MS Word 2003 XML Output

• Download demo project - 10.4 Kb

Perquisites

Word 2003 in client's PC.

Introduction

We generally give an HTML output to the browser to display results. Now we can give a Word output without MS Office Web Components (OWC) on the server.

Using the code

Any application, whether it is running on Microsoft or Java technologies, can stream out MS Word compatible XML. http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/2003/wordml schema needs to be used. Users can use Microsoft or Java technologies to give an output, by just following the XML Schema Reference.

I am using Customers table in the Northwind database. Below is a code-behind code in C# for generating Word document in XML. Remove any HTML tag from the aspx page, only the Page directive should be there.

using System; 
using System.Collections; 
using System.ComponentModel; 
using System.Data; 
using System.Data.SqlClient; 
using System.Web; 
using System.Text; 
using System.Web.SessionState; 
using System.Web.UI; 
using System.Web.UI.WebControls; 
using System.Web.UI.HtmlControls; 

namespace Word2003 
{ 
    /// <summary> 
    /// Summary description for WebForm1. 
    /// </summary> 
    public class WebForm1 : System.Web.UI.Page 
    { 
        // String Builder to hold the XML 
        StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(); 

        #region Web Form Designer generated code 
        override protected void OnInit(EventArgs e) 
        { 
            InitializeComponent(); 
            base.OnInit(e); 
            // SQL Query 
            string sqlQry="SELECT CustomerID, CompanyName, " + 
                   "ContactName, City from customers"; 

            //Connection String 
            string connStr = "server=10.4.12.13;" + 
                   "database=northwind;user id=sa;password=aprimo"; 

            // Define Connection 
            SqlConnection sqlConn = new SqlConnection(connStr);

            // Open Connection 
            sqlConn.Open(); 

            // Define SqlCommand 
            SqlCommand cmd = new SqlCommand(sqlQry,sqlConn); 

            // Define SqlDataReader 
            SqlDataReader dr=null; 

            // Execute Query and Populate Data Reader 
            dr = cmd.ExecuteReader(CommandBehavior.CloseConnection); 

            // XML Header. Schema is must. 
            sb.Append("<?xml version=\"1.0\"?>"); 
            sb.Append("<w:wordDocument xmlns:w=\"http://schemas" + 
                      ".microsoft.com/office/word/2003/wordml\">"); 

            sb.Append("<w:body>"); 

            // Create Table and Column Headers 
            sb.Append<w:tbl>"); 
            sb.Append("<w:tr>"); 
            sb.Append("<w:tc><w:p><w:r><w:rPr>" + 
                "<w:b w:val=\"on\" /><w:t>"+
                dr.GetName(0).ToString()+
                "</w:t></w:rPr></w:r></w:p></w:tc>"); 
            sb.Append("<w:tc><w:p><w:r>" + 
                "<w:rPr><w:b w:val=\"on\" /><w:t>"+
                dr.GetName(1).ToString()+
                "</w:t></w:rPr></w:r></w:p></w:tc>"); 
            sb.Append("<w:tc><w:p><w:r><w:rPr>" + 
                "<w:b w:val=\"on\" /><w:t>"+
                dr.GetName(2).ToString()+
                "</w:t></w:rPr></w:r></w:p></w:tc>"); 
            sb.Append("<w:tc><w:p><w:r><w:rPr>" +
                "<w:b w:val=\"on\" /><w:t>"+
                dr.GetName(3).ToString()+
                "</w:t></w:rPr></w:r></w:p></w:tc>"); 

            sb.Append("</w:tr>"); 

            // Get Data 
            while (dr.Read()) 
            { 
                sb.Append("<w:tr>"); 
                sb.Append("<w:tc><w:p><w:r><w:t>"+
                   dr["CustomerID"].ToString()+
                   "</w:t></w:r></w:p></w:tc>"); 
                sb.Append("<w:tc><w:p><w:r><w:t>"+
                   dr["CompanyName"].ToString()+
                   "</w:t></w:r></w:p></w:tc>"); 
                sb.Append("<w:tc><w:p><w:r><w:t>"+
                   dr["ContactName"].ToString()+
                   "</w:t></w:r></w:p>/w:tc>"); 
                sb.Append("<w:tc><w:p><w:r><w:t>"+
                   dr["City"].ToString()+
                   "</w:t></w:r></w:p></w:tc>"); 
                sb.Append("</w:tr>"); 
            } 
            // sb.Append("</w:tr>"); 
            sb.Append("</w:tbl>");
            sb.Append("</w:body>"); 
            sb.Append("</w:wordDocument>"); 
            dr.Close();
            sqlConn.Close();
        } 

        /// <summary> 
        /// Required method for Designer support - do not modify 
        /// the contents of this method with the code editor. 
        /// </summary> 
        private void InitializeComponent() 
        { 
            this.Load += new System.EventHandler(this.Page_Load); 
        } 
        #endregion 

        private void Page_Load(object sender, System.EventArgs e) 
        { 
            // Set Mime Type 
            Response.ContentType = "application/msword"; 

            // Push the Data to the client. 
            Response.Write(sb.ToString()); 
        } 
    }
}

Conclusion

If Word 2003 is installed, then it will open up and display the data. If Word 2003 is not available on the client, XML will be displayed in the browser. Microsoft Office 2003 XML Reference Schemas are available for download here.