Sharepoint. SPFile.OpenBinary() returns document with content type metadata

Question

I have a method which downloads sharepoint documents to the local disk. I use SPFile.OpenBinary() method to get physical file, but it contains all fields of a parent DocumentLibrary. Does anybody know how to clear file (doc file) from these fields? I found only way to do it using Word interop library (method described here http://maxim-dikhtyaruk.blogspot.com/2009/05/trim-sharepoints-documents.html), but it doesn't fit my requirements cause it works only when Microsoft Office is installed on the machine...

Answer 1

Hi,

You may want to read this to understand whats going on. I do not know if this can be turned off or not, but it happens only with Word 2007 documents (docx).
You could do any of the following to turn this off:

1. Create a new content type and associate it with a document library. Use this document library from now on.
   
2. Look into some Open XML library or the Open XML SDK published by Microsoft.

Answer 2

This isn't a bug, it's supposed to be a feature! :-) Seriously though, you need to edit the Word document programmatically to remove these additional fields completely (I think even a content type will leave some behind).

For documents prior to Word 2007, you could use a toolkit like Aspose. I almost needed to do a similar thing once and would have used this product to do it. I'm sure there are other options out there.

For Word 2007 and higher, as SharePoint Newbie says, you should be able to use the Office Open XML formats to edit the document. Here's an MSDN intro article.