Word Interop change text of paragraph before a table

Question

I want to change the text af a paragraph. Thought it is totally simple - until there was a table.

Actually it is just one line of code:

activeDocument.Paragraphs[2].Range.Text = "abcd" + "\r";

Word Document before

line1
line2
line3

Word Document after

line1
abcd   -> OK: text in paragraph replaced
line3

But with table it becomes strange (see below). The second paragraph is moved inside the table.

Word Document before

line1
line2
+-------+
| line3 |
+-------+

Word Document after

line1
+-------+
| abcd  |  -> NOK: text in paragraph replaced - but moved also into table
|       |
| line3 |
+-------+

how can i prevent the paragraph from being moved to the table?

Answer 1

I guess this is because paragraph is merged into the table when you overwrite its terminating carriage return character. I can think of several solutions to avoid that. Let's implement them as an extension method of Paragraph interface.

Exclude terminating CR from the range

public static class ParagraphExtensions
{
    public static void SetText(this Paragraph paragraph, string text)
    {
        var range = paragraph.Range;
        var textRange = range.Document.Range(range.Start, range.End - 1);
        textRange.Text = text;
    }
}

Use TypeText() method of Selection to change paragraph's text

public static class ParagraphExtensions
{
    public static void SetText(this Paragraph paragraph, string text)
    {
        paragraph.Range.Select();
        paragraph.Application.Selection.TypeText(text);
    }
}

The drawback is that it changes the selection.

Add brand new paragraph

public static class ParagraphExtensions
{
    public static void SetText(this Paragraph paragraph, string text)
    {
        // insert new paragraph before this paragraph
        var newParagraph = paragraph.Range.Document.Paragraphs.Add(paragraph.Range);
        newParagraph.Range.Text = text + "\r";
        // delete original paragraph
        paragraph.Range.Text = string.Empty;
    }
}

---

The usage of the extension methods for each of the options above is

activeDocument.Paragraphs[2].SetText("abcd");