Remove meta properties

[Nils Schucka]

Hello,

I am writing a program that converts a word to a pdf in c#.

The problem now is that when a metaproperty is empty it will show the DisplayName of the property when converting to pdf.

Here is how it looks in word:

And in the converted pdf it will look the same.

Is there maybe a way to remove a meta property if its empty?

(I know the way to check if a meta property is empty https://help.syncfusion.com/file-formats/docio/working-with-word-document#working-with-content-type-properties )

For people that dont know what i mean with metaproperties there are also called Quick Parts:

Use Quick Parts and AutoText in Word and Outlook (microsoft.com)

MyCode:  static void Main(string[] args) { FileStream fileStream = new FileStream( - Pastebin.com

Best Regards

Nils

[Suriya Balamurugan]

Hi Nils,

From the given details, we have found that your requirement is to remove the placeholder text if the meta property is empty.

In Microsoft Word application, if the meta property value is empty means, it displays the placeholder text. This is the default behaviour. So, it is not feasible to remove the placeholder text if the meta property is empty using the API of DocIO library.

Currently we are checking the feasibility to provide any workaround solution to achieve your requirement is to remove the placeholder text if the meta property is empty while converting Word document to PDF. We will share the further details about this on or before 23^rd September 2022.

Regards,
Suriya Balamurugan.

[Nils Schucka]

Hello,

thank you for the quick answer.

My first approach was to just set the meta property value when empty to " " with spaces. 

This works for some meta property types, but I think this isn't the best solution to fix this problem.

Also, this workaround doesn't work to meta properties of the type Date. And my word has Date type properties.

Another though was to change the Displayname/placeholder but this doesn't work because metaproperty.Displayname is get only. And even if this would have worked it will probably show "[ ]".

I added a word file to test the problem.

Thank you for helping me with this problem.

Best regards,

Nils

Attachment: Test4Mock_e1110442.zip

[Suriya Balamurugan]

Hi Nils,

Thank you for your update.

The meta property is displayed as a content control in the Word document.

To achieve your requirement, as a workaround, we have suggested you to iterate through the Word document elements and get the content control. Then ensure whether the content control is mapped with meta property and its value is empty means delete the content control from the Word document.

We have prepared the sample application to achieve your requirement and it can be downloaded from the below attachment.

Note:
1. Please find the input template Word document in the “Data” folder of the attached sample application.
2. Your word file attachment in the previous update is an empty folder. So, we unable to use it in this workaround sample application.

In this sample, we have done the following things.
1. Open the template Word document.
2. Iterate through Word document element to get content control.
3. Ensure whether the content control is mapped with meta property and its value is empty means delete the content control from the Word document.
4. Convert Word document to PDF.

Please refer our UG documentation link to know more about content control in Word document,
https://help.syncfusion.com/file-formats/docio/working-with-content-controls

Regards,
Suriya Balamurugan.

Attachment: Removeemptymetapropertyvalue_eab5e88.zip

[Nils Schucka]

Hi Suriya Balamurugan,

when i was trying out the solution alot more i found out that syncfusion can't detect some metaproperty inside of a Office table.

I though its an issue on my side but when i debuged through the wordfile i found out that syncfusion wont detect it as a metaproperty.

At the attachment you will find a docx to test the problem. Also in regards to my other forum thread: link

it seams like sometimes the date format also wont convert correctly. As you can see in my mockdata example i put a date field in it but for some reason it works on this file. If nessasary i can provide another mock file to test that problem too but i think something gets messed up on the pdf convertion of tables an metaproerties.

It would be great if you could provide a fix for that issue.

Best regards

Nils

Attachment: Test4Mock_f90452ed.zip

edit: about the date format problem talked above. I found out that it has something to do with how the metaproperty saves the date and in which format. It looks like syncfusion doesn't know what the ATOM, RFC 3339 or W3C format is.

Here:
EndContract format works
ValidFrom doesnt

Filename: docfile/customXml/item1.xml

<documentManagement>

<EndContract xmlns="6aa3f7a0-5246-4ff6-b3f0-af2bc0f7a6a1">2022-10-14T00:00:00</DtcEndContract>

<ValidFrom xmlns="6aa3f7a0-5246-4ff6-b3f0-af2bc0f7a6a1">2022-10-13T07:00:00+00:00</DtcValidFrom>

</documentManagement>

[Suriya Balamurugan]

Hi Nils,

On analyzing the given input Word document, we have found that there is a CellContentControl. Currently DocIO provides preservation support alone for RowContentControl and CellContentControl and it doesn’t provide any API to extract and modify RowContentControl and CellContentControl. We have considered this scenario as a content control enhancement work and already logged this as a feature request in our database. We don’t have any immediate plans to implement this feature. We will update you once this feature has been implemented.

The status of this feature can be tracked through below feedback link:
https://www.syncfusion.com/feedback/3119/support-for-cell-row-and-group-content-controls

As a workaround, we suggest you to insert the InlineContentControl as a child entity of the paragraph of the cell in the table or BlockContentControl as a child entity of the cell in the table in the input Word document and then you can retrieve the InlineContentControl or BlockContentControl inside the cell to remove the empty meta property using our previous solution. We have modified the given input Word document and it can be downloaded from the below link:
https://www.syncfusion.com/downloads/support/directtrac/general/doc/Test4Mock_Modified404966935

Regarding: Other forum thread link - sometimes the date format also wont convert correctly
We have tried to reproduce the reported problem using the given details, but we unable to reproduce the mentioned issue at our end.

We suspect that the problem might be due to the contents in the input Word document which used at your end. So, could you please provide us the input Word document from your end, which will be helpful to reproduce the exact issue at our end. Thereby we will analyze further and provide you the appropriate solution at the earliest.

Note: If you have any confidential data in your Word document, please replace with some dummy data and provide us the same. We just need your document to recreate the problem you face.

Please share the requested details about this date format issue in this corresponding forum thread: link for better follow up.

Regards,
Suriya Balamurugan.