Read from word document line by line

Question

I'm trying to read a word document using C#. I am able to get all text but I want to be able to read line by line and store in a list and bind to a gridview. Currently my code returns a list of one item only with all text (not line by line as desired). I'm using the Microsoft.Office.Interop.Word library to read the file. Below is my code till now:

    Application word = new Application();
    Document doc = new Document();

    object fileName = path;
    // Define an object to pass to the API for missing parameters
    object missing = System.Type.Missing;
    doc = word.Documents.Open(ref fileName,
            ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing,
            ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing,
            ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing,
            ref missing, ref missing, ref missing);

    String read = string.Empty;
    List<string> data = new List<string>();
    foreach (Range tmpRange in doc.StoryRanges)
    {
        //read += tmpRange.Text + "<br>";
        data.Add(tmpRange.Text);
    }
    ((_Document)doc).Close();
    ((_Application)word).Quit();

    GridView1.DataSource = data;
    GridView1.DataBind();

Solution 1

Ok. I found the solution here.

The final code is as follows:

Application word = new Application();
Document doc = new Document();

object fileName = path;
// Define an object to pass to the API for missing parameters
object missing = System.Type.Missing;
doc = word.Documents.Open(ref fileName,
        ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing,
        ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing,
        ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing,
        ref missing, ref missing, ref missing);

String read = string.Empty;
List<string> data = new List<string>();
for (int i = 0; i < doc.Paragraphs.Count; i++)
{
    string temp = doc.Paragraphs[i + 1].Range.Text.Trim();
    if (temp != string.Empty)
        data.Add(temp);
}
((_Document)doc).Close();
((_Application)word).Quit();

GridView1.DataSource = data;
GridView1.DataBind();

Solution 2

The above code is correct, but it's too slow. I have improved the code, and it's much faster than the above one.

List<string> data = new List<string>();
Application app = new Application();
Document doc = app.Documents.Open(ref readFromPath);

foreach (Paragraph objParagraph in doc.Paragraphs)
    data.Add(objParagraph.Range.Text.Trim());

((_Document)doc).Close();
((_Application)app).Quit();

Solution 3

How about this yo. Get all the words from the doc and split them on return or whatever is better for you. Then turn into list

   List<string> lines = doc.Content.Text.Split('\n').ToList();

Comments

[Doug Hauf]

Is this all of the code that is listed above. I am going to be starting on a project this weekend that will read in a word file and then take out all of the code between double quots and insert a variable "A," he said. Then I have to replaced the part after the comma with "A," B. for a writer that wants to do some statistics on his code. I will put my code up for all to see. Are there any special imports that have to be done?

[Hamdi]

I would use a lightweight library like DocX docx.codeplex.com .

[Bat_Programmer]

@Hamdi thanks I didnt know about that. I have tried and it sure is simple to use as opposed to Interop. Thanks once again.

[John Saunders]

It is a horrible idea to use Office Interop from ASP.NET or another server technology. These APIs were written for use in a desktop application, for automating Office (a suite of desktop applications). Server applications are different in many ways that make it a very, very bad idea to use Office Interop in them. It's also unsupported by Microsoft, and may violate your Office license. See Considerations for server-side Automation of Office

[Shyam Dixit]

In my code @ open method it is showing that path is not valid and some 'COMException was not handled '

[John Saunders]

It is a horrible idea to use Office Interop from ASP.NET or another server technology. These APIs were written for use in a desktop application, for automating Office (a suite of desktop applications). Server applications are different in many ways that make it a very, very bad idea to use Office Interop in them. It's also unsupported by Microsoft, and may violate your Office license. See Considerations for server-side Automation of Office

[thang]

its \r\a, but \r would do, not \n

[Dan]

@thang AFAIK \r\a indicates the end of a table cell, and \r is the end of a line.