Word Online (Business)

Word Online (Business) connector lets you work with Word files in document libraries supported by Microsoft Graph (OneDrive for Business, SharePoint Online Sites, and Office 365 Groups).

This connector is available in the following products and regions:

Service Class Regions
Logic Apps Standard All Logic Apps regions except the following:
     -   Azure China regions
Power Automate Premium All Power Automate regions except the following:
     -   China Cloud operated by 21Vianet
Power Apps Premium All Power Apps regions except the following:
     -   China Cloud operated by 21Vianet
Connector Metadata
Publisher Microsoft
Website https://products.office.com/en-us/word

How to create Microsoft Word templates

You can build Microsoft Word templates on either Windows or your Mac by enabling the Developer tab. Once you have enabled that tab, under the Controls section you can add any content controls into your document (see below what is the list of currently supported controls). Use the control Properties to give the control a friendly name that you will use in the Power Automate. Once you are done creating your Word document, save it to one of the document libraries supported by Microsoft Graph: OneDrive for Business, SharePoint Sites, and Office 365 Groups.

Now, you can start building the flow. Add the Populate a Microsoft Word template action to your flow, and when you select that file you should see a list of all the controls that you added. Populate these fields with values you'll want to insert in the new Microsoft Word Document. Finally, you can then use the outputs of the action and send an email, save the document to another location, or any number of other actions.

Currently Supported Content Controls

  • Plain Text Content Control
  • Combo Box Content Control
  • Drop-Down List Content Control
  • Image Content Control
  • Repeating Section Content Control

Known issues and limitations

  1. The Microsoft Word (Business) connector doesn't currently support the following content controls:
    • Rich Text Content Control
    • Building Block Gallery Content Control
    • Date Picker Content Control
    • Check Box Content Control
    • Legacy form controls
  2. The maximum size of the input file for both actions of this connector is 10MB
  3. Nested image content controllers are not supported.
  4. New line characters will be rendered when "Allow carriage returns (multiple paragraphs)" setting is turned on in the content controller properties.
  5. Developer tab is not available on Word online, in addition when editing a generated document it is recommended to use the Word desktop client.
  6. Template creation in Word for Mac is not supported.
  7. DisplayBarcode field codes are not supported for the Convert to PDF action.
  8. SharePoint On-Premises is not supported.
  9. When using mailto links multiple addresses are not supported (Ex: mailto:emailAddress1@contoso.com;emailAddress2@contoso.com?subject=MyEmailSubject). As a workaround if using mailto links with two addresses users can specify a cc field instead (Ex: emailAddress1@contoso.com?cc=emailAddress2@contoso.com?subject=MyEmailSubject) or alternately to use a single address distribution address instead.
  10. Content controller names within the document template have to be unique
  11. Images are not supported within headers in word templates
  12. When using the file created from this connector, adding a small delay (~1min) would ensure the file is available in follow up actions.
  13. If a Multi-factor Authentication (MFA) conditional access policy is enabled, the Populate a Microsoft Word template action cannot be used.
  14. Documents must be able to convert in less than 2 minutes or the request will time out.

Guide for using Repeating Section Content Control in the Word Online connector.

We're enabling repeating tables in the Word Online connector. When creating a template in Word, you need to add the Repeating Section Content Control. This is the control in the developer tab that helps us create a repeating table. Repeating Section Content Control enables users to repeat rows in a table and plain text. Here is a guide to work with the Repeating Section Content Control:

  1. To make a template with repeating text: First add a Repeating Section Content Control from the developer tab. Then add Plain Text Content Controllers within the parent repeat content controller. Any text that is outside a nested content controller would be static. While adding the nested content controllers, make sure to go to properties and add a unique title for them. For example, if the template looks like I would like to a and b Then the user can dynamically change the values of a and b.

  2. To add a repeating row to the template, simply add a table, select the full row (which you want to repeat) and select the repeat content controller from the developer tab. Now you can add nested plain text content controllers in the columns that you want to be dynamic. While adding the nested content controllers, make sure to go to properties and add a unique title for them.

  3. Once you have added a Repeating Section Content Control, the nested content controllers would show up in the Word connector action. You can click on the "Add new item" button to add a new row. If the number of rows you want is dynamic, then user should make a array of values and pass it into the repeat field. For example, a valid array for the above example would look like: [{"a": "value for row 1", "b": "value for row 1"}, {"a": "value for row 2", "b": "value for row 2"}] Here the keys of the objects are the titles of the nested content controllers. Hence, adding a unique title is necessary. This array can be easily constructed using the "Select" data operation by mapping the values of an array with data to the input array.

Select data operation example

Additional notes:

  • To format the table simply format the text and table in the template and the formatting would persist in the generated document.
  • If there is no title for a nested content controller in repeat, it would be get a random title.
  • If there is a duplicate title, both the content controllers will be replaced with the same content

Guide for using Images in the Word Online connector.

  1. Add an Image content controller in your template. Don’t delete the placeholder image. You can re-size and re-position it.
  2. Add a title property to the image content controller so that you can easily identify it in the Power Automate designer.
  3. When the image field shows up in the designer, add file contents of a JPG or PNG image as the value. The value should look like this: { "$content-type": "image/png", "$content": "iVBORw0KG...i/DhQmCC" } where the content is the base64 encoded image.

Guide for formatting the generated Word document in the Word Online connector.

Any formatting done on text, image or table in the template would persist in the generated document. To add formatting to an empty content controller, you can go to properties of the content controller and check the "Use a style to format text typed into the empty control". Then you can add new styling.

Throttling Limits

Name Calls Renewal Period
API calls per connection 100 60 seconds

Actions

Convert Word Document to PDF

Gets a PDF version of the selected file

Populate a Microsoft Word template

Reads a Microsoft Word template to then fill the template fields with selected dynamic values to generate a Word Document.

Convert Word Document to PDF

Gets a PDF version of the selected file

Parameters

Name Key Required Type Description
Location
source True string

Select a document location from the drop-down.

Document Library
drive True string

Select a document library from the drop-down.

File
file True string

Select a Word file through File Browse.

Returns

PDF document
binary

Populate a Microsoft Word template

Reads a Microsoft Word template to then fill the template fields with selected dynamic values to generate a Word Document.

Parameters

Name Key Required Type Description
Location
source True string

Select a document location from the drop-down.

Document Library
drive True string

Select a document library from the drop-down.

File
file True string

Select a Word file through File Browse.

dynamicFileSchema
dynamicFileSchema dynamic

Dynamic Schema of items in selected File

Returns

Microsoft Word document
binary

Definitions

binary

This is the basic data type 'binary'.