Open XML SDK to edit Active document

Question

Is it possible to use the Open XML sdk to manipulate parts of document which is currently open in the Office app (word/ppt). I know the easiest thing is to use VSTO, but its slow and would involve clipboard use to insert elements, the OXML sdk is direct and simpler.

If somebody could post some code sample that would be great.

Thanks in advance
Rakesh

Outguess

Answer 1

Apparently you cannot do this without Sharepoint.

As per Zeyad Jarabi/..

...you need a platform that understands how to take a shared lock (like SharePoint or SkyDrive). Without this concept then the application and the SDK can only take read or write locks, which prevents these two pieces of technology from accessing the same file.

Outguess

More information here blogs.msdn.com/b/brian_jones/archive/2009/11/23/… – Spitball

This is wrong and irrelevant. Sadly also the accepted answer. – Monogyny

Answer 2

Yes it is possible to modify an open VSTO document, using the OpenXML sdk 2, then update your open document using the changed xml.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff191178.aspx

http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/Improve-Automation-415bff13

Basically you get the xml from a range, treat it as a stream, package it up, use the sdk on the package, then insert the modified xml back by reversing the process.

The wisdom out there is that this common sense usage of the sdk is not possible. However, this is just wrong.

Monogyny

Answer 3

Something like below:-

//include the namespace

using DocumentFormat.OpenXml.WordProcessing

//Open and manipulate temp.docx 

using (WordprocessingDocument myDoc = WordprocessingDocument.Open("temp.docx", true)) 
{
    //Access main part of document 
    MainDocumentPart mainPart = myDoc.MainDocumentPart; 

    //Add new comments part to document 
    mainPart.AddNewPart<WordprocessingCommentsPart>(); 

    //Delete Styles part within document 
    mainPart.DeletePart(mainPart.StyleDefinitionsPart); 

    //Iterate through all custom xml parts within document 
    foreach (CustomXmlPart customXmlPart in mainPart.CustomXmlParts) {
        //DO SOMETHING 
    }
}

Also, you could use LINQ to avoid foreach loops.

Barbie

Sorry, If I was not clear earlier. I want to manipulate the document that is currently open in Word. I would be creating a button in the ribbon which adds parts to the currently active document. This would mean the document may not be saved when running this action, hence, no file path. Is there a way to convert the activedocument object into a WordProcessingDocument object Thanks R – Outguess

Answer 4

I was able to do this using an Excel Document using ClosedXML as such (after saving the file to disk as the path excelFileName):

byte[] byteArray = null;
using (var fs = new FileStream(excelFileName, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read, FileShare.ReadWrite)) {
    int numBytesToRead = Convert.ToInt32(fs.Length);
    byteArray = new byte[numBytesToRead];
    fs.Read(byteArray, 0, numBytesToRead);
}
using (MemoryStream mem = new MemoryStream()) {
    mem.Write(byteArray, 0, byteArray.Length);
    XLWorkbook wb = new XLWorkbook(mem);
    ...
}

In my case I am only reading the document and will not be saving it, but you could write the modified stream to another file if necessary.

Toor