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How can I programmatically remove Custom Document Properties from Word Documents?

I have been working on a project that requires me to be able to add and remove custom document properties from Word documents. It was fairly easy to find demonstrations on how to add/view Custom Document properties, but I have been unable to remove them. How can I do this? I've included examples I found of how to add/view.

public void ReadCustom()
{
	object oDocCustomProps = _document.CustomDocumentProperties;
	Type typeDocCustomProps = oDocCustomProps.GetType();
 
	string strIndex = "Knowledge Base Article";
	string strValue;
	try
	{
		object oKBProp = typeDocCustomProps.InvokeMember("Item",
															 BindingFlags.Default |
															 BindingFlags.GetProperty,
															 null, oDocCustomProps,
															 new object[] { strIndex });
		Type typeKBProp = oKBProp.GetType();
		strValue = typeKBProp.InvokeMember("Value",
															 BindingFlags.Default |
															 BindingFlags.GetProperty,
															 null, oKBProp,
															 new object[] { }).ToString();
		MessageBox.Show("The KB is: " + strValue, "KB");
	}
	catch (TargetInvocationException ex)
	{
		MessageBox.Show(strIndex + " does not exist");
	}
}
 
public void DeleteCustom()
{
	object oDocCustomProps = _document.CustomDocumentProperties;
	Type typeDocCustomProps = oDocCustomProps.GetType();
 
	string strIndex = "Knowledge Base Article";
	string strValue;
	object oKBProp = typeDocCustomProps.InvokeMember("Remove",
														 BindingFlags.Default |
														 BindingFlags.GetProperty,
														 null, oDocCustomProps,
														 new object[] { strIndex });
	
}

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SOLUTION

Bradley Haynes

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SOLUTION

GrahamSkan

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guxiyou

ASKER

Graham Skan:

I've see this example in several bogs/help sites, but it doesn't appear to work in C#. Whenever I try it I get errors, specifically I get:

"Unable to cast COM object of type 'System.__ComObject' to interface type 'Microsoft.Office.Core.DocumentProperties'. This operation failed because the QueryInterface call on the COM component for the interface with IID '{2DF8D04D-5BFA-101B-BDE5-00AA0044DE52}' failed due to the following error: No such interface supported (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80004002 (E_NOINTERFACE)).

public void DeleteCustom()
{
	DocumentProperties properties = (DocumentProperties) _document.CustomDocumentProperties;
	foreach (DocumentProperty wdProp in properties)
	{
		wdProp.Delete();
	}
}

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guxiyou

ASKER

b_haynes:

I tried the solution that you proposed, and it wouldn't compile, I got a, "Cannot apply indexing with [ ] to an expression of type 'object'. I'm tried casting it, but no matter how I cast it I still get problems.

guxiyou

ASKER

Thanks for both your help. Here I found a solution that seems to work:

public void DeleteCustom()
{
	object oDocCustomProps = _document.CustomDocumentProperties;
	Type typeDocCustomProps = oDocCustomProps.GetType();
 
	string strIndex = "PropertyName";
	try
	{
		object oKBProp = typeDocCustomProps.InvokeMember("Item",
															 BindingFlags.Default |
															 BindingFlags.GetProperty,
															 null, oDocCustomProps,
															 new object[] { strIndex });
		Type typeKBProp = oKBProp.GetType();
		typeKBProp.InvokeMember("Delete", BindingFlags.Default | BindingFlags.InvokeMethod, null, oKBProp, null);
	}
	catch { }
}

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ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

guxiyou

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