Add dynamic content controls to a word document

• Download Doc1.zip - 16.7 KB
• Download control - 4.5 KB

Introduction

This article tells how to add dynamic content controls to an existing Word document at run-time. I assume users have the basic knowledge of office Open XML SDK 2.0.

Code Walkthrough

1. Create a Word document template which has two content controls.
   
   Open Microsoft Word. Click on 'Developer' ribbon. Then choose 'Plain text content control'.
   
   
   
   It will add a content control on the document. Click on Properties. This will open Content Properties window. Let us tag the first control as "cc1".
   
   
   
   Similarly create another control and tag it as "cc2". In design mode the two controls would look like
   
   
   
   Save the file as word template ("Doc1.dotx").
   
2. Include the Doc1.dotx file in the project, right click on it and set Build action as Content & Copy to output directory as Copy if Newer,
   
   
3. Create two lists that would contain static and dynamic content control tag names.
   
   
   C#

   private static List<string> staticContentControls = new List<string>() { "cc1", "cc2" };
   private static List<string> dynamicContentControls = new List<string>() { "cc3", "cc4",
                                                                             "cc5" };

4. In the main method,
C#

static void Main(string[] args)
{
   // convert template to document
   TemplateToDocument("Doc1.dotx", "Doc1.docx");
   File.Copy("Doc1.docx", "Doc2.docx");
   using (WordprocessingDocument wordDoc = WordprocessingDocument.Open("Doc2.docx", true))
   {
         // add content to static content controls
         AddContent(wordDoc);
         // create new content controls
         CreateNewContentControls(wordDoc);
         // add content to dynamically created content controls
         AddContent(wordDoc);
         wordDoc.MainDocumentPart.Document.Save();
    }
}

5. TemplateToDocument will convert Doc1.dotx to Doc1.docx.
   
   

   MemoryStream presentationStream = null;
   using (Stream tplStream = File.Open(templateFile, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read))
   {
      presentationStream = new MemoryStream((int)tplStream.Length);
      tplStream.Copy(presentationStream);
      presentationStream.Position = 0L;
   }
   using (WordprocessingDocument wordPackage = 
                 WordprocessingDocument.Open(presentationStream, true))
     {
            wordPackage.ChangeDocumentType(
                   DocumentFormat.OpenXml.WordprocessingDocumentType.Document);
            MainDocumentPart docPart = wordPackage.MainDocumentPart;
            docPart.AddExternalRelationship("http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/" + 
                   "officeDocument/2006/relationships/attachedTemplate",
            new Uri(templateFile, UriKind.RelativeOrAbsolute));
            docPart.Document.Save();
     }
     File.WriteAllBytes(documentFile, presentationStream.ToArray());  

   The AddContent method will add a sample text to the content placeholder (I have chosen the sample text to be the tag name of the placeholder itself).

   C#

   private static void AddContent(WordprocessingDocument wordDoc)
   {
     var sdtBlocks = wordDoc.MainDocumentPart.Document.Body.ChildElements.OfType<SdtBlock>();
     foreach (SdtBlock block in sdtBlocks)
     {
       if (block.SdtProperties != null)
       {
          Tag blockTag = block.SdtProperties.ChildElements.OfType<Tag>().ElementAt(0);
          if (blockTag != null)
            if (staticContentControls.Contains(blockTag.Val.Value) || 
                        dynamicContentControls.Contains(blockTag.Val.Value))
              block.AddContent(blockTag.Val.Value);
       }
     }
   }  

6. CreateNewControls would loop through the dynamicContentControls list, create new SdtBlock objects and add them to the Body object of the Document.
C#

dynamicContentControls.ForEach(cc =>
{
    // creates a new paragraph
    // just to separate the content placeholders
    Paragraph breakParagraph = new Paragraph();
    // create content placeholder
    SdtBlock sdtBlock = new SdtBlock();
    SdtProperties sdtProperties = new SdtProperties();
    Tag tag = new Tag() { Val = cc };
    // other sdtBlock propertoes code
    SdtContentBlock sdtContentBlock = new SdtContentBlock();
    // sdt content block code
    Paragraph paragraph = new Paragraph();
    Run run = new Run()
    {
        RunProperties = new RunProperties()
        {
            RunStyle = new RunStyle()
            {
                Val = "PlaceholderText"
            }
        }
    };
    Text text = new Text();
    text.Text = "Click here to enter text.";
    run.Append(text);
    paragraph.Append(run);
    sdtContentBlock.Append(paragraph);
    sdtBlock.Append(sdtProperties);
    sdtBlock.Append(sdtContentBlock);
    // adds the newly created content placeholder to the document
    wordDoc.MainDocumentPart.Document.Body.Append(breakParagraph);
    wordDoc.MainDocumentPart.Document.Body.Append(sdtBlock);
});

7. Finally, call the Save() of Document Body object to save the changes done to the document.
C#

wordDoc.MainDocumentPart.Document.Save();

I have attached a sample solution. Please do have a look.