MS office interops appear not to work in .NET 6. Cannot open documents

Question

Struggling to open Office files from a C# application, .NET 6. Note this works just fine using .NET framework.

The official MS nuget package Microsoft.Office.Interop.Word appears to support only up to Office 2016. Adding the Microsoft Word 16.0 Object Library COM reference appears to not add support either.

using Microsoft.Office.Interop.Word;

private void button2_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    var ap = new Microsoft.Office.Interop.Word.Application();
    Document document = ap.Documents.Open(@"C:\Users\name\Desktop\test.docx");
    ap.Visible = true;
}

When clicking this button, the following exception is thrown:

System.IO.FileNotFoundException: 'Could not load file or assembly 'office, Version=15.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c'. The system cannot find the file specified.'

Is there really no support for the current version of 365?

I have verified I have Microsoft.Office.Interop.Word in C:\Windows\assembly\GAC_MSIL.

Answer 1

When searching for COM references, a search for object only brings up Microsoft Office 16.0 Object Library as the remotely suitable search result.

This is not the reference you need.

Instead, search for, Microsoft Word 16.0 Object Library, substituting word for each office application you need to interact with.