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c#ms-wordms-officeoffice-interop

Word Automation Multiple Paste Problem

Is there a better way to paste HTML fragments into a Word document than via the clipboard from C#?

using Word = Microsoft.Office.Interop.Word;

I'm using some code that puts HTML into the clipboard:

HtmlFragment.CopyToClipboard(changedText);

I have a selection in word (from a formfield) and I do:

 word.Selection.Paste();

But sometimes it just throws a COM exception. If I add

  Thread.Sleep(100);

I can get it to work, but that's not ideal.

The Insert methods look like a better option but there is no Insert from HTML.

So what's the best way to insert lots of HTML fragments into Word quickly using the automation interfaces?

Edit

Some good advice in the responses but the issue turned out to be a simple <br> tag causing word to fail on paste.

Solution

  • For interop, instead of Selection.Paste you'll want to use Selection.PasteSpecial with a WdPasteDataType of wdPasteHTML.

    If you're using the new formats of Word (i.e. 2007/2010), you could give up interop all together and just go with WordprocessingML (using the Open XML SDK or just free-hand it with Linq and System.IO.Packaging). Or you could just it in conjunction with Interop if that was a need.

    If you're using Open XML, you could just use altChunk to import HTML. Here's an example (which includes an example for HTML) at How to Use altChunk for Document Assembly. And another (fresh off the presses - it was released today): Importing HTML that contains Numbering using altChunk.