Bookmarks in Word Documents Using the Syncfusion .NET Word Library

Bookmarks in a Word document serve as placeholders that can mark particular locations or content. The Syncfusion^® .NET Word library enables users to add and remove bookmarks in C#. Users can programmatically extract, edit, and delete bookmarked content in C#, providing a versatile method to identify and locate content within a Word document without relying on Microsoft Word or interop dependencies.

Watch this video to learn how to handle bookmarks in Word documents using the Syncfusion .NET Word Library.

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Manage bookmarks in Word documents using C#

Learn how to manage bookmarks in Word documents programmatically using C# with the Syncfusion .NET Word Library. This guide demonstrates adding bookmarks and replacing bookmark content to manage document placeholders effectively.

Step 1: Create a new project

Start by creating a new C# Console Application project.

Step 2: Install the NuGet package

Add the Syncfusion.DocIO.Net.Core package to your project from NuGet.org.

Step 3: Add required namespaces to work with bookmarks

Add the following namespaces to your Program.cs file:

c#
using Syncfusion.DocIO;
using Syncfusion.DocIO.DLS;
using System.IO;

Step 4: Open the template Word document

Open an existing Word document that contains the source bookmark content.

c#
FileStream fileStreamPath = new FileStream(Path.GetFullPath(@"Data/Template.docx"), FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read, FileShare.ReadWrite);
//Open an existing Word document.
WordDocument templateDocument = new WordDocument(fileStreamPath, FormatType.Automatic);

Step 5: Get bookmark content from template

Navigate to a specific bookmark in the template document and retrieve its content as a WordDocumentPart.

c#
//Create the bookmark navigator instance to access the bookmark
BookmarksNavigator bookmarkNavigator = new BookmarksNavigator(templateDocument);
//Move the virtual cursor to the location before the end of the bookmark "Northwind"
bookmarkNavigator.MoveToBookmark("Northwind");
//Get the bookmark content as WordDocumentPart
WordDocumentPart wordDocumentPart = bookmarkNavigator.GetContent();

Step 6: Open the target Word document

Open the Word document where the bookmark content will be replaced.

c#
//Load the Word document with bookmark NorthwindDB
FileStream fileStream = new FileStream(Path.GetFullPath(@"Data/Bookmarks.docx"), FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read, FileShare.ReadWrite);
WordDocument document = new WordDocument(fileStream, FormatType.Docx);

Step 7: Replace bookmark content in target document

Navigate to the target bookmark and replaces its content with the previously retrieved WordDocumentPart.

Run

c#
//Create the bookmark navigator instance to access the bookmark
bookmarkNavigator = new BookmarksNavigator(document);
//Move the virtual cursor to the location before the end of the bookmark "NorthwindDB"
bookmarkNavigator.MoveToBookmark("NorthwindDB");
//Replace the bookmark content with word body part
bookmarkNavigator.ReplaceContent(wordDocumentPart);
//Close the WordDocumentPart instance
wordDocumentPart.Close();

Step 8: Save the Word document

Save the Word document to a file stream in DOCX format.

c#
//Create file stream
FileStream outputFileStream = new FileStream(Path.GetFullPath(@"Output/Output.docx"), FileMode.Create, FileAccess.ReadWrite);
//Save the Word document to file stream
document.Save(outputFileStream, FormatType.Docx);
// Close all streams and documents
outputFileStream.Close();
document.Close();
fileStream.Close();