CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#ms-wordms-office
Igor Kondrasovas
Igor Kondrasovas

Reputation: 1671

How to open Word document from memory stream

In our WPF application, we must create a Word document and open it automatically.

Today we ask the user to specify the file name and location BEFORE we create the document and them open the file using the Process.Start method.

Now, I want to create the Word document in memory stream, open it and eventually, when the user decides to save the document in Microsoft Word, he will have to specify the location and name. So I will not be using the SaveFileDialog in my app.

This is similar to when you start Microsoft Word. A default document is created and when you click save, you will guided to the "save as" function.

How can I do that?

Upvotes: 5

Views: 12046

Answers (2)

paulsm4
paulsm4

Reputation: 121649

Just programmatically create a new Word document using the standard Microsoft.Interop.Word .Net namespace:

Note that you might need to install MS-Office to do this.

Note, too, that your application can display it's own "Save As" dialog (or, for that matter, could just use a hard-coded path) independent of Word. Your program chooses the path - and your program writes the Word document object if/when it's ready.

Finally, here's an alternative, open source library, DocX:

ADDENDUM:

Thank you for your clarification:

  1. You're using the OpenXML SDK (as an alternative to .Net Interop or DocX libraries I mentioned above). You've already created an in-memory document object.

  2. Now you want the user to be able to open the document object in Word (presumably to review it), before saving it (to a filename of his/her own choosing).

  3. You can't (easily) do that :)

  4. One option, suggested by sovemp above:

    a. OpenXML writes to a temp file (so it can be opened in Word)

    b. Make the temp file read-only (to force the user to do an explicit "Save As")

    c. Use .Net Process.Start() to invoke MSWord (specifying your temp file in your command line).

  5. Another option might be to use a "Preview Handler":

  6. Still another option might be to serve the memory stream in a web browser, using HTTP ContentType "application/msword" (for example)

  7. Finally, if all you want is for the user to specify a filename (if "preview" isn't essential), you can always pop up your own "Save as" dialog and write document to disk directly from OpenXML.

Upvotes: 2

sovemp
sovemp

Reputation: 1413

I don't think you can do this purely on the memory stream. However, I would save the memory stream to a temporary file, by saving to the Temp folder or AppData\temp or something like that with a randomly-generated name, and then mark that file as read-only. Then open word on that file (with System.Diagnostics.Process or however you are doing it), and since it is read-only, it will ask the user to save changes when they exit.

Upvotes: 5

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