Working with Document Properties
The DocumentProperties collection and DocumentProperty object are found in the Microsoft Office 11.0 Object Library (office.dll), which contains objects shared by all the Office applications. These objects are in the Microsoft.Office.Core namespace and are typically brought into your code in an Office namespace alias as shown here:
using Office = Microsoft.Office.Core;
Iterating over the DocumentProperties Collection
Listing 5-15 shows an example of iterating over the DocumentProperties collection returned by Workbook.CustomDocumentProperties and Workbook.BuiltInDocumentProperties.
Listing 5-15. A VSTO Customization That Iterates over DocumentProperties Collection
private void ThisWorkbook_Startup(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
Office.DocumentProperties customProps = this.
CustomDocumentProperties as Office.DocumentProperties;
Office.DocumentProperties builtinProps = this.
BuiltinDocumentProperties as Office.DocumentProperties;
foreach (Office.DocumentProperty builtinProp in builtinProps)
{
MessageBox.Show(String.Format(
"{0} {1}", builtinProp.Name, builtinProp.Value));
}
foreach (Office.DocumentProperty customProp in customProps)
{
MessageBox.Show(String.Format(
"{0} {1}", customProp.Name, customProp.Value));
}
}
Accessing a DocumentProperty in the DocumentProperties Collection
To access a DocumentProperty in a DocumentProperties collection, you use the C# indexing syntax docProperty[object], which returns a DocumentProperty object. The indexer takes an Index parameter of type object. You can pass an int representing the 1-based index of the DocumentProperty in the collection you want to access. Alternatively, you can pass a string representing the name of the DocumentProperty you want to access. As with other collections, the Count property returns how many DocumentProperty objects are in the collection.A DocumentProperty object has a Name property that returns a string containing the name of the property. It also has a Value property of type object that returns the value of the property. You can check what the type is of Value by using the Type property that returns a member of the MsoDocProperties enumeration: msoPropertyTypeBoolean, msoPropertyTypeDate, msoPropertyTypeFloat, msoPropertyTypeNumber, or msoPropertyTypeString.Listing 5-16 shows how a DocumentProperty is accessed.
Listing 5-16. A VSTO Customization That Accesses a DocumentProperty Using an Indexer
private void ThisWorkbook_Startup(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
Office.DocumentProperties builtinProps = this.
BuiltinDocumentProperties as Office.DocumentProperties;
Office.DocumentProperty authorProp = builtinProps["Author"];
MessageBox.Show(String.Format(
"Property {0} is {1}", authorProp.Name, authorProp.Value));
Office.DocumentProperty thirdProp = builtinProps[3];
MessageBox.Show(String.Format(
"Property {0} is {1}", thirdProp.Name, thirdProp.Value));
}
Adding a DocumentProperty
You can add a custom DocumentProperty using the Add method. The Add method takes the parameters shown in Chapter 18, "Server Data Scenarios."
Listing 5-17. A VSTO Customization That Adds a Custom DocumentProperty
private void ThisWorkbook_Startup(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
Office.DocumentProperties props = this.
CustomDocumentProperties as Office.DocumentProperties;
Office.DocumentProperty prop = props.Add("My Property",
false, Office.MsoDocProperties.msoPropertyTypeString,
"My Value", missing);
MessageBox.Show(String.Format(
"Property {0} has value {1}.", prop.Name, prop.Value));
}