Setting checkbox value in template

[ozilion]

I think still this is one of the most wanted feature of Templates. Can we add this too?

[FBnil]

@ozilion Can be done already, but how do you imagine this function? Do you free-form search for some text, and find the first checkbox to the left of it? Or do you enumerate the checkboxes and search for the n-th one (...with xslt?)? Search for a w:p (paragraph) where the unique id of the w:sdt tag is a certain value?.. in short: how do YOU say "(un)check THAT one".

<w:sdt>
<w14:checkbox>
    <w14:checked w14:val="1"/>
:
         <w:t>☒</w:t>
      </w:r>
    </w:sdtContent>
</w:sdt>

[ozilion]

I tried PHPDocx, they use bookmark in checkbox. Defining bookmark variable for each checkbox should work or may be better solution? I have a forms contains many checkboxes in but depending some other criteria i just have to check 1 to 3 of them.

For example define bookmark like ${check1} and use in code $template->setChekBox("check", true);

[ozilion]

By the way changing

<w14:checked w14:val="1"/>
to
<w14:checked w14:val="0"/>

will work

[FBnil]

I thought, or at least docx4j does, set both the ☒ AND the val="1" (or vice versa, text.setValue("☐"); and val="0").

Bookmarks, huh. Nice unobtrusive way to add variables (did not know it). I'll see what I can do, give me a few days.

[FBnil]

Minimal working example. Requires my fork of TemplateProcessor.php (drop-in replacement for 0.13.0/0.14.0, only replace TemplateProcessor.php in your ./vendor/)
@ozilion So yes, totally doable, but lacking in functionality. Do you have more suggestions to build up a forms library?

EDIT: code removed, see branch with production quality code.

note: still contains a flaw that it can not find the last checkbox. This is only a code example, no testcases have been written yet. I might need to update my TemplateProcessor to include search-right-from-tag and search-left-from-tag to lessen the code burden.
Also: <w14:checkedState w:val="2612"/> actually says which unicode chr is required to set the checkbox, so we need to read that value (and not set ☒ hardcoded).

[ozilion]

I think this is the one of the most expected feature (at least for me) and personally i could use convertion to pdf but it is another matter. In our project we only need now is to change state of any checkbox in templates. Thanks for your efforts, you have enough time :)

[FBnil]

Conversion to pdf is a whole new bag of cats, as it goes word->html->pdf and html markup is lacking if you want more than just the basics. If you need a perfect word to pdf, either get a commercial version or install the commandline version of open/libreoffice, which just works but is very slow and does not scale (or look into UNO if you need speed; search for "unoconv")

[FBnil]

@ozilion Ok, time for you to be my first tester.
From my branch

grab 2 files:
TemplateProcessor.php
CheckboxTemplateProcessor.php
and put them in your ./vendor/phpoffice/PHPWord/src/PhpWord/ directory.

From there (you can read the testcases and source to see what it does)

$file_dir = storage_path('checkbox_withbookmark.docx');
$template = new \PhpOffice\PhpWord\CheckboxTemplateProcessor($file_dir);
$template->setCheckboxOn('bookmark_1');
$template->setCheckboxOff('bookmark_2');
$template->saveAs(storage_path('app/public/tmp.docx'));
return response()->download(storage_path('app/public/tmp.docx'))->deleteFileAfterSend(true);

You also have bool $template->getCheckbox('bookmark_1'); to get the state of a checkbox.

Because CheckboxTemplateProcessor inherits all from my rewrite of TemplateProcessor, you have also the goodies that TemplateProcessor brings (in fact, we use its segments to do the hard work)
You can read the text in my pull request to see what it can do.

I really wish PHPOffice will drop support for PHP5.3.3 soon, because it is better to use traits instead of subclasses. (because you can mix-and-match with traits).

[ozilion]

V13 not working with me, it genereates corrupted files from templates. in v12 i can use it without problem but your files didn't work for me.

[ozilion]

I made it work v13 but $template->setCheckboxOn('bookmark_1'); didn't work. Checkbox still unchecked. But can i see your test word file, may i made a mistake in my template defining bookmark?

[FBnil]

The version does not matter much as you are replacing the full TemplateProcessor with something else.
I made sure that corruption should not be a problem anymore (so 0.13.0 with this patch should work fine), are you saying that corruption still occurs with my version of TemplateProcessor? Do you have a docx you can share with the problem?

What did not work? Does $result=$template->setCheckboxOn('bookmark_1'); return false? Did you add the bookmark in MSWord as ${bookmark_1} ? You can also use macro names, just add a macro in the text right to the checkbox.

You should have something like:

<w:p>
<w:pPr><w:pStyle w:val="Normal"/><w:rPr></w:rPr></w:pPr>
<w:sdt>
	<w:sdtPr>
		<w14:checkbox>
			<w14:checked w:val="0"/>
			<w14:checkedState w:val="2612"/>
			<w14:uncheckedState w:val="2610"/>
		</w14:checkbox>
	</w:sdtPr>
	<w:sdtContent>
		<w:r>
			<w:rPr><w:rFonts w:eastAsia="MS Gothic" w:ascii="MS Gothic" w:hAnsi="MS Gothic"/><w:lang w:val="en-US"/></w:rPr>
			<w:t>☐</w:t>
		</w:r>
	</w:sdtContent>
</w:sdt>
<w:r><w:rPr><w:lang w:val="en-US"/></w:rPr><w:t xml:space="preserve"> </w:t></w:r>
<w:bookmarkStart w:id="0" w:name="${bookmark_1}"/><w:bookmarkEnd w:id="0"/>
<w:r><w:rPr><w:lang w:val="en-US"/></w:rPr><w:t xml:space="preserve">This is </w:t></w:r>
<w:r><w:rPr><w:lang w:val="en-US"/></w:rPr><w:t>a unchecked checkbox</w:t></w:r>
<w:r><w:rPr><w:lang w:val="en-US"/></w:rPr><w:t xml:space="preserve"> </w:t></w:r>
<w:r><w:rPr><w:lang w:val="en-US"/></w:rPr><w:t>${line1}</w:t></w:r>
</w:p>

[FBnil]

Here is a document you requested

[ozilion]

2.AFR-02BasvuruGozdenGecirme-R5.docx
this is one of my template files, trying to test with check box near 'Kuruluşta tasarım ve geliştirme olmaması'

At first, the created files cannot be opened it was saying corrupted or broken file. Then i managed to create files succesfully but now only my first of about 25 templates replaced but others remains as original template, variables not converting. New TemplateProcessor not working in v12. Lastly I cannot add bookmark with special characters like ${ and }, using Office Pro 365 Plus.

Note: As you see i am using @ instead ${ and }, more suitable for my project.

[FBnil]

Ok, there are several ways to tackle this and you need to choose the most logical method.

Your document contains:

<w:fldChar w:fldCharType="begin">
  <w:ffData>
    <w:name w:val="tasarim73"/><w:enabled/><w:calcOnExit w:val="0"/>
    <w:statusText w:type="text" w:val="@tasarim73@"/>
    <w:checkBox><w:sizeAuto/><w:default w:val="0"/></w:checkBox>
  </w:ffData>
</w:fldChar>

We also have your bookmark (which NEEDS to be unique), which is mixed up with another bookmark.

<w:bookmarkStart w:id="1" w:name="tasarim73"/>
	<w:bookmarkStart w:id="2" w:name="_GoBack"/>
<w:bookmarkEnd w:id="1"/>
	<w:bookmarkEnd w:id="2"/>

and we have several copy-pasted, same name:

<w:fldChar w:fldCharType="begin">
  <w:ffData>
    <w:name w:val="Onay1"/><w:enabled/><w:calcOnExit w:val="0"/>
    <w:checkBox><w:sizeAuto/><w:default w:val="0"/></w:checkBox>
  </w:ffData>
</w:fldChar>

Now the LibreOffice implementation is totally different from the MSWord implementation. In fact, I can not manipulate a MSWord checkbox in LibreOffice, and reading your reply, editing a LibreOffice checkbox is not possible in MSWord. Sigh.

Setting your first checkbox, using the w:ffData w:name is done like this:

$file_dir = storage_path('2.AFR-02BasvuruGozdenGecirme-R5.docx');
$template = new \PhpOffice\PhpWord\TemplateProcessor($file_dir);
// \PhpOffice\PhpWord\TemplateProcessor::$ensureMacroCompletion = false;

// quick function that only uses TemplateProcessor
function setCheckboxMS(&$template, $search, $newValue=true){
	$template->processSegment(
		$search,
		'w:checkBox',
		\PhpOffice\PhpWord\TemplateProcessor::SEARCH_LEFT,
		0,
		'MainPart',
		function (&$xmlSegment, &$segmentStart, &$segmentEnd, &$part) use ($newValue) {
			$newValue = $newValue? 1 : 0;
			$count = 0;
			$xmlSegment = preg_replace(
				[ '~<w:default w:val="[^"]+"(\s?)/>~u' ],
				[ '<w:default w:val="'.$newValue.'"\1/>' ],
				$xmlSegment,
				1,
				$count
			);
			return $xmlSegment; // replace segment and return the $xmlSegment
		}
	);	
}

setCheckboxMS($template, 'w:name="@tasarim73@"', true); // search on w:statusText
setCheckboxMS($template, 'w:val="tasarim73"', true); // search on w:ffData name value
setCheckboxMS($template, 'w:name="tasarim73"', true); // search on bookmark name
setCheckboxMS($template, 'Çalışanların', true); // search on text (careful, NOT guaranteed to work)
setCheckboxMS($template, 'w:val="Onay1"', true);

Also note that there is no guarantee that a text is continuous, it could be:
<w:t xml:space="preserve">Kuruluşta tasarım </w:t> and the rest of the text is 100 characters to the right, with xml in between. using ${macroname} actually searches and find these (and removes all xml between the macro, sometimes corrupting the document just by opening it with the 0.13.0 TemplateProcessor).
However, searching on bookmarks or uniquely named ffData should always work, as that is kept together by xml.

It will take a while (weekend) to update CheckboxTemplateProcessor to also allow MSWord's version of checkboxes. Meanwhile, a question:

What is the easier setting to search for? Naming the ffData "tasarim73", setting the statusText "@tasarim73@" or adding a bookmark? Because with a bookmark, we find the bookmark and search to the left (SEARCH_LEFT), but with ffData/statusText we have to search to the right (SEARCH_RIGHT)

<w:fldChar w:fldCharType="begin">
  <w:ffData>
    <w:name w:val="tasarim73"/><w:enabled/><w:calcOnExit w:val="0"/>
    <w:statusText w:type="text" w:val="@tasarim73@"/>
    <w:checkBox><w:sizeAuto/><w:default w:val="0"/></w:checkBox>
  </w:ffData>
</w:fldChar>