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

Posted on 2008-09-29

3 solutions

5,975 Views

Last Modified: 2008-10-05

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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Comment

Question by:guxiyou

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6 Comments

LVL 8

Assisted Solution

by:Bradley Haynes

Bradley Haynes earned 200 total points

ID: 226016892008-09-29

I found this at: http://www.aspose.com/community/forums/142488/custom-document-properties-yes-no-field/showthread.aspx

This may be what you need:
Document doc = new Document(@"Test064\in.doc");

doc.CustomDocumentProperties["test"].Value = false;

doc.Range.UpdateFields();

doc.Save(@"Test064\out.doc");

LVL 76

Assisted Solution

by:GrahamSkan

GrahamSkan earned 200 total points

ID: 226038692008-09-30

This is a tested Word macro to do that.

Sub ClearDocProperties(wdDoc As Word.Document)
    Dim wdProp As Office.DocumentProperty
    
    For Each wdProp In wdDoc.CustomDocumentProperties
        wdProp.Delete
    Next wdProp
End Sub

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Author Comment

by:guxiyou

ID: 226064902008-09-30

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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Author Comment

by:guxiyou

ID: 226065672008-09-30

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.

Author Comment

by:guxiyou

ID: 226080872008-09-30

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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Accepted Solution

by:guxiyou

guxiyou earned 0 total points

ID: 226081642008-09-30

For reference, this is the page that helped me solve the problem:

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/csharpgeneral/thread/4e5f1023-6113-4b0a-b6f1-b18a9237c37a/

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