Question

Im looking for a way to insert an MS Word Shape at cursor position. At the moment I have the following code which inserts a shape at a predetermined location:

        Microsoft.Office.Interop.Word.Range CurrRange = Globals.ThisAddIn.Application.Selection.Range;

        //Get the id of the MS Word shape to be inserted
        int shapeId = (int)MsoAutoShapeType.msoShapeRoundedRectangle;
        //Get the value of the name attribute from the selected tree view item
        string nodeText = treeViewItem.GetAttribute("name");

        //Add a new shape to the MS Word designer and set shape properties
        var shape = CurrRange.Document.Shapes.AddShape(shapeId, 170, 200, 100, 20);
        shape.AlternativeText = String.Format("Alt {0}", nodeText);
        shape.TextFrame.ContainingRange.Text = nodeText;
        shape.TextFrame.ContainingRange.Font.Size = 8;

The location where the shape gets inserted is hardcoded:

This can be seen from the 2nd and 3rd parameters of the AddShape() method:

170 = position measured in points to the left edge of the autoshape

200 = position measured in points to the top edge of the autoshape

I’ve had a look at the properties and methods of my Range object but cannot seem to find any which store the position values which I require.

Answer 1

The final parameter to AddShape is an Anchor, which expects a range object. Try passing your range into that:

var shape = CurrRange.Document.Shapes.AddShape(shapeId, 0, 0, 100, 20,CurrRange);

Update: It looks like there is a bug in Word 2010 documents that it doesn’t respect the Anchor. Save the document as a .doc file and test again, it does anchor it to the beginning of the paragraph if you do that. The link above is just to the microsoft forums, I could not find the connect bug report for the issue.

A workaround would be to specify the top and left based on the location of the selection:

Microsoft.Office.Interop.Word.Range CurrRange = Globals.ThisAddIn.Application.Selection.Range;

//Get the id of the MS Word shape to be inserted
int shapeId = (int)MsoAutoShapeType.msoShapeRoundedRectangle;

//Get the value of the name attribute from the selected tree view item
string nodeText = "Hello World";

var left = Globals.ThisAddIn.Application.Selection.get_Information(Microsoft.Office.Interop.Word.WdInformation.wdHorizontalPositionRelativeToPage);
var top = Globals.ThisAddIn.Application.Selection.get_Information(Microsoft.Office.Interop.Word.WdInformation.wdVerticalPositionRelativeToPage);

//Add a new shape to the MS Word designer and set shape properties
var shape = CurrRange.Document.Shapes.AddShape(shapeId, left, top, 100, 20);
shape.AlternativeText = String.Format("Alt {0}", nodeText);
shape.TextFrame.ContainingRange.Text = nodeText;
shape.TextFrame.ContainingRange.Font.Size = 8;