Create and add a character style to a word processing document
This topic shows how to use the classes in the Open XML SDK for
Office to programmatically create and add a character style to a word
processing document. It contains an example
CreateAndAddCharacterStyle
method to illustrate this task, plus a
supplemental example method to add the styles part when it is necessary.
CreateAndAddCharacterStyle Method
The CreateAndAddCharacterStyle
sample method can be used to add a
style to a word processing document. You must first obtain a reference
to the style definitions part in the document to which you want to add
the style. See the Calling the Sample Method section for an example that
shows how to do this.
The method accepts four parameters that indicate: the path to the file to edit, the style id of the style (an internal identifier), the name of the style (for external use in the user interface), and optionally, any style aliases (alternate names for use in the user interface).
static void CreateAndAddCharacterStyle(string filePath, string styleid, string stylename, string aliases = "")
The complete code listing for the method can be found in the Sample Code section.
About Style IDs, Style Names, and Aliases
The style ID is used by the document to refer to the style, and can be thought of as its primary identifier. Typically, you use the style ID to identify a style in code. A style can also have a separate display name shown in the user interface. Often, the style name, therefore, appears in proper case and with spacing (for example, Heading 1), while the style ID is more succinct (for example, heading1) and intended for internal use. Aliases specify alternate style names that can be used in an application's user interface.
For example, consider the following XML code example taken from a style definition.
<w:style w:type="character" w:styleId="OverdueAmountChar" . . .
<w:aliases w:val="Late Due, Late Amount" />
<w:name w:val="Overdue Amount Char" />
. . .
</w:style>
The style element styleId
attribute defines the main internal identifier
of the style, the style ID (OverdueAmountChar). The aliases element
specifies two alternate style names, Late Due, and Late Amount, which
are comma separated. Each name must be separated by one or more commas.
Finally, the name element specifies the primary style name, which is the
one typically shown in an application's user interface.
Calling the Sample Method
You can use the CreateAndAddCharacterStyle
example method to create and add a named style to a word processing
document using the Open XML SDK. The following code example shows how to
open and obtain a reference to a word processing document, retrieve a
reference to the document's style definitions part, and then call the
CreateAndAddCharacterStyle
method.
To call the method, you pass a reference to the file to edit as the first parameter, the style ID of the style as the second parameter, the name of the style as the third parameter, and optionally, any style aliases as the fourth parameter. For example, the following code example creates the "Overdue Amount Char" character style in a sample file that's name comes from the first argument to the method. It also creates three runs of text in a paragraph, and applies the style to the second run.
static void AddStylesToPackage(string filePath)
{
// Create and add the character style with the style id, style name, and
// aliases specified.
CreateAndAddCharacterStyle(
filePath,
"OverdueAmountChar",
"Overdue Amount Char",
"Late Due, Late Amount");
using (WordprocessingDocument doc = WordprocessingDocument.Open(filePath, true))
{
// Add a paragraph with a run with some text.
Paragraph p = new Paragraph(
new Run(
new Text("this is some text ") { Space = SpaceProcessingModeValues.Preserve }));
// Add another run with some text.
p.AppendChild<Run>(new Run(new Text("in a run ") { Space = SpaceProcessingModeValues.Preserve }));
// Add another run with some text.
p.AppendChild<Run>(new Run(new Text("in a paragraph.") { Space = SpaceProcessingModeValues.Preserve }));
// Add the paragraph as a child element of the w:body.
doc?.MainDocumentPart?.Document?.Body?.AppendChild(p);
// Get a reference to the second run (indexed starting with 0).
Run r = p.Descendants<Run>().ElementAtOrDefault(1)!;
// If the Run has no RunProperties object, create one and get a reference to it.
RunProperties rPr = r.RunProperties ?? r.PrependChild(new RunProperties());
// Set the character style of the run.
if (rPr.RunStyle is null)
{
rPr.RunStyle = new RunStyle();
rPr.RunStyle.Val = "OverdueAmountChar";
}
}
}
Style Types
WordprocessingML supports six style types, four of which you can specify using the type attribute on the style element. The following information, from section 17.7.4.17 in the ISO/IEC 29500 specification, introduces style types.
Style types refers to the property on a style which defines the type of style created with this style definition. WordprocessingML supports six types of style definitions by the values for the style definition's type attribute:
- Paragraph styles
- Character styles
- Linked styles (paragraph + character) Accomplished via the link element (§17.7.4.6).
- Table styles
- Numbering styles
- Default paragraph + character properties
Consider a style called Heading 1 in a document as shown in the following code example.
<w:style w:type="paragraph" w:styleId="Heading1">
<w:name w:val="heading 1"/>
<w:basedOn w:val="Normal"/>
<w:next w:val="Normal"/>
<w:link w:val="Heading1Char"/>
<w:uiPriority w:val="1"/>
<w:qformat/>
<w:rsid w:val="00F303CE"/>
…
</w:style>
The type attribute has a value of paragraph, which indicates that the following style definition is a paragraph style.
You can set the paragraph, character, table and numbering styles types by specifying the corresponding value in the style element's type attribute.
Character Style Type
You specify character as the style type by setting the value of the type attribute on the style element to "character".
The following information from section 17.7.9 of the ISO/IEC 29500 specification discusses character styles. Be aware that section numbers preceded by § indicate sections in the ISO specification.
17.7.9 Run (Character) Styles
Character styles are styles which apply to the contents of one or more
runs of text within a document's contents. This definition implies that
the style can only define character properties (properties which apply
to text within a paragraph) because it cannot be applied to paragraphs.
Character styles can only be referenced by runs within a document, and
they shall be referenced by the rStyle
element within a run's run
properties element.
A character style has two defining style type-specific characteristics:
The type attribute on the style has a value of character, which indicates that the following style definition is a character style.
The style specifies only character-level properties using the
rPr
element. In this case, the run properties are the set of properties applied to each run which is of this style.
The character style is then applied to runs by referencing the styleId
attribute value for this style in the run properties' rStyle
element.
The following image shows some text that has had a character style applied. A character style can only be applied to a sub-paragraph level range of text.
Figure 1. Text with a character style applied
How the Code Works
The CreateAndAddCharacterStyle
method
begins by opening the specified file and retrieving a reference to the styles element in the styles
part. The styles element is the root element of the part and contains
all of the individual style elements. If the reference is null, the
styles element is created and saved to the part.
using (WordprocessingDocument wordprocessingDocument = WordprocessingDocument.Open(filePath, true))
{
// Get access to the root element of the styles part.
Styles? styles = wordprocessingDocument?.MainDocumentPart?.StyleDefinitionsPart?.Styles ?? AddStylesPartToPackage(wordprocessingDocument).Styles;
Creating the Style
To create the style, the code instantiates the Style class and sets certain properties, such as the Type of style (paragraph), the StyleId, and whether the style is a CustomStyle.
// Create a new character style and specify some of the attributes.
Style style = new Style()
{
Type = StyleValues.Character,
StyleId = styleid,
CustomStyle = true
};
The code results in the following XML.
<w:style w:type="character" w:styleId="OverdueAmountChar" w:customStyle="true" xmlns:w="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/wordprocessingml/2006/main">
</w:style>
The code next creates the child elements of the style, which define the properties of the style. To create an element, you instantiate its corresponding class, and then call the Append method to add the child element to the style. For more information about these properties, see section 17.7 of the ISO/IEC 29500 specification.
// Create and add the child elements (properties of the style).
Aliases aliases1 = new Aliases() { Val = aliases };
StyleName styleName1 = new StyleName() { Val = stylename };
LinkedStyle linkedStyle1 = new LinkedStyle() { Val = "OverdueAmountPara" };
if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(aliases))
{
style.Append(aliases1);
}
style.Append(styleName1);
style.Append(linkedStyle1);
Next, the code instantiates a StyleRunProperties
object to create a rPr
(Run Properties) element. You specify the
character properties that apply to the style, such as font and color, in
this element. The properties are then appended as children of the rPr
element.
When the run properties are created, the code appends the rPr
element to the style, and the style element
to the styles root element in the styles part.
// Create the StyleRunProperties object and specify some of the run properties.
StyleRunProperties styleRunProperties1 = new StyleRunProperties();
Bold bold1 = new Bold();
Color color1 = new Color() { ThemeColor = ThemeColorValues.Accent2 };
RunFonts font1 = new RunFonts() { Ascii = "Tahoma" };
Italic italic1 = new Italic();
// Specify a 24 point size.
FontSize fontSize1 = new FontSize() { Val = "48" };
styleRunProperties1.Append(font1);
styleRunProperties1.Append(fontSize1);
styleRunProperties1.Append(color1);
styleRunProperties1.Append(bold1);
styleRunProperties1.Append(italic1);
// Add the run properties to the style.
style.Append(styleRunProperties1);
// Add the style to the styles part.
styles.Append(style);
The following XML shows the final style generated by the code shown here.
<w:style w:type="character" w:styleId="OverdueAmountChar" w:customStyle="true" xmlns:w="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/wordprocessingml/2006/main">
<w:aliases w:val="Late Due, Late Amount" />
<w:name w:val="Overdue Amount Char" />
<w:link w:val="OverdueAmountPara" />
<w:rPr>
<w:rFonts w:ascii="Tahoma" />
<w:sz w:val="48" />
<w:color w:themeColor="accent2" />
<w:b />
<w:i />
</w:rPr>
</w:style>
Applying the Character Style
Once you have the style created, you can apply it to a run by
referencing the styleId
attribute value for this style in the run
properties' rStyle
element. The following
code example shows how to apply a style to a run referenced by the
variable r. The style ID of the style to apply, OverdueAmountChar in
this example, is stored in the RunStyle property of the rPr
object. This property represents the run
properties' rStyle
element.
// If the Run has no RunProperties object, create one and get a reference to it.
RunProperties rPr = r.RunProperties ?? r.PrependChild(new RunProperties());
// Set the character style of the run.
if (rPr.RunStyle is null)
{
rPr.RunStyle = new RunStyle();
rPr.RunStyle.Val = "OverdueAmountChar";
}
Sample Code
The following is the complete CreateAndAddCharacterStyle
code sample in both C# and Visual Basic.
// Create a new character style with the specified style id, style name and aliases and
// add it to the specified file.
static void CreateAndAddCharacterStyle(string filePath, string styleid, string stylename, string aliases = "")
{
using (WordprocessingDocument wordprocessingDocument = WordprocessingDocument.Open(filePath, true))
{
// Get access to the root element of the styles part.
Styles? styles = wordprocessingDocument?.MainDocumentPart?.StyleDefinitionsPart?.Styles ?? AddStylesPartToPackage(wordprocessingDocument).Styles;
if (styles is not null)
{
// Create a new character style and specify some of the attributes.
Style style = new Style()
{
Type = StyleValues.Character,
StyleId = styleid,
CustomStyle = true
};
// Create and add the child elements (properties of the style).
Aliases aliases1 = new Aliases() { Val = aliases };
StyleName styleName1 = new StyleName() { Val = stylename };
LinkedStyle linkedStyle1 = new LinkedStyle() { Val = "OverdueAmountPara" };
if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(aliases))
{
style.Append(aliases1);
}
style.Append(styleName1);
style.Append(linkedStyle1);
// Create the StyleRunProperties object and specify some of the run properties.
StyleRunProperties styleRunProperties1 = new StyleRunProperties();
Bold bold1 = new Bold();
Color color1 = new Color() { ThemeColor = ThemeColorValues.Accent2 };
RunFonts font1 = new RunFonts() { Ascii = "Tahoma" };
Italic italic1 = new Italic();
// Specify a 24 point size.
FontSize fontSize1 = new FontSize() { Val = "48" };
styleRunProperties1.Append(font1);
styleRunProperties1.Append(fontSize1);
styleRunProperties1.Append(color1);
styleRunProperties1.Append(bold1);
styleRunProperties1.Append(italic1);
// Add the run properties to the style.
style.Append(styleRunProperties1);
// Add the style to the styles part.
styles.Append(style);
}
}
}
// Add a StylesDefinitionsPart to the document. Returns a reference to it.
static StyleDefinitionsPart AddStylesPartToPackage(WordprocessingDocument? doc)
{
StyleDefinitionsPart part;
if (doc?.MainDocumentPart is null)
{
throw new ArgumentNullException("MainDocumentPart is null.");
}
part = doc.MainDocumentPart.AddNewPart<StyleDefinitionsPart>();
Styles root = new Styles();
return part;
}
See also
How to: Apply a style to a paragraph in a word processing document