Word Interop Bookmarks Dont Exist

Question

I am currently creating a c# program which uses a template.dotx containing pre-defined building blocks (with bookmarks) to insert pages of content into a new document, all working as follows

            Word._Application oWord;
            Word._Document oDoc;
            object oMissing = System.Reflection.Missing.Value;
            object bAddress = "bAddress";

            oWord = new Word.Application();
            
            object oTemplate = _template;
            oDoc = oWord.Documents.Add(ref oTemplate, ref oMissing,
            ref oMissing, ref oMissing);

            Word.Template objTmpl = (Word.Template)oDoc.get_AttachedTemplate();
            Word.BuildingBlock objBB = objTmpl.BuildingBlockEntries.Item("PageBB");

            Range where = oDoc.Range(oDoc.Content.End - 1, oDoc.Content.End - 1);

            var orng = objBB.Insert(where, true);
            orng.Bookmarks[bAddress].Range.Text = "Address";

I would like to do this in reverse, to open created file at a later date, and read through each bookmark to get the value.

The problem is when I open the resulting DocXCreatedFromTemplate.docx, the bookmarks have disappeared. Programmatically, I receive the bookmark not in collection error, but also by allowing word to open and checking manually the bookmarks are replaced with text but the bookmark reference has gone.

Is there any way to get round this?

Answer 1

I have worked this out, the following text replaces and deletes the bookmark

orng.Bookmarks[bAddress].Range.Text = "Address";

The solution was to re-add the bookmark afterwards using a method as follows

private void UpdateBookmarkWithoutDeleting(object bookmark, string text, _Document document)
{
      var bookmarkRange = document.Bookmarks[bookmark].Range;
      bookmarkRange.Text = text;
      document.Bookmarks.Add(bookmark.ToString(), bookmarkRange);
}

I found the information at the following link (in VB): https://wordmvp.com/FAQs/MacrosVBA/InsertingTextAtBookmark.htm