XML Parsing error; PHPWord

Question

I am using PHPOffice/PHPWord in my Laravel Application. It is used to generate a .docx document with results in tables. This works great for a document of 3 tables with 6 rows, but when there are more rows the document is generated but when opening it the following error occurs:

We're sorry, We can't open (documentname) because we found a problem with its contents.

Details: XML parsing error Location: Part:/word/document.xml, Line: 2, Column 14349.

Now, I have started working on another result page where I would also want to generate a .docx document. This will contain 5 tables, but with 3 rows I get the same XML parsing error but in a different location (Location: Part: /word/document.xml, Line:4, Column:2888). Could someone explain to me whether this is a error in my code, or phpword/words?

I have done some troubleshooting by deleting everything, and slowly adding new rows. I have found the error but how could i fix it. The first two tables are generated good..

    $phpWord = new \PhpOffice\PhpWord\PhpWord();

    $section = $phpWord->addSection();
    $section->addImage('../public/img/2.jpg', array('width' => 230, 'height' => 65, 'alignment' => 'left'));
    $section->addText('Project IDs:' . $parameter);
    $header =$section->addHeader();
    $header->addText('Results Summary');

    $section->addLine(
        array(
            'width'       => \PhpOffice\PhpWord\Shared\Converter::cmToPixel(16),
            'height'      => \PhpOffice\PhpWord\Shared\Converter::cmToPixel(0),
            'positioning' => 'absolute',
        )
    );
    $tableName = 'rStyle';
    $phpWord->addFontStyle($tableName, array('italic' => true, 'size' => 12));
    $thName = 'tStyle';
    $phpWord->addFontStyle($thName, array('bold' => true, 'size' => 9));

    $section->addText('General Information Table', $tableName);
    $fancyTableStyle = array('borderSize' => 6, 'borderColor' => '999999');
    $spanTableStyleName = 'Overview tables';
    $phpWord->addTableStyle($spanTableStyleName, $fancyTableStyle);
    $table = $section->addTable($spanTableStyleName);
    $table->addRow(null, array('tblHeader' => true, 'cantSplit' => true));
    $table->addCell(1750)->addText('Project ID',$thName);
    $table->addCell(1750)->addText('Description',$thName);
    $table->addCell(1750)->addText('Notes',$thName);
    foreach ($id_array_explode as $char) {
        $table->addRow();
        $singlenumber = (int)$char;
        $cursor = $collection->find(array("id" => $singlenumber));
        foreach ($cursor as $document) {
                    $table->addCell(1750)->addText($document["project_id"]);
                    $table->addCell(1750)->addText($document["description"]);
                    $table->addCell(1750)->addText($document["notes"]);
        }
    }
    $section->addText('        
');
    $section->addLine(
        array(
            'width'       => \PhpOffice\PhpWord\Shared\Converter::cmToPixel(16),
            'height'      => \PhpOffice\PhpWord\Shared\Converter::cmToPixel(0),
            'positioning' => 'absolute',
        )
    );
    $section->addText('Input Table', $tableName);
    $table1 = $section->addTable($spanTableStyleName);
    $table1->addRow(null, array('tblHeader' => true, 'cantSplit' => true));
    $table1->addCell(1750)->addText('Project ID',$thName);
    $table1->addCell(1750)->addText('#',$thName);
    foreach ($id_array_explode as $char) {
        $table1->addRow();
        $singlenumber = (int)$char;
        $cursor = $collection->find(array("id" => $singlenumber));
        foreach ($cursor as $document) {
            if (is_array($document['input'])) {
                foreach ($document['input'] as $samples) {
                    $table1->addCell(1750)->addText($document["project_id"]);
                    $table1->addCell(1750)->addText($samples['nr']);
                }
            }
        }
    }
    $section->addText('        
');
    $section->addLine(
        array(
            'width'       => \PhpOffice\PhpWord\Shared\Converter::cmToPixel(16),
            'height'      => \PhpOffice\PhpWord\Shared\Converter::cmToPixel(0),
            'positioning' => 'absolute',
        )
    );
    $section->addText('Output Table', $tableName);
    $table2 = $section->addTable($spanTableStyleName);
//// THIS IS WHERE THE ERROR OCCURS!! 
        $table2->addRow(null, array('tblHeader' => true, 'cantSplit' => true));
        $table2->addCell(1750)->addText('ID',$thName);

Thank you!

SOLUTION Oke, so I have deleted the whole document and added every single sentence separately to see where the error occurred. This led to seeing that the error came from the data which I was getting. It couldn't handle ">" and "&" signs!

So, if you every have this error, check the data which you're printing!

Weirdest thing.. I removed the parameters in ->addRow(), added all the ->addCell once at a time.. and how it works again. I thing the problem was too much table heads?.. — Anna Jeanine
– Anna Jeanine, Commented Oct 28, 2016 at 9:09
So the problem was non-escaped output, the answer of JMac solves this: stackoverflow.com/a/49453308/2395363 — Andy
– Andy, Commented Oct 7, 2018 at 18:40

JMac · Accepted Answer · 2018-04-27 14:53:08Z

15

A better solution is to add the following line of code before you do anything with the word document:

PhpOffice\PhpWord\Settings::setOutputEscapingEnabled(true);

This will automatically escape any problematic characters.

edited Apr 27, 2018 at 14:53

answered Mar 23, 2018 at 15:33

JMac

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ScoobyPorthos · Accepted Answer · 2016-11-22 16:56:48Z

3

Indeed, It comes from your data : you have a XML special character in it and when Word, parses your doc, it doesn't understand. I solved this problem by using htmlspecialchars(). I'm not sure it is the best way but it works.

answered Nov 22, 2016 at 16:56

ScoobyPorthos

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2 Comments

scurrie Over a year ago

The & character was the culprit for me; phpword doesn't seem to do a lot of escaping by itself

Giovani Over a year ago

In my case I have had to add also strip_tags and html_entity_decode to solve the issue.

Laurent Meganck · Accepted Answer · 2016-10-28 08:56:33Z

0

Not very familiar with PHPWord, but make sure the encoding of your document and the data you are inserting into it are the same. Used to have the same problem with an old library for creating excel files.

answered Oct 28, 2016 at 8:56

Laurent Meganck

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