Question

I am learning OpenXML. I have been looking for hours trying to find how to do a simple task: insert text into a content control in c#.

I have a template document with two controls “Name” and “Age.” I can find them well enough, but I just cannot add text in them. I’ve tried a number of things, all to no avail.

        byte[] templateBytes = System.IO.File.ReadAllBytes(fileName);
        using (MemoryStream templateStream = new MemoryStream())
        {
            templateStream.Write(templateBytes, 0, (int)templateBytes.Length);

            using (WordprocessingDocument outDoc = WordprocessingDocument.Open(templateStream, true))
            {
                MainDocumentPart mainPart = outDoc.MainDocumentPart;

                foreach (SdtElement sdt in mainPart.Document.Descendants<SdtElement>().ToList())
                {
                    SdtAlias alias = sdt.Descendants<SdtAlias>().FirstOrDefault();

                    if (alias != null)
                    {
                        string sdtTitle = alias.Val.Value;

                        switch (sdtTitle)
                        {
                            case "Name":
                                // ¿Qué?
                                break;
                            case "Age":
                                // ¿Qué?
                                break;
                        }
                    }
                }

                outDoc.ChangeDocumentType(DocumentFormat.OpenXml.WordprocessingDocumentType.Document);
            }

            using (FileStream fileStream = new FileStream(savePath, System.IO.FileMode.CreateNew))
            {
                templateStream.WriteTo(fileStream);
            }
        }

All help greatly appreciated.

Cheers,

Tim.

EDIT —

Thanks for the response. Taking your advice, I’ve attempted to cast and drilled down with the productivity tool to find the child elements to update. Could you tell me if you can see why this code is simply not writing anything to the document?

        foreach (SdtElement sdt in mainPart.Document.Descendants<SdtElement>().ToList())
                {
                    SdtAlias alias = sdt.Descendants<SdtAlias>().FirstOrDefault();

                    if (alias != null)
                    {
                        SdtRun xRun = (SdtRun)sdt;
                        SdtContentRun xContentRun = xRun.Descendants<SdtContentRun>().FirstOrDefault();
                        Run xRun = xContentRun.Descendants<Run>().FirstOrDefault();
                        Text xText = xRun.Descendants<Text>().FirstOrDefault();

                        string sdtTitle = alias.Val.Value;

                        switch (sdtTitle)
                        {
                            case "Name":
                                xText.Text = "Whatever";                  
                                break;
                            case "Age":                    
                                xText.Text = "69";
                                break;
                        }
                    }     
                }

Answer 1

You need to cast your SdtElement to whatever it is, in order to get at its content child.

For example, if its an SdtBlock:

    ((SdtBlock)sdt).SdtContentBlock

Then you can add stuff (eg add children) to that.

From MSDN, the inheritance hierarchy:

 DocumentFormat.OpenXml.Wordprocessing.SdtElement
     DocumentFormat.OpenXml.Wordprocessing.SdtBlock
     DocumentFormat.OpenXml.Wordprocessing.SdtCell
     DocumentFormat.OpenXml.Wordprocessing.SdtRow
     DocumentFormat.OpenXml.Wordprocessing.SdtRun
     DocumentFormat.OpenXml.Wordprocessing.SdtRunRuby