How to: Create and modify custom document properties

  • Article

Applies to: yesVisual Studio noVisual Studio for Mac

Note

This article applies to Visual Studio 2017. If you're looking for the latest Visual Studio documentation, see Visual Studio documentation. We recommend upgrading to the latest version of Visual Studio. Download it here

The Microsoft Office applications listed above provide built-in properties that are stored with documents. In addition, you can create and modify custom document properties if there is additional information you want to store with the document.

Applies to: The information in this topic applies to document-level projects and VSTO Add-in projects for the following applications: Excel; PowerPoint; Project; Word. For more information, see Features available by Office application and project type.

Use the CustomDocumentProperties property of a document to work with custom properties. For example, in a document-level project for Microsoft Office Excel, use the CustomDocumentProperties property of the ThisWorkbook class. In a VSTO Add-in project for Excel, use the CustomDocumentProperties property of a Workbook object. These properties return a DocumentProperties object, which is a collection of DocumentProperty objects. You can use the Item property of the collection to retrieve a particular property, either by name or by index within the collection.

The following example demonstrates how to add a custom property in a document-level customization for Excel and assign it a value.

Example

Sub TestProperties()
    Dim properties As Microsoft.Office.Core.DocumentProperties
    properties = CType(Me.CustomDocumentProperties, Office.DocumentProperties)

    If ReadDocumentProperty("Project Name") <> Nothing Then
        properties("Project Name").Delete()
    End If

    properties.Add("Project Name", False, _
        Microsoft.Office.Core.MsoDocProperties.msoPropertyTypeString, _
        "White Papers")
End Sub

Private Function ReadDocumentProperty(ByVal propertyName As String) As String
    Dim properties As Office.DocumentProperties
    properties = CType(Me.CustomDocumentProperties, Office.DocumentProperties)

    Dim prop As Office.DocumentProperty

    For Each prop In properties
        If prop.Name = propertyName Then
            Return prop.Value.ToString()
        End If
    Next

    Return Nothing
End Function

void TestProperties()
{
    Microsoft.Office.Core.DocumentProperties properties;
    properties = (Office.DocumentProperties)this.CustomDocumentProperties;

    if (ReadDocumentProperty("Project Name") != null)
    {
        properties["Project Name"].Delete();
    }

    properties.Add("Project Name", false,
        Microsoft.Office.Core.MsoDocProperties.msoPropertyTypeString,
        "White Papers");
}

private string ReadDocumentProperty(string propertyName)
{
    Office.DocumentProperties properties;
    properties = (Office.DocumentProperties)this.CustomDocumentProperties;

    foreach (Office.DocumentProperty prop in properties)
    {
        if (prop.Name == propertyName)
        {
            return prop.Value.ToString();
        }
    }
    return null;
}

Robust programming

Attempting to access the Value property for undefined properties raises an exception.

See also