Cannot create a Word Object: do I need to buy MS Word first?

[Strydr]

I'm trying to figure out how to work with the word.au3 udf but it's not working.  Every example I attempt to run errors out with  "Error creating a new Word application object.  @error = 1, @extended=-2147221005"

Running Windows10 and the latest version of Autoit.

I had the impression that this would work on Windows with Wordpad documents, and that MS Word does not need to be installed.  Do I actually need to buy and install MS Word?  A LOT of people don't buy MS Office or MS Word, so I'm hoping that this is not the case.

Thanks!

[FrancescoDiMuro]

@Strydr
To use Word UDF, you need to have MS Office installed

[Nine]

You absolutely need MS Word to be installed...to use word.au3 UDF.

[water]

The UDF automates MS Word by interacting with Word through COM.
Hence: You need to install MS Word to use the Word UDF

How did you get the impression that the Word UDF works with Wordpad?

[Strydr]

Crepes!  Thank you!  That really needs to be commented into the udf or posted somewhere!  I never came across anything stating that!

-I came across the idea that it would work without having Word installed by searching for "autoit format documents".  

The only references I'm coming across for formatting documents all end at the Word udf.  I can't find any formatting info that doesn't involve it. And NONE of the references mention the need to actually have Word installed.

Edit: I came across a reference to using Excel for this but I knew that the user would need to buy and install it, but it never occurred to me that the same thing might be the case for Word.  Doh!

This is driving me nuts!  I just want to add basic formatting to a document: the type of document isn't even important, it can be anything that will take formatting! And print from there of course.  But the assumption has to be that the user just has Windows, no extra programs.

O well, back to the drawing board.  At least I can stop chasing this particular tail!

Edited December 3, 2018 by Strydr

[water]

When you have a look at the UDF page in the wiki you might find a tool that suits your needs
Maybe creating a PDF from your appplication is an option:

 

[Skysnake]

18 hours ago, Strydr said:

  A LOT of people don't buy MS Office or MS Word, so I'm hoping that this is not the case.

Have a look at the RichTextFormat functions.  It's not exactly Word, but very versatile.

eg https://www.autoitscript.com/autoit3/docs/libfunctions/_GUICtrlRichEdit_Create.htm

Skysnake

[Strydr]

Working with that now.  Atm, I'm having an issue with the fact that it uses variable width formatting.  In other words, different letters take up different amounts of space.  So if you have 2 different sentences with the same number of characters, they will actually be different lengths.  Makes formatting anything afterwords... challenging.  I'm open for ideas if anyone has one.  In particular, I'd love to be able to turn that off so that each character takes the same amount of space.  Any thoughts?

Thank you!

Edit: well, one way to fix it is to change the font to 'Fixedsys'.

Edit2: but that won't print properly.  Interesting.

Edited December 5, 2018 by Strydr