Word 2007 Remove section break

Question

I have a word 2007 .doc file that contains multiple sub documents separated by sections.

Is there a way to remove all section breaks from the document?

I have tried to Find and Replace them but I receive an error.

private void RemoveAllSectionBreaks(Word.Document doc)
{
    Word.Find find = doc.Range(ref oMissing, ref oMissing).Find;
    find.ClearFormatting();
    //find.Text = "^b"; // This line throws an error
    find.Text =((char)12).ToString(); // Same error when attempting it this way
    find.Replacement.ClearFormatting();
    find.Replacement.Text = "";

    find.Execute(ref oMissing, ref oMissing, ref oMissing, ref oMissing, ref oMissing, ref oMissing, ref oMissing, ref oMissing, ref oMissing, ref oMissing, Word.WdReplace.wdReplaceAll, ref oMissing, ref oMissing, ref oMissing, ref oMissing);
}

The find.Text line will generate an error -

SEHException was unhandled by user code

External component has thrown an exception.

I do not get any further details on what the error might have been. The code is working okay in word 2003, but I need this working in Word 2007.

Am I following the right approach for word 2007?

Answer 1

I ended up doing a different approach. As the word find feature was causing an error, I decided to code the search/removal. The following code removes all section breaks it encounters.

private void RemoveAllSectionBreaks(Word.Document doc)
{
    Word.Sections sections = doc.Sections;
    foreach (Word.Section section in sections)
    {
        section.Range.Select();
        Word.Selection selection = doc.Application.Selection;
        object unit = Word.WdUnits.wdCharacter;
        object count = 1;
        object extend = Word.WdMovementType.wdExtend;
        selection.MoveRight(ref unit, ref count, ref oMissing);
        selection.MoveLeft(ref unit, ref count, ref extend);
        selection.Delete(ref unit, ref count);
    }
}

Answer 2

Late comeback but an other solution I used is that you may also use the vsto find and replace replacing the section break by paragraph using "^m" for section and "^p" for paragraph, or with empty string.

using Word = Microsoft.Office.Interop.Word;

object missing = Missing.Value;
Word.Document tmpDoc = wordApp.Documents.Open(fileToOpen);

object findText = "^m";
object replaceText = "^p^p";
tmpDoc.Range().Find.Execute(ref findText,
    true, true, true, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing,
    ref missing, ref missing, ref replaceText, Word.WdReplace.wdReplaceAll, 
    ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing);