Manipulate Office Documents from the Command Line

Posted by Jonathan Allen on Jun 24, 2008

Sections

Development

Topics

.NET ,

Scripting

Tags

OpenXML ,

PowerShell

In 2006 .NET 3.0 was released with rudimentary support for Open XML-style ZIP files. While not very useful on its own, it serves as the basis for the recently released Open XML SDK. This SDK exposes strongly typed classes for manipulating Office documents.

Almost in tandem, PowerTools for Open XML was announced. This open source project adds a collection of PowerShell commands that allow manipulating Open XML from the command line. Since it relies on the Open XML SDK and .NET 3.0, users don't need to install MS Office or mess with COM automation. This is especially important in server-side applications where Office is inherently unstable.

Below is the list of commands available in the first release.

• Accept-OpenXmlChange: Accepts all text change tracking elements in a document.
• Add-OpenXmlContent: Insert custom markup inside a specific part in a Wordprocessing document
• Add-OpenXmlDigitalSignature: Inserts a new digital signature inside a Wordprocessing document
• Add-OpenXmlDocumentIndex: Generate the index of a Wordprocessing document
• Add-OpenXmlDocumentTOA: Generate the TOA (Table of Authorities) of a Wordprocessing document
• Add-OpenXmlDocumentTOC: Generate the TOC (Table of Contents) of a Wordprocessing document
• Add-OpenXmlDocumentTOF: Generate the TOF (Table of Figures) of a Wordprocessing document
• Add-OpenXmlPicture: Inserts a picture inside an OpenXML document
• Export-OpenXmlSpreadsheet: Generates a spreadsheet document from piped objects.
• Export-OpenXmlToHtml: Exports Wordprocessing documents to html documents
• Export-OpenXmlWordprocessing: Create a new Wordprocessing document from text.
• Get-OpenXmlBackground: Extracts background information from a Wordprocessing document
• Get-OpenXmlComment: Extracts all the comments contained in a Wordprocessing document
• Get-OpenXmlCustomXmlData: Gets a customXml part from a document.
• Get-OpenXmlDigitalSignature: Gets information about digital signatures present in a Wordprocessing document
• Get-OpenXmlDocument: Creates objects for OpenXML documents
• Get-OpenXmlFooter: Retrieves footer information from Wordprocessing documents
• Get-OpenXmlHeader: Retrieves header(s) information from Wordprocessing documents
• Get-OpenXmlStyle: Retrieves style definitions from a Wordprocessing document.
• Get-OpenXmlTheme: Gets the theme content from a Wordprocessing document.
• Get-OpenXmlWatermark: Gets watermark text from a Wordprocessing document.
• Lock-OpenXmlDocument: Locks one or more Wordprocessing documents.
• Remove-OpenXmlComment: Removes comments from Wordprocessing documents.
• Remove-OpenXmlDigitalSignature: Removes the digital signature of a Wordprocessing document
• Set-OpenXmlBackground: Sets the background color or image of a Wordprocessing document.
• Set-OpenXmlContentFormat: Sets the format of a paragraph or run on a Wordprocessing document.
• Set-OpenXmlContentStyle: Sets the style for a paragraph or run on a Wordprocessing document.
• Set-OpenXmlCustomXmlData: Sets the contents of a custom XML part in a Wordprocessing document.
• Set-OpenXmlFooter: Sets footers in a Wordprocessing document.
• Set-OpenXmlHeader: Sets headers on a Wordprocessing document.
• Set-OpenXmlStyle: Sets the style library for a Wordprocessing document.
• Set-OpenXmlTheme: Sets a Wordprocessing document theme.
• Set-OpenXmlWatermark: Sets a watermark in a Wordprocessing document.

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