How to mail merge Word document in Xamarin.iOS

3 mins read

Mail merge is a process of merging data from a data source to a Word template document. Syncfusion Essential DocIO is a Xamarin Word library used to generate reports like invoice, payroll, letter, etc., by performing mail merge faster in a batch process without Microsoft Word or interop dependencies. Using this library, you can mail merge Word document in Xamarin.iOS.

Steps to Mail merge Word document programmatically:

Create a new C# Xamarin iOS application project.
Select a project template and select minimum iOS version and Device Support for the application.
Install Syncfusion.Xamarin.DocIO NuGet package as a reference to the .NET Standard project in your Xamarin application from NuGet.org.
In project add new UIViewController class.

i)In AppDelegate.cs add the following code on FinishedLaunching() to load the UIViewController1 at top of the window.

//Load the UIViewController for UI Window
Window.RootViewController = new UIViewController1();

ii)In UIViewController1.cs add the following code in the ViewDidLoad() method to add the button in the UIView.

var btn = UIButton.FromType(UIButtonType.System);
btn.Frame = new CoreGraphics.CGRect(20, 200, 280, 44);
btn.SetTitle("Generate Word Document", UIControlState.Normal);
btn.TouchUpInside += OnButtonClicked;
View.AddSubview(btn);

Include the following namespace in the UIViewController1.cs file.

using Syncfusion.DocIO;
using Syncfusion.DocIO.DLS;
using System.Reflection;

In the click event method (OnButtonClicked) add the following code to mail merge Word document and save it in a stream.

//"UIViewController1" is the class of Portable project.
Assembly assembly= typeof(UIViewController1).GetTypeInfo().Assembly;
 
//Opens the Word template document
using (WordDocument document = new WordDocument(assembly.GetManifestResourceStream("Blank.Letter Formatting.docx"), FormatType.Docx))
{
   string[] fieldNames = { "ContactName", "CompanyName", "Address", "City", "Country", "Phone"};
   string[] fieldValues = { "Nancy Davolio", "Syncfusion", "507 - 20th Ave. E.Apt. 2A", "Seattle, WA", "USA", "(206) 555-9857-x5467" };
 
   //Performs the mail merge
   document.MailMerge.Execute(fieldNames, fieldValues);
 
   //Create a new memory stream to save the image
   MemoryStream stream = new MemoryStream();
 
   //Save Word file into memory stream  
 document.Save(stream, FormatType.Docx);
 
 //Create an instance for SaveIOS
  SaveIOS saveIOS = new SaveIOS();
  saveIOS.SaveAndView("Result.docx", "application/msword", stream);
}

Add the SaveIOS class to the project where the stream will be saved to a physical file and the file can be opened for viewing.

The code for SaveIOS class has been given below.

class SaveIOS
{
  //Method to save document as a file and view the saved document
  public async Task SaveAndView(string filename, string contentType, MemoryStream stream)
  {
  //Get the root path in iOS device.
  string path = Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.Personal);
   string filePath = Path.Combine(path, filename);
 
   //Create a file and write the stream into it.
   FileStream fileStream = File.Open(filePath, FileMode.Create);
   stream.Position = 0;
   stream.CopyTo(fileStream);
   fileStream.Flush();
   fileStream.Close();
 
   //Invoke the saved document for viewing
   UIViewController currentController = UIApplication.SharedApplication.KeyWindow.RootViewController;
   while (currentController.PresentedViewController != null)
   currentController = currentController.PresentedViewController;
   UIView currentView = currentController.View;
 
   QLPreviewController qlPreview = new QLPreviewController();
   QLPreviewItem item = new QLPreviewItemBundle(filename, filePath);
   qlPreview.DataSource = new PreviewControllerDS(item);
 
   currentController.PresentViewController(qlPreview, true, null);
 }
}

Note:

To preview the Word document in QuickLook, PreviewControllerDS, QLPreviewItemFileSystem and QLPreviewItemBundle classes must be added in the project. The code for these helper classes can be found from this link (iOS -> PreviewControllerDS.cs).

Compile and execute the application. Now this application mail merge Word document.

A complete working example to mail merge Word document in Xamarin.iOS can be downloaded from mail merge Word document.zip.

By executing the program, you will get the Word document as follows. Mail merge output Word document

Take a moment to peruse the documentation, where you can find basic Word document processing options along with features like mail merge, merge and split documents, find and replace text in the Word document, and most importantly PDF conversions with code examples.

Explore more about the rich set of Syncfusion Word Framework features.

How to mail merge Word document in Xamarin.iOS

Steps to Mail merge Word document programmatically:

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