Question

I am manipulating a Word 2010 document on the server-side and some of the content controls in the document have the following Locking properties checked

• Content control cannot be deleted
• Contents cannot be edited

Can anyone advise set these Locking options to false or remove then altogether using the OpenXML SDK?

Answer 1

The openxml SDK provides the Lock class and the LockingValues enumeration
for programmatically setting the options:

• Content control cannot be deleted and
• Contents cannot be edited

So, to set those two options to “false” (LockingValues.Unlocked),
search for all SdtElement elements in the document and set the Val property to
LockingValues.Unlocked.

The code below shows an example:

static void UnlockAllSdtContentElements()
{
  using (WordprocessingDocument wordDoc =
    WordprocessingDocument.Open(@"c:\temp\myword.docx", true))
  {        
    IEnumerable<SdtElement> elements = 
      wordDoc.MainDocumentPart.Document.Descendants<SdtElement>();

    foreach (SdtElement elem in elements)
    {
      if (elem.SdtProperties != null)
      {
        Lock l = elem.SdtProperties.ChildElements.First<Lock>();

        if (l == null)
        {              
          continue;
        }

        if (l.Val == LockingValues.SdtContentLocked)
        {
          Console.Out.WriteLine("Unlock content element...");
          l.Val = LockingValues.Unlocked;
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

static void Main(string[] args)
{
  UnlockAllSdtContentElements();
}