Menu
In my c# application I would like to generate a report (word document) from data in my application, I figured that the best way to do this would be to perform something like a mail merge using the data source from my application.
I have tried using Microsoft.Office.Interop.Word however I fell short when I didn't know how to reference the saved template document:
Dictionary<string, string> MailMerge = new Dictionary<string, string>()
{
{ "ID", "123" },
{ "Name", "Test" },
{ "Address1", "Test" },
{ "Address2", "Test" },
{ "Address3", "Test" },
{ "Address4", "Test" },
{ "PostCode", "Test" },
{ "Year End", "Test" },
{ "SicCode", "123" },
};
Document doc = new Document();
doc.MailMerge.Execute(MailMerge);
I'm looking for some guidance as to what to research further as I believe there must be a 'standard' way of doing this.
953
Add personalized content to your letter Add name, address, and other fields in your database through Merge Fields. Go to Mailings > Insert Merge Field and select the field you want to add. Continue adding fields until you've added all the information you want on your letter. Choose OK.
Can't believe third party software charge thousands for interface functions with Word. I have perfectly solved this mail merge thing in my project -- no third party, no particular demands on IIS, just use OpenXML. So, add these 4 functions to your project:
public static void dotx2docx(string sourceFile, string targetFile)
{
MemoryStream documentStream;
using (Stream tplStream = File.OpenRead(sourceFile))
{
documentStream = new MemoryStream((int)tplStream.Length);
CopyStream(tplStream, documentStream);
documentStream.Position = 0L;
}
using (WordprocessingDocument template = WordprocessingDocument.Open(documentStream, true))
{
template.ChangeDocumentType(DocumentFormat.OpenXml.WordprocessingDocumentType.Document);
MainDocumentPart mainPart = template.MainDocumentPart;
mainPart.DocumentSettingsPart.AddExternalRelationship("http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/officeDocument/2006/relationships/attachedTemplate",
new Uri(targetFile, UriKind.Absolute));
mainPart.Document.Save();
}
File.WriteAllBytes(targetFile, documentStream.ToArray());
}
public static void CopyStream(Stream source, Stream target)
{
if (source != null)
{
MemoryStream mstream = source as MemoryStream;
if (mstream != null) mstream.WriteTo(target);
else
{
byte[] buffer = new byte[2048];
int length = buffer.Length, size;
while ((size = source.Read(buffer, 0, length)) != 0)
target.Write(buffer, 0, size);
}
}
}
public static void Mailmerge(string templatePath, string DestinatePath, DataRow dr, DataColumnCollection columns)
{
try
{
dotx2docx(templatePath, DestinatePath);
}
catch //incase the server does not support MS Office Word 2003 / 2007 / 2010
{
File.Copy(templatePath, DestinatePath, true);
}
using (WordprocessingDocument doc = WordprocessingDocument.Open(DestinatePath, true))
{
var allParas = doc.MainDocumentPart.Document.Descendants<DocumentFormat.OpenXml.Wordprocessing.Text>();
Text PreItem = null;
string PreItemConstant = null;
bool FindSingleAnglebrackets = false;
bool breakFlag = false;
List<Text> breakedFiled = new List<Text>();
foreach (Text item in allParas)
{
foreach (DataColumn cl in columns)
{
//<Today>
if (item.Text.Contains("«" + cl.ColumnName + "»") || item.Text.Contains("<" + cl.ColumnName + ">"))
{
item.Text = item.Text.Replace("<" + cl.ColumnName + ">", dr[cl.ColumnName].ToString())
.Replace("«" + cl.ColumnName + "»", dr[cl.ColumnName].ToString());
FindSingleAnglebrackets = false;
breakFlag = false;
breakedFiled.Clear();
}
else if //<Today
(item.Text != null
&& (
(item.Text.Contains("<") && !item.Text.Contains(">"))
|| (item.Text.Contains("«") && !item.Text.Contains("»"))
)
&& (item.Text.Contains(cl.ColumnName))
)
{
FindSingleAnglebrackets = true;
item.Text = global::System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.Replace(item.Text, @"\<" + cl.ColumnName + @"(?!\w)", dr[cl.ColumnName].ToString());
item.Text = global::System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.Replace(item.Text, @"\«" + cl.ColumnName + @"(?!\w)", dr[cl.ColumnName].ToString());
}
else if //Today> or Today
(
PreItemConstant != null
&& (
(PreItemConstant.Contains("<") && !PreItemConstant.Contains(">"))
|| (PreItemConstant.Contains("«") && !PreItemConstant.Contains("»"))
)
&& (item.Text.Contains(cl.ColumnName))
)
{
if (item.Text.Contains(">") || item.Text.Contains("»"))
{
FindSingleAnglebrackets = false;
breakFlag = false;
breakedFiled.Clear();
}
else
{
FindSingleAnglebrackets = true;
}
if (PreItemConstant == "<" || PreItemConstant == "«")
{
PreItem.Text = "";
}
else
{
PreItem.Text = global::System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.Replace(PreItemConstant, @"\<" + cl.ColumnName + @"(?!\w)", dr[cl.ColumnName].ToString());
PreItem.Text = global::System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.Replace(PreItemConstant, @"\«" + cl.ColumnName + @"(?!\w)", dr[cl.ColumnName].ToString());
}
if (PreItemConstant.Contains("<") || PreItemConstant.Contains("«")) // pre item is like '[blank]«'
{
PreItem.Text = PreItem.Text.Replace("<", "");
PreItem.Text = PreItem.Text.Replace("«", "");
}
if (item.Text.Contains(cl.ColumnName + ">") || item.Text.Contains(cl.ColumnName + "»"))
{
item.Text = global::System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.Replace(item.Text, @"(?<!\w)" + cl.ColumnName + @"\>", dr[cl.ColumnName].ToString());
item.Text = global::System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.Replace(item.Text, @"(?<!\w)" + cl.ColumnName + @"\»", dr[cl.ColumnName].ToString());
}
else
{
item.Text = global::System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.Replace(item.Text, @"(?<!\w)" + cl.ColumnName + @"(?!\w)", dr[cl.ColumnName].ToString());
}
}
else if (FindSingleAnglebrackets && (item.Text.Contains("»") || item.Text.Contains(">")))
{
item.Text = global::System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.Replace(item.Text, @"(?<!\w)" + cl.ColumnName + @"\>", dr[cl.ColumnName].ToString());
item.Text = global::System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.Replace(item.Text, @"(?<!\w)" + cl.ColumnName + @"\»", dr[cl.ColumnName].ToString());
item.Text = global::System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.Replace(item.Text, @"^\s*\>", "");
item.Text = global::System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.Replace(item.Text, @"^\s*\»", "");
FindSingleAnglebrackets = false;
breakFlag = false;
breakedFiled.Clear();
}
else if (item.Text.Contains("<") || item.Text.Contains("«")) // no ColumnName
{
}
} //end of each columns
PreItem = item;
PreItemConstant = item.Text;
if (breakFlag
|| (item.Text.Contains("<") && !item.Text.Contains(">"))
|| (item.Text.Contains("«") && !item.Text.Contains("»"))
)
{
breakFlag = true;
breakedFiled.Add(item);
string combinedfiled = "";
foreach (Text t in breakedFiled)
{
combinedfiled += t.Text;
}
foreach (DataColumn cl in columns)
{
//<Today>
if (combinedfiled.Contains("«" + cl.ColumnName + "»") || combinedfiled.Contains("<" + cl.ColumnName + ">"))
{
//for the first part, remove the last '<' and tailing content
breakedFiled[0].Text = global::System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.Replace(breakedFiled[0].Text, @"<\w*$", "");
breakedFiled[0].Text = global::System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.Replace(breakedFiled[0].Text, @"<\w*$", "");
//remove middle parts
foreach (Text t in breakedFiled)
{
if (!t.Text.Contains("<") && !t.Text.Contains("«") && !t.Text.Contains(">") && !t.Text.Contains("»"))
{
t.Text = "";
}
}
//for the last part(as current item), remove leading content till the first '>'
item.Text = global::System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.Replace(item.Text, @"^\s*\>", dr[cl.ColumnName].ToString());
item.Text = global::System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.Replace(item.Text, @"^\s*\»", dr[cl.ColumnName].ToString());
FindSingleAnglebrackets = false;
breakFlag = false;
breakedFiled.Clear();
break;
}
}
}
}//end of each item
#region go through footer
MainDocumentPart mainPart = doc.MainDocumentPart;
foreach (FooterPart footerPart in mainPart.FooterParts)
{
Footer footer = footerPart.Footer;
var allFooterParas = footer.Descendants<Text>();
foreach (Text item in allFooterParas)
{
foreach (DataColumn cl in columns)
{
if (item.Text.Contains("«" + cl.ColumnName + "»") || item.Text.Contains("<" + cl.ColumnName + ">"))
{
item.Text = (string.IsNullOrEmpty(dr[cl.ColumnName].ToString()) ? " " : dr[cl.ColumnName].ToString());
FindSingleAnglebrackets = false;
}
else if (PreItem != null && (PreItem.Text == "<" || PreItem.Text == "«") && (item.Text.Trim() == cl.ColumnName))
{
FindSingleAnglebrackets = true;
PreItem.Text = "";
item.Text = (string.IsNullOrEmpty(dr[cl.ColumnName].ToString()) ? " " : dr[cl.ColumnName].ToString());
}
else if (FindSingleAnglebrackets && (item.Text == "»" || item.Text == ">"))
{
item.Text = "";
FindSingleAnglebrackets = false;
}
}
PreItem = item;
}
}
#endregion
#region replace \v to new Break()
var body = doc.MainDocumentPart.Document.Body;
var paras = body.Elements<Paragraph>();
foreach (var para in paras)
{
foreach (var run in para.Elements<Run>())
{
foreach (var text in run.Elements<Text>())
{
if (text.Text.Contains("MS_Doc_New_Line"))
{
string[] ss = text.Text.Split(new string[] { "MS_Doc_New_Line" }, StringSplitOptions.None);
text.Text = text.Text = "";
int n = 0;
foreach (string s in ss)
{
n++;
run.AppendChild(new Text(s));
if (n != ss.Length)
{
run.AppendChild(new Break());
}
}
}
}
}
}
#endregion
doc.MainDocumentPart.Document.Save();
}
}
public static void MergeDocuments(params string[] filepaths)
{
//filepaths = new[] { "D:\\one.docx", "D:\\two.docx", "D:\\three.docx", "D:\\four.docx", "D:\\five.docx" };
if (filepaths != null && filepaths.Length > 1)
using (WordprocessingDocument myDoc = WordprocessingDocument.Open(@filepaths[0], true))
{
MainDocumentPart mainPart = myDoc.MainDocumentPart;
for (int i = 1; i < filepaths.Length; i++)
{
string altChunkId = "AltChunkId" + i;
AlternativeFormatImportPart chunk = mainPart.AddAlternativeFormatImportPart(
AlternativeFormatImportPartType.WordprocessingML, altChunkId);
using (FileStream fileStream = File.Open(@filepaths[i], FileMode.Open))
{
chunk.FeedData(fileStream);
}
DocumentFormat.OpenXml.Wordprocessing.AltChunk altChunk = new DocumentFormat.OpenXml.Wordprocessing.AltChunk();
altChunk.Id = altChunkId;
//new page, if you like it...
mainPart.Document.Body.AppendChild(new Paragraph(new Run(new Break() { Type = BreakValues.Page })));
//next document
mainPart.Document.Body.InsertAfter(altChunk, mainPart.Document.Body.Elements<Paragraph>().Last());
}
mainPart.Document.Save();
myDoc.Close();
}
}
And use them like this:
DataTable dt = new DataTable();
dt.Columns.Add("Date");
dt.Columns.Add("Today");
dt.Columns.Add("Addr1");
dt.Columns.Add("Addr2");
dt.Columns.Add("PreferContact");
dt.Columns.Add("TenantName");
//......
DataRow nr = dt.NewRow();
nr["Date"] = DateTime.Now.ToString("dd/MM/yyyy");
nr["Today"] = DateTime.Now.ToString("dd/MM/yyyy");
//......
dt.Rows.Add(nr);
string sourceFile = "c:\my_template.docx"; //this is where you store your template
string filePath = "c:\final.docx"; //this is where your result file locate
Mailmerge(sourceFile, filePath, nr, dt.Columns);
Your template(c:\my_template.docx) will be just like normal .docx file, and you need to specify your fields in it:
<field>
So, your template(c:\my_template.docx) should be like:
<Today>
<DebtorName>
<DebtorADDR>
<DebtorEmail>
Dear <Dear>,
Congratulations on yourr property <PlanNo> <BuildAddress>. Your unit number is <LotNo> ...............
In addition, if some of your fields contain line breaks, use this:
nr["Address"] = my_address_text_contains_line_breaks.Replace(Environment.NewLine, "MS_Doc_New_Line");
If you love us? You can donate to us via Paypal or buy me a coffee so we can maintain and grow! Thank you!
Donate Us With
