Viewing and editing a Word document form the WAS

[drgarytraub]

I have a bunch of microsoft word documents on the web server. How can I allow the user to open the document, edit it and save it, all from the WAS?

Gary

[Steve Wood]

Re: Viewing and editing a Word document form the WAS

Its easy to open and edit, just provide a link to the document location (provided the doc resides in the document root), it will open in Word. But you have to upload the modified document back to the server after it has been saved to the users local system. You can't "save" the Word doc back to the server.

[NoeticCC]

Re: Viewing and editing a Word document form the WAS

You will probably need some sort of log-out and log-in system for keeping track of who last downloaded and edited a file - as Steve said you can't save a file back to the server directly, that is a natural limitation of all web servers.

I would suggest setting up a simple table that keeps track of all your documents, and another that keeps a log of who checked a document out (downloaded for editing), and when.

When a user checks out a document, their user id is logged and the document will not be available for downloading for other users (except perhaps for superusers/administrators) until the user has returned the document or cancelled the edit - it might be an idea to put in a disclaimer stating if they do not return the file after X hours they may have to re-download it if anyone else requests the file in the meantime. (This is to avoid having changes overwritten by an old version being returned)

Then just use a web dialog or hand-coded form to allow them to download the file (have it copied to their session folder and then provide a link or redirect to the temporary file, same as in the report examples for WAS), and a standard file upload control to allow them to upload the edited version and comment on the changes they made etc.

[Pat Bremkamp]

Re: Viewing and editing a Word document form the WAS

Gary,

Depending on what you are trying to accomplish, another idea is to convert the documents to html and then use an on-line html editor to edit them. Steve has a link to one on his website, or I use another one that I can email you about if you need it.

I created a system like that for a quality control application that included a list of documents, revision control, who revised and reason for revision, and it worked quite well. Customer was very happy since he had trouble with various revisions stored on different computers throughout the company when everyone was supposed to be using the latest version!

Pat

[drgarytraub]

Re: Viewing and editing a Word document form the WAS

Steve, Andrea, and Pat,

I appreciate all of your comments.

I would like to opt for the simplest approach, if it works, which I think would be to use the html editor approach.

Has your experience been that the html editor route provides enough formatting so as to essentially take the place of Word.

My particular situation is that I have 10-15 page psychological evaluations that are typed for me by a typist. I would like to view and edit those on line. My initial thought was to link to the actual report and edit and save them on line, but as Steve and Andrea have pointed out, that is not that straight forward. It seems that way would involve a lot to keep track of.

So, if the html way preserves the original formatting of the word document, I would probably want to go the html way.

Is my thinking reflecting an understanding of what is actually involved in the different ways to approach this?

And given what I have described, would you now recommend one approach over the other?

Thanks for help on this!!!!!

Gary

[Steve Wood]

Re: Viewing and editing a Word document form the WAS

No, the HTML Editor is no replacement for word. Your user would be frustrated trying to create that many pages. This specific editor on my site is a bit quirky, does not handle table borders well for instance. You COULD do it, but it is not a replacement for Word.

[Pat Bremkamp]

Re: Viewing and editing a Word document form the WAS

The html editor I use is a bit more fully featured and more stable than the the one Steve uses, but also more difficult to set up and configure, and slower to load.

Biggest problem I see is if you need to print out those evaluations. The html does not paginate well. In the system I created, they specifically did not want printouts sitting around that could get out of date, so that wasn't an issue.

Pat

[drgarytraub]

Re: Viewing and editing a Word document form the WAS

Again. thanks everyone for all the tips. It looks like I will have to go with the linking to word doc files method.

Unfortunately, and I must be missing something very obvious, when I link to a file, it gives me this error:

403 Forbidden
Your security credentials do not allow access to this resource.

Is there something I have to do to the WAS?

Gary

[drgarytraub]

Re: Viewing and editing a Word document form the WAS

In fact, even if I just put the following in my broser, I still get the same error:

http://localhost:8080/AMAv5.0/SKYPEhow-to.doc

This is indeed the correct path to the file so I know the url is coded correctly, so whu would I be getting the 403 error?

Gary

[Steve Wood]

Re: Viewing and editing a Word document form the WAS

Yes, go to security, page security and set DOC as an always allowed page extension.

[drgarytraub]

Re: Viewing and editing a Word document form the WAS

Steve,

That was it. Thanks!!

Gary

[peteconway]

Re: Viewing and editing a Word document form the WAS

I'm all or the WAS - BUT you need to look at this link.

http://writer.zoho.com/jsp/home.jsp?...rl=%2Findex.do

Cheers,

Peter