Forum OpenACS Q&A: Response to displaying Word documents directly

I have used antiword (http://www.antiword.org) in a site I made. The visitors can view a document in text or pdf format. The results are surprisingly good.

Here's the code I used in that site:

if {$type_srcfile == "application/msword"} {
  if {$desttype == "text/plain"} {
    set tmp_destfile "$tmp_filename.txt"
 
    exec $appdir/antiword -m /usr/local/lib/antiword/8859-1.txt 
     -t $srcfile >$tmp_destfile
 
    #ns_returnfile $conn 200 "text/plain" $tmp_destfile
    ns_respond -status 200 -type "text/plain" -file $tmp_destfile
 
    ns_unlink $tmp_destfile
  } elseif {$desttype == "application/pdf"} {
    set tmp_tmp "$tmp_filename.ps"
    set tmp_destfile "$tmp_filename.pdf"
 
    exec "$appdir/antiword" -m 
     /usr/local/lib/antiword/8859-1.txt -p a4 $srcfile ">$tmp_tmp"
    exec gs -q -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -sDEVICE=pdfwrite 
     -sOutputFile=$tmp_destfile -c save pop -f
    #ns_returnfile $conn 200 "application/pdf" $tmp_destfile
    ns_respond -status 200 -type "application/pdf" -file 
     $tmp_destfile
 
    ns_unlink $tmp_tmp
    ns_unlink $tmp_destfile
  } else {
    ns_log Notice "Sessie: $si Opgevraagd: $srcfile Formaat: 
$desttype"
    ns_returnnotfound
  }      if {$type_srcfile == "application/msword"} {
  if {$desttype == "text/plain"} {
    set tmp_destfile "$tmp_filename.txt"

    exec $appdir/antiword -m  /usr/local/lib/antiword/8859-1.txt 
     -t $srcfile >$tmp_destfile
 
    #ns_returnfile $conn 200 "text/plain" $tmp_destfile
    ns_respond -status 200 -type "text/plain" -file $tmp_destfile
 
    ns_unlink $tmp_destfile
  } elseif {$desttype == "application/pdf"} {
    set tmp_tmp "$tmp_filename.ps"
    set tmp_destfile "$tmp_filename.pdf"
 
    exec "$appdir/antiword" -m /usr/local/lib/antiword/8859-1.txt 
     -p a4 $srcfile ">$tmp_tmp"
    exec gs -q -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -sDEVICE=pdfwrite 
      -sOutputFile=$tmp_destfile -c save pop -f
    #ns_returnfile $conn 200 "application/pdf" $tmp_destfile
    ns_respond -status 200 -type "application/pdf" -file 
     $tmp_destfile
 
    ns_unlink $tmp_tmp
    ns_unlink $tmp_destfile
  } else {
    ns_log Notice "Sessie: $si Opgevraagd: $srcfile Formaat: 
$desttype"
    ns_returnnotfound
  }