Find and Replace in Word Documents Using C#

Streamline your Word document editing with the Syncfusion .NET Word Library (DocIO). Find and replace text with dynamic elements, including images, hyperlinks, paragraphs, tables, or even an entire document, in C#. This functionality operates independently of Microsoft Word and interop dependencies. Refine your searches using options for case-sensitive and whole-word matches.

• Find and replace in Word documents documentation.
• Explore examples of find and replace in Word documents.
• Find and replace online demo.

How to find and replace text in a Word document using C#

1. Install NuGet package: Install the Syncfusion.DocIO.Net.Core NuGet package in your project.
2. Open Word document: Create a FileStream object to represent the input Word document.
3. Load in .NET Word Library: Create a WordDocument object by passing the FileStream object.
4. Find and replace text: Call the Replace method of the WordDocument class to replace all occurrences of the word “Adventure” with “Syncfusion”.
5. Save the Word document: Save the WordDocument object to the FileStream object.

Here is an example of how to find and replace text in a Word document using C# in the Syncfusion .NET Word Library (DocIO).

//Load an existing Word document.
using FileStream inputDocumentStream = new FileStream("Template.docx", FileMode.Open, FileAccess.ReadWrite);
using WordDocument document = new WordDocument(inputDocumentStream, FormatType.Docx);

//Replace all occurrences of the word "Adventure" with "Syncfusion".
document.Replace("Adventure", "Syncfusion", false, true);

//Save the Word document.
using FileStream outputDocumentStream = new FileStream("Result.docx", FileMode.Create, FileAccess.ReadWrite);
document.Save(outputDocumentStream, FormatType.Docx);

With this functionality, you can:

1. Find the first item based on one property.
2. Find the first item based on multiple properties.
3. Find all the items based on one property.
4. Find all the items based on multiple properties.

How to find Word document elements based on properties in C#

1. Install NuGet package: Install the Syncfusion.DocIO.Net.Core NuGet package in your project.
2. Open Word document: Create a FileStream object to represent the input Word document.
3. Load in .NET Word Library: Create a WordDocument object by passing the FileStream object.
4. Find document elements: Call the FindAllItemsByProperties method of the WordDocument object to find all elements based on properties.
5. Save the Word document: Save the WordDocument object to the FileStream object.

//Load an existing Word document.
using FileStream inputDocumentStream = new FileStream("Template.docx", FileMode.Open, FileAccess.ReadWrite);
using WordDocument document = new WordDocument(inputDocumentStream, FormatType.Docx);

//Find all the inline content controls by Title and Tag. 
string[] propertyNames = new string[] { "ContentControlProperties.Title", "ContentControlProperties.Tag" };
string[]  propertyValues = new string[] { "Contact", "Contact" };
List<Entity> inlineContentControls = document.FindAllItemsByProperties(EntityType.InlineContentControl,propertyNames,propertyValues);

//Iterate the inline content controls.
for (int i = 0; i < inlineContentControls.Count; i++)
{
    InlineContentControl inlineContentControl = inlineContentControls[i] as InlineContentControl;
    // To do : Modify the retrieved elements.
}

//Save the Word document.
using FileStream outputDocumentStream = new FileStream("Result.docx", FileMode.Create, FileAccess.ReadWrite);
document.Save(outputDocumentStream, FormatType.Docx);

Use cases

• Find and replace text with a hyperlink in Word documents using C#.
• Find and replace text with HTML.
• Find and replace text with an image in Word documents.
• Find and replace text with a chart in Word documents using C#.
• Find and replace text with a table of contents (TOC) in Word documents.
• Find and replace text with a content control in Word documents using C#.
• Swap line breaks with paragraph marks in Word documents.
• Replace nonbreaking spaces with regular spaces.
• Find and replace text with a merge field in Word documents using C#.

References

• Explore 7 Useful Ways to Find and Replace Text in Word Documents Using C#.
• Find and replace text in headers and footers of Word documents in C#.
• Insert another Word document before placeholder text.
• Discover how to find and replace text inside a table in a Word document using C#.
• Find and replace text with a page break in Word documents using C#.
• Replace text within bookmark content of Word documents.
• Learn to find Word document elements based on properties rather than text using C#.