it: the contents of the page's form (all
the hidden fields), the location of the Word template file, and the number of
rows received from the input form. The input form fields are all read and then,
when the page loads, it calls the buildDoc subroutine. For the sake of brevity,
we will assume that all variables have been first declared before use.
The code for the loading of the input form fields into buildDoc.asp is thus: -
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C/DTD HTML 3.2 Final//EN">
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Build Document</TITLE>
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Refresh" CONTENT="30;URL='orderForm.asp'">
</HEAD>
<%
dotLocation="'\\servername\directory\theTemplate.dot'"
intRowCount = Request.Form("rowCount") 'initialize a row counter%>
<BODY Language="VBScript" onLoad="buildDoc document.theForm,
<%=dotLocation%>,intRowCount>
<FORM NAME="theForm">
<%
itemCount = 0 'set field counter to zero
For Each Item in Request.Form 'count up the form fields
itemCount = itemCount + 1 'using For..Next loop
%>
<INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="<%=Item%>" VALUE="<%=Request(Item)%>">
<% Next %>
<INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="numbRows" VALUE="<%=intRowCount%>">
<INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="fieldCount" VALUE="<%=itemCount%>">
</FORM>
</BODY>
</HTML>
We create an instance of the Word Document object, using the sample code immediately below. Note that in Internet Explorer 4+ this will fail unless the browser security is set to Low, or Custom with the appropriate setting to run programs.
<%
Set objWordDoc = CreateObject("Word.Document")ObjWordDoc.Application.Documents.Add theTemplate, False
ObjWordDoc.Application.Visible=True
%>
We re-dimension our array so that it is the same size as the number of rows that are contained in the Web page's form. In this case, we set the Y-axis to a constant value of four because that is the number of columns we need in the output document. The X-axis contains the number of received rows from the form.
<%
Redim Preserve theArray(4,intTableRows)
%>
Now we are ready to examine all of the form rows. We do this by looping through all the input Web page form fields to collect each form field name and corresponding value. We test each to determine which array element to put it into, and then we put it there. The SELECT CASE statement in the code sample below is important. It is where we determine in which column the form field belongs. We used hard coded CASE options here for expediency.
<%
For intCount = 0 to frmData.fieldCount.value
strOkay = "Y"
strSearch = frmData.elements(intCount).name 'load the field name
strValue = frmData.elements(intCount).value 'load the field value
strPosition = Instr(1,strSearch,"_") 'get pos val of "_"
intStringLen=strPosition-1
If intStrLen > 0 Then
strLeft = Left(strSearch,intStringLen)
strRight = Right(strSearch,(Len(strSearch)-Len(strLeft)-1))
Select Case strLeft
Case "SKU" intArrayY=0
Case "description" intArrayY=1
Case "price" intArrayY=2
Case "quantity" intArrayY=3
End Select
IntArrayX = strRight
If strOkay <> "N" Then
TheArray(intArrayY, intArrayX) = strValue
End If
End If
Next
%>
Now we are ready to begin creating the document. We start by setting the
Microsoft Word Document object RANGE using our variable, rngCurrent
, to the active document (just in case the user has a different document also
open). Then we specify the table size by specifying its location (
rngCurrent ) and the number of rows and columns it needs.
<%
Set rngCurrent = objWordDoc.Application.ActiveDocument.Content
Set tabCurrent = ObjWordDoc.Application.ActiveDocument.Tables.Add
rngCurrent,intNumrows,4)
%>
Having created the document with the table, we now begin populating the table
with data. First we point to the first row ( tabRow=1 ), then begin
a loop that will run through each row. We insert a line feed [
Chr(10) ] at the end of each row to put some white space between
rows. Finally, we increment our row counter, output the dollar values with
"FormatCurrency" to ensure use of dollar signs, commas and decimal places. Right
justification of dollar amounts is handled by setting the column in question to
" ParagraphAlignment=2 ". I won't tell you how much of a pain it
was to discover how to do that! Suffice it to say that it is easier and better
documented in VBA, which is not at all like what is required in VBScript.
<%
For j = 1 to intTableRows
ObjWordDoc.Application.ActiveDocument.Tables(1).Rows(tabRow).Borders.Enable=False
objWordDoc.Application.ActiveDocument.Tables(1).Rows(tabRow).Cells(1).Range.InsertAfter theArray(1,j)
objWordDoc.Application.ActiveDocument.Tables(1).Rows(tabRow).Cells(2).Range.InsertAfter theArray(2,j)
objWordDoc.Application.ActiveDocument.Tables(1).Rows(tabRow).Cells(3).Range.InsertAfter FormatCurrency(theArray(3,j))
objWordDoc.Application.ActiveDocument.Tables(1).Rows(tabRow).Cells(4).Range.InsertAfter theArray(4,j)
objWordDoc.Application.ActiveDocument.Tables(1).Rows(tabRow).Cells(4).Range.InsertAfter Chr(10)
objWordDoc.Applicatoin.ActiveDocument.Tables(1).Rows(tabRow).Cells(3).Range.ParagraphFormat.alignment=2
tabRow = tabRow + 1
Next
%>
Finally, we finish up our document with some closing text and specifying the template's location, and then our subroutine.
<%
objWordDoc.Application.ActiveDocument.Paragraph.Add.Range.InsertAfter("Thank you for shopping at Acme Co., and please come again!")objWordDoc.Application.ActiveDocument.Paragraph.Add.Range.InsertAfter(" ")objWordDoc.Application.ActiveDocument.Paragraph.Add.Range.InsertAfter(" ")objWordDoc.Application.ActiveDocument.Paragraph.Add.Range.InsertAfter("Regards,")objWordDoc.Application.ActiveDocument.Paragraph.Add.Range.InsertAfter(" ")objWordDoc.Application.ActiveDocument.Paragraph.Add.Range.InsertAfter("Daryl B. Morticum")objWordDoc.Application.ActiveDocument.Paragraph.Add.Range.InsertAfter("Sales Associate")End Sub
%>
Hopefully this will get your gears spinning for ways you can do something similar. We are sure that we aren't the only people who have had a need to create a document from a Web page's form. This is how we did it. If you have a better way, or an improvement on or method, we would love to hear from you.
This article was written as a joint collaboration between the following co-employees of the Education Networks of America: -
Gardiner Jones, MCP+I, MCSE+I, MCT (principal author)
Cal Evans (the right alignment genius)
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