Reading .Doc File using DocumentFormat.OpenXml dll

Question

When I am trying to read .doc file using DocumentFormat.OpenXml dll its giving error as "File contains corrupted data."

This dll is reading .docx file properly.

Can DocumentFormat.OpenXml dll help in reading .doc file?

string path = @"D:\Data\Test.doc";
string searchKeyWord = @"java";

private bool SearchWordIsMatched(string path, string searchKeyWord)
{
    try
    {
       using (WordprocessingDocument wordDoc = WordprocessingDocument.Open(path, true))
       {
           var text = wordDoc.MainDocumentPart.Document.InnerText;
           if (text.Contains(searchKeyWord))
               return true;
           else
               return false;
       }
     }
     catch (Exception ex)
     {
         throw ex;
     }
}

Answer 1

The old .doc files have a completely different format from the new .docx files. So, no, you can't use the OpenXml library to read .doc files.

To do that, you would either need to manually convert the files first, or you would need to use Office interop, instead of the Open XML SDK you're using now.

Answer 2

I'm afraid there won't be any better answer than the ones already given. The Microsoft Word DOC format is binary whereas OpenXML formats such as DOCX are zipped XML files. The OpenXml framework is for working with the latter only.

As suggested, the only other option you have is to use Word interop or third party library to convert DOC -> DOCX which you can then work with the OpenXml library.