InfoQ

News

Manipulate Office Documents from the Command Line

Posted by Jonathan Allen on Jun 24, 2008 06:47 AM

Community
.NET
Topics
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.

No comments

Watch Thread Reply

Educational Content

Bindings, Platforms, and Innovation

This presentation focuses on the Internet and separating myth from fact, history from the future, and the mundane from the imaginative. Bob Frankston presents a vision of what could and should be.

Orchestrating Long Running Activities with JBoss / JBPM

This article explores the use of JBoss and jBPM to implement design solutions that effectively address the issue of orchestrating long running activities.

Neo4j - The Benefits of Graph Databases

This presentation covers the use of graph databases as an optimal solution for data that is difficult to fit in static tables, rapidly evolving data or data that has a lot of optional attributes.

Realistic about Risk: Software development with Real Options

This session introduces Real Options and shows how it can help in running your project. Real Options is a decision-making process that can be used to manage risk.

Communication Flexibility Using Bindings

This article discusses the use of bindings on services and references (including the instance of non-configured bindings) as the means to implement SCA communications in a Web and SOA environment.

Writing DSLs in Groovy

After a short introduction to DSLs, Scott Davis plays with the keyboard showing how to approach the creation of a DSL by typing working snippets of Groovy code that get executed.

Scaling Agile with C/ALM (Collaborative Application Lifecycle Management)

IBM Rational and InfoQ present, Scaling Agile with C/ALM, an eBook showing organizations how to become “finely tuned software delivery machines” by enabling team integration and scaling.

Concurrent Programming with Microsoft F#

Amanda Laucher presents a real life enterprise application written in F#. She shows actual code snippets, explaining design decisions and suggesting how to use some of the F# constructs.