Generating M$ Word documents from RoR apps?

Rails
1

All,

Anyone done any work generating Word documents/Word templates from a
Rails app.?

I’m sure that there is a way to do this without too much trouble in a
JRuby world, so wondering about that approach as well.

Any advice is welcome.

Thanks,
Wes

2

Wes G. wrote:

All,

Anyone done any work generating Word documents/Word templates from a
Rails app.?

There has been some recent discussion on the list about this – search
the archives. But let me reiterate my stroing belief that MS Word
documents have no place on the Web at all. They do not work reliably
for the exchange of information between different computers, and they do
not play well with most Web browsers. It is almost always possible to
find a more suitable format. If you can tell me what you’re trying to
do, I’ll try to suggest alternatives.

Best,

Marnen Laibow-Koser
http://www.marnen.org
[email protected]

3

I am humoring a client, but I am advising strongly against it.

The desired behavior is the ability to edit a document after it is
generated via a Web form. I am pushing for making the Web form
flexible enough to handle generating whatever they want into a read-only
PDF.

But I feel like I need to do the due diligence on the possibility of
generating a Word document.

Wes

4

Wes G. wrote:

I am humoring a client, but I am advising strongly against it.

The desired behavior is the ability to edit a document after it is
generated via a Web form.

Why not give them HTML? MS Word will import it for easy editing, but it
can also be viewed in the browser or edited with lots of other tools.

I am pushing for making the Web form
flexible enough to handle generating whatever they want into a read-only
PDF.

That may be an even better idea.

But I feel like I need to do the due diligence on the possibility of
generating a Word document.

Due diligence: it’s a bad idea. Avoid. :slight_smile:

Wes

Best,

Marnen Laibow-Koser
http://www.marnen.org
[email protected]