MS Word Office Automation - Filling Text Form Fields And Check Box Form Fields And Mail Merge

Question

Does anyone have any good advice or experience on how to create an engine using C# (VB.NET is okay too) that is generic enough to handle most cases of MS Word text fields I need to fill with data I'm getting from a database? In short, I'm about to embark on this little Office automation excursion and I'm hoping a little bit of feedback here may help me to avoid some time consuming errors.

Cheers and thanks in advance for any advice;

Dave

Answer 1

I will sent two examples for solving your automation problem. The first one is using MailMerge and the second is using bookmarks.

The word file looks like this:

Using MailMerge (Insert - > Quick Parts -> Field -> Mail merge -> Merge field) First name: «firstName» Last name: «lastName»

=======

Using Bookmarks( Insert -> BookMark) First name: (<- the bookmark is here, it’s not visible) Last name:

And the code is following:

1. Using bookmarks

       Open("D:/Doc1.doc");
       if (oDoc.Bookmarks.Exists("bkmFirstName"))
       {
           object oBookMark = "bkmFirstName";
           oDoc.Bookmarks.get_Item(ref oBookMark).Range.Text = textBox1.Text;
       }
   
   
   if (oDoc.Bookmarks.Exists("bkmLastName"))
   {
       object oBookMark = "bkmLastName";
       oDoc.Bookmarks.get_Item(ref oBookMark).Range.Text = textBox2.Text;
   }
   
   
   SaveAs("D:/Test/Doc2.doc"); Quit();
   MessageBox.Show("The file is successfully saved!");
   
   
   

2. Using MailMerge

       Open("D:/Doc1.doc");
       foreach (Field myMergeField in oDoc.Fields)
       {
           //iTotalFields++;
           Range rngFieldCode = myMergeField.Code;
           String fieldText = rngFieldCode.Text;
   
   
       // GET only MAILMERGE fields
       if (fieldText.StartsWith(" MERGEFIELD"))
       {
           Int32 endMerge = fieldText.IndexOf("\\");
           Int32 fieldNameLength = fieldText.Length - endMerge;
           String fieldName = fieldText.Substring(11, endMerge - 11);
   
   
           fieldName = fieldName.Trim();
           if (fieldName == "firstName")
           {
               myMergeField.Select();
               oWordApplic.Selection.TypeText("This Text Replaces the Field in the Template");
           }
       }
   }
   SaveAs("D:/Test/Doc2.doc"); Quit();
   MessageBox.Show("The file is successfully saved!");
   
   
   

I've also used some helper methods.

    ApplicationClass oWordApplic = new Microsoft.Office.Interop.Word.ApplicationClass();
    private Microsoft.Office.Interop.Word.Document oDoc = new Document();

    public void Open(string strFileName)
    {
        object fileName = strFileName;
        object readOnly = false;
        object isVisible = true;
        object missing = System.Reflection.Missing.Value;

        oDoc = oWordApplic.Documents.Open(ref fileName, ref missing, ref readOnly,
        ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing,
        ref missing, ref missing, ref isVisible, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing);

        oDoc.Activate();
    }

    public void SaveAs(string strFileName)
    {
        object missing = System.Reflection.Missing.Value;
        object fileName = strFileName;

        oDoc.SaveAs(ref fileName, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing,
        ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing);
    }

    public void Quit()
    {
        object missing = System.Reflection.Missing.Value;
        oWordApplic.Application.Quit(ref missing, ref missing, ref missing);
    }

I hope that this implementation will give some ideas for solving your problem.

Answer 2

Is it a good idea to move the helper methods into Extension methods? - Should be cleaner IMHO.