HWPF Mail Merging

[vijay makam]

Hi All,

I am using POI's HWPF to read word doc from my java program. I am basically doing a mail merge program. I'm able to read the doc file and replace the placeholders using the RANGE Object. Now the problem is when I write it out to a new doc. the actual formatting like bold, font etc., is not getting reflected in my outputted doc. javascript:%20x()

Please let me know whether I can do this using HWPF.

Thanks

[Ulf Dittmer]

How are you specifying the formatting? Can you post a short code example that applies formatting that doesn't take effect?

[vijay makam]

I'm reading a character run doing the mail merge using lookup() function and replacing the character run with the returned string. Also, now I am not seeing any contents at all in my destination doc (referred by rangeB)


for(int i=0;i<range.numParagraphs();i++){
Paragraph para = range.getParagraph(i);
for(int j=0;j<para.numCharacterRuns();j++){
CharacterRun chrun = para.getCharacterRun(j);

String newText= this.lookup(chrun.text());
chrun.replaceText(chrun.text(), newText);

}
}


rangeB.replaceText(rangeB.text(), range.text());

// System.out.println("RangeB text is "+rangeB.text());
filewriter.write(rangeB.text());

}

[Ulf Dittmer]

How are you writing the altered file? This:

filewriter.write(rangeB.text());

looks like you're using the java.io classes; is that correct? If so, that's not going to work. You need to use the POI classes and methods to write DOC files.

[vijay makam]

I'm creating a HWPF document for writing and using a java.io class to write to it(FileWriter). As I didn't find any write methods in HWPF. Can you please tell me which classes in POI should I use. I have spent a lot of time on this and I'm running short of time.

[Ulf Dittmer]

Check out the HWPFDocument.write method.

[vijay makam]

The HWPF's write method accepst OutputStream as the paramter.
But when I create an output stream like this
FileOutputStream fos = new FileOutputStream(Test.doc)

I am getting an error "Unable to read entire header; 6 bytes read; expected 512 bytes".

[vijay makam]

This is the code I am using to write to the word file.

file = new File("Test.doc");
file1 = new File("Outout.doc");
fis= new FileInputStream(file);

docA = new HWPFDocument(fis);

fos = new FileOutputStream(file1);

Range range = docA.getRange();

for(int i=0;i<range.numParagraphs();i++){
Paragraph para = range.getParagraph(i);
for(int j=0;j<para.numCharacterRuns();j++){
CharacterRun chrun = para.getCharacterRun(j);

String newText= this.lookup(chrun.text());
chrun.replaceText(chrun.text(), newText);

}
}

docA.write(fos); //Is this correct ??
}
When I try to open my Output.doc. I am getting a "word was unable to read". I am not able to recover it also.

[Ulf Dittmer]

There was a discussion on how to replace text in DOC files using POI on the POI mailing list recently, and someone posted code that does that; it may help you. The download location is mentioned in this mail.

[vijay makam]

Thanks Ulf for the pointer. I tried the code that was posted in the MailingList and I am facing the same problem which I was facing with my code. "word not able to open file: the file is corrupted"

Can you suggest some alternative to achieve that from my Java Program. Can JASPER Reporting tool be way to go.

[Ulf Dittmer]

I'm fairly certain that Jasper can't export to DOC, but a quick check on its web site will tell you for sure.

[dipali chaudhari]

Hi Vijay,
which version you had used for using POI.
Can you please help for word document generation using poi.
If you have any suggestions, please help me.

vijay makam wrote:I'm reading a character run doing the mail merge using lookup() function and replacing the character run with the returned string. Also, now I am not seeing any contents at all in my destination doc (referred by rangeB)


for(int i=0;i&amp;lt;range.numParagraphs();i++){
Paragraph para = range.getParagraph(i);
for(int j=0;j&amp;lt;para.numCharacterRuns();j++){
CharacterRun chrun = para.getCharacterRun(j);

String newText= this.lookup(chrun.text());
chrun.replaceText(chrun.text(), newText);

}
}


rangeB.replaceText(rangeB.text(), range.text());

// System.out.println(&quot;RangeB text is &quot;+rangeB.text());
filewriter.write(rangeB.text());

}