How to: Open and Add Text to a Word Processing Document

Applies to: Excel 2010 | Office 2010 | PowerPoint 2010 | Word 2010

In this article
How to Open and Add Text to a Document
Create a WordprocessingDocument Object
Structure of a WordProcessingML Document
Generate the WordprocessingML Markup to Add the Text
Sample Code

This topic shows how to use the classes in the Open XML SDK 2.0 for Microsoft Office to programmatically open and add text to a Word processing document.

The following assembly directives are required to compile the code in this topic.

using DocumentFormat.OpenXml.Packaging;
using DocumentFormat.OpenXml.Wordprocessing;

Imports DocumentFormat.OpenXml.Packaging
Imports DocumentFormat.OpenXml.Wordprocessing

How to Open and Add Text to a Document

The Open XML SDK 2.0 helps you create Word processing document structure and content using strongly-typed classes that correspond to WordprocessingML elements. This topic shows how to use the classes in the Open XML SDK 2.0 to open a Word processing document and add text to it. In addition, this topic introduces the basic document structure of a WordprocessingML document, the associated XML elements, and their corresponding Open XML SDK classes.

Create a WordprocessingDocument Object

In the Open XML SDK, the WordprocessingDocument class represents a Word document package. To open and work with a Word document, create an instance of the WordprocessingDocument class from the document. When you create the instance from the document, you can then obtain access to the main document part that contains the text of the document. The text in the main document part is represented in the package as XML using WordprocessingML markup.

To create the class instance from the document you call one of the Open methods. Several are provided, each with a different signature. The sample code in this topic uses the Open(String, Boolean) method with a signature that requires two parameters. The first parameter takes a full path string that represents the document to open. The second parameter is either true or false and represents whether you want the file to be opened for editing. Changes you make to the document will not be saved if this parameter is false.

The following code example calls the Open method.

// Open a WordprocessingDocument for editing using the filepath.
WordprocessingDocument wordprocessingDocument = 
    WordprocessingDocument.Open(filepath, true);

' Open a WordprocessingDocument for editing using the filepath.
Dim wordprocessingDocument As WordprocessingDocument = WordprocessingDocument.Open(filepath, True)

When you have opened the Word document package, you can add text to the main document part. To access the body of the main document part, assign a reference to the existing document body, as shown in the following code example.

// Assign a reference to the existing document body.
Body body = wordprocessingDocument.MainDocumentPart.Document.Body;

' Assign a reference to the existing document body.
Dim body As Body = wordprocessingDocument.MainDocumentPart.Document.Body

Structure of a WordProcessingML Document

The basic document structure of a WordProcessingML document consists of the document and body elements, followed by one or more block level elements such as p, which represents a paragraph. A paragraph contains one or more r elements. The r stands for run, which is a region of text with a common set of properties, such as formatting. A run contains one or more t elements. The t element contains a range of text. The following code example shows the WordprocessingML markup for a document that contains the text "Example text."

<w:document xmlns:w="https://schemas.openxmlformats.org/wordprocessingml/2006/main">
  <w:body>
    <w:p>
      <w:r>
        <w:t>Example text.</w:t>
      </w:r>
    </w:p>
  </w:body>
</w:document>

Using the Open XML SDK 2.0, you can create document structure and content using strongly-typed classes that correspond to WordprocessingML elements. You will find these classes in the DocumentFormat.OpenXml.Wordprocessing namespace. The following table lists the class names of the classes that correspond to the document, body, p, r, and t elements.

WordprocessingML Element	Open XML SDK 2.0 Class	Description
document	Document	The root element for the main document part.
body	Body	The container for the block level structures such as paragraphs, tables, annotations and others specified in the ISO/IEC 29500 specification.
p	Paragraph	A paragraph.
r	Run	A run.
t	Text	A range of text.

Generate the WordprocessingML Markup to Add the Text

When you have access to the body of the main document part, add text by adding instances of the Paragraph, Run, and Text classes. This generates the required WordprocessingML markup. The following code example adds the paragraph, run and text.

// Add new text.
Paragraph para = body.AppendChild(new Paragraph());
Run run = para.AppendChild(new Run());
run.AppendChild(new Text(txt));

' Add new text.
Dim para As Paragraph = body.AppendChild(New Paragraph())
Dim run As Run = para.AppendChild(New Run())
run.AppendChild(New Text(txt))

Sample Code

The example OpenAndAddTextToWordDocument method shown here can be used to open a Word document and append some text using the Open XML SDK. To call this method, pass a full path filename as the first parameter and the text to add as the second. For example, the following code example opens the Letter.docx file in the Public Documents folder and adds text to it.

string strDoc = @"C:\Users\Public\Documents\Letter.docx";
string strTxt = "Append text in body - OpenAndAddTextToWordDocument";
OpenAndAddTextToWordDocument(strDoc, strTxt);

Dim strDoc As String = "C:\Users\Public\Documents\Letter.docx"
Dim strTxt As String = "Append text in body - OpenAndAddTextToWordDocument"
OpenAndAddTextToWordDocument(strDoc, strTxt)

Following is the complete sample code in both C# and Visual Basic.

Notice that the OpenAndAddTextToWordDocument method does not include an explicit call to Save. That is because the AutoSave feature is on by default and has not been disabled in the call to the Open method through use of OpenSettings.

public static void OpenAndAddTextToWordDocument(string filepath, string txt)
{   
    // Open a WordprocessingDocument for editing using the filepath.
    WordprocessingDocument wordprocessingDocument = 
        WordprocessingDocument.Open(filepath, true);

    // Assign a reference to the existing document body.
    Body body = wordprocessingDocument.MainDocumentPart.Document.Body;
    
    // Add new text.
    Paragraph para = body.AppendChild(new Paragraph());
    Run run = para.AppendChild(new Run());
    run.AppendChild(new Text(txt));
    
    // Close the handle explicitly.
    wordprocessingDocument.Close();
}

Public Sub OpenAndAddTextToWordDocument(ByVal filepath As String, ByVal txt As String)
    ' Open a WordprocessingDocument for editing using the filepath.
    Dim wordprocessingDocument As WordprocessingDocument = _
        wordprocessingDocument.Open(filepath, True)

    ' Assign a reference to the existing document body. 
    Dim body As Body = wordprocessingDocument.MainDocumentPart.Document.Body

    ' Add new text.
    Dim para As Paragraph = body.AppendChild(New Paragraph)
    Dim run As Run = para.AppendChild(New Run)
    run.AppendChild(New Text(txt))

    ' Close the handle explicitly.
    wordprocessingDocument.Close()
End Sub

See Also

Reference

Class Library Reference