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Retrieve application property values from a word processing document (Open XML SDK)

  • Article
  • 2 minutes to read

This topic shows how to use the classes in the Open XML SDK 2.5 for Office to programmatically retrieve an application property from a Microsoft Word 2013 document, without loading the document into Word. It contains example code to illustrate this task.

To use the sample code in this topic, you must install the Open XML SDK 2.5. You must explicitly reference the following assemblies in your project:

  • WindowsBase
  • DocumentFormat.OpenXml (installed by the Open XML SDK)

You must also use the following using directives or Imports statements to compile the code in this topic.

    using System;
    using DocumentFormat.OpenXml.Packaging;

    Imports DocumentFormat.OpenXml.Packaging

Retrieving Application Properties

To retrieve application document properties, you can retrieve the ExtendedFilePropertiesPart property of a WordprocessingDocument object, and then retrieve the specific application property you need. To do this, you must first get a reference to the document, as shown in the following code.

    const string FILENAME = "DocumentProperties.docx";

    using (WordprocessingDocument document = 
        WordprocessingDocument.Open(FILENAME, false))
    {
        // Code removed here…
    }

    Private Const FILENAME As String = "DocumentProperties.docx"

    Using document As WordprocessingDocument =
        WordprocessingDocument.Open(FILENAME, True)
        ' Code removed here…
    End Using

Given the reference to the WordProcessingDocument object, you can retrieve a reference to the ExtendedFilePropertiesPart property of the document. This object provides its own properties, each of which exposes one of the application document properties.

    var props = document.ExtendedFilePropertiesPart.Properties;

    Dim props = document.ExtendedFilePropertiesPart.Properties

Once you have the reference to the properties of ExtendedFilePropertiesPart, you can then retrieve any of the application properties, using simple code such as that shown in the next example. Note that the code must confirm that the reference to each property isn't null before retrieving its Text property. Unlike core properties, document properties aren't available if you (or the application) haven't specifically given them a value.

    if (props.Company != null)
        Console.WriteLine("Company = " + props.Company.Text);

    if (props.Lines != null)
        Console.WriteLine("Lines = " + props.Lines.Text);

    if (props.Manager != null)
        Console.WriteLine("Manager = " + props.Manager.Text);

    If props.Company IsNot Nothing Then
        Console.WriteLine("Company = " & props.Company.Text)
    End If

    If props.Lines IsNot Nothing Then
        Console.WriteLine("Lines = " & props.Lines.Text)
    End If

    If props.Manager IsNot Nothing Then
        Console.WriteLine("Manager = " & props.Manager.Text)
    End If

Sample Code

The following is the complete code sample in C# and Visual Basic.

    using System;
    using DocumentFormat.OpenXml.Packaging;

    namespace GetApplicationProperty
    {
        class Program
        {
            private const string FILENAME = 
                @"C:\Users\Public\Documents\DocumentProperties.docx";

            static void Main(string[] args)
            {
                using (WordprocessingDocument document = 
                    WordprocessingDocument.Open(FILENAME, false))
                {
                    var props = document.ExtendedFilePropertiesPart.Properties;

                    if (props.Company != null)
                        Console.WriteLine("Company = " + props.Company.Text);

                    if (props.Lines != null)
                        Console.WriteLine("Lines = " + props.Lines.Text);

                    if (props.Manager != null)
                        Console.WriteLine("Manager = " + props.Manager.Text);
                }
            }
        }
    }

    Imports DocumentFormat.OpenXml.Packaging

    Module Module1

        Private Const FILENAME As String =
            "C:\Users\Public\Documents\DocumentProperties.docx"

        Sub Main()
            Using document As WordprocessingDocument =
                WordprocessingDocument.Open(FILENAME, False)

                Dim props = document.ExtendedFilePropertiesPart.Properties
                If props.Company IsNot Nothing Then
                    Console.WriteLine("Company = " & props.Company.Text)
                End If

                If props.Lines IsNot Nothing Then
                    Console.WriteLine("Lines = " & props.Lines.Text)
                End If

                If props.Manager IsNot Nothing Then
                    Console.WriteLine("Manager = " & props.Manager.Text)
                End If
            End Using
        End Sub
    End Module

See also