how-to-get-the-contents-of-a-document-part-from-a-package.md

api_name	api_type	ms.assetid	title	ms.suite	ms.author	author	ms.topic	ms.date	ms.localizationpriority
Microsoft.Office.DocumentFormat.OpenXML.Packaging	schema	b0d3d890-431a-4838-89dc-1f0dccd5dcd0	How to: Get the contents of a document part from a package	office	o365devx	o365devx	conceptual	11/01/2017	high

Get the contents of a document part from a package

This topic shows how to use the classes in the Open XML SDK for Office to retrieve the contents of a document part in a Wordprocessing document programmatically.

---

[!includeStructure]

---

Getting a WordprocessingDocument Object

The code starts with opening a package file by passing a file name to one of the overloaded Open() methods (Visual Basic .NET Shared method or C# static method) of the xref:DocumentFormat.OpenXml.Packaging.WordprocessingDocument class that takes a string and a Boolean value that specifies whether the file should be opened in read/write mode or not. In this case, the Boolean value is false specifying that the file should be opened in read-only mode to avoid accidental changes.

C#

    // Open a Wordprocessing document for editing.
    using (WordprocessingDocument wordDoc = WordprocessingDocument.Open(document, false))
    {
          // Insert other code here.
    }

Visual Basic

    ' Open a Wordprocessing document for editing.
    Using wordDoc As WordprocessingDocument = WordprocessingDocument.Open(document, False)
        ' Insert other code here.
    End Using

---

[!includeUsing Statement]

---

[!includeStructure]

---

Comments Element

In this how-to, you are going to work with comments. Therefore, it is useful to familiarize yourself with the structure of the <comments> element. The following information from the [!includeISO/IEC 29500 URL] specification can be useful when working with this element.

This element specifies all of the comments defined in the current document. It is the root element of the comments part of a WordprocessingML document.Consider the following WordprocessingML fragment for the content of a comments part in a WordprocessingML document:

    <w:comments>
      <w:comment … >
        …
      </w:comment>
    </w:comments>

The comments element contains the single comment specified by this document in this example.

© [!includeISO/IEC 29500 version]

The following XML schema fragment defines the contents of this element.

    <complexType name="CT_Comments">
       <sequence>
           <element name="comment" type="CT_Comment" minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="unbounded"/>
       </sequence>
    </complexType>

---

How the Sample Code Works

After you have opened the source file for reading, you create a mainPart object by instantiating the MainDocumentPart. Then you can create a reference to the WordprocessingCommentsPart part of the document.

C#

    // To get the contents of a document part.
    public static string GetCommentsFromDocument(string document)
    {
        string comments = null;

        using (WordprocessingDocument wordDoc = WordprocessingDocument.Open(document, true))
        {
            MainDocumentPart mainPart = wordDoc.MainDocumentPart;
            WordprocessingCommentsPart WordprocessingCommentsPart = mainPart.WordprocessingCommentsPart;

Visual Basic

    ' To get the contents of a document part.
    Public Shared Function GetCommentsFromDocument(ByVal document As String) As String
        Dim comments As String = Nothing

        Using wordDoc As WordprocessingDocument = WordprocessingDocument.Open(document, True)
            Dim mainPart As MainDocumentPart = wordDoc.MainDocumentPart
            Dim WordprocessingCommentsPart As WordprocessingCommentsPart = mainPart.WordprocessingCommentsPart

---

You can then use a StreamReader object to read the contents of the WordprocessingCommentsPart part of the document and return its contents.

C#

    using (StreamReader streamReader = new StreamReader(WordprocessingCommentsPart.GetStream()))
            {
                comments = streamReader.ReadToEnd();
            }
        }
        return comments;

Visual Basic

    Using streamReader As New StreamReader(WordprocessingCommentsPart.GetStream())
    comments = streamReader.ReadToEnd()
    End Using
    Return comments

---

---

Sample Code

The following code retrieves the contents of a WordprocessingCommentsPart part contained in a WordProcessing document package. You can run the program by calling the GetCommentsFromDocument method as shown in the following example.

C#

    string document = @"C:\Users\Public\Documents\MyPkg5.docx";
    GetCommentsFromDocument(document);

Visual Basic

    Dim document As String = "C:\Users\Public\Documents\MyPkg5.docx"
    GetCommentsFromDocument(document)

---

Following is the complete code example in both C# and Visual Basic.

C#

[!code-csharp]

Visual Basic

[!code-vb]

---

See also

Open XML SDK class library reference