How to mail merge Word document in Azure Cloud Services

3 mins read

Mail merge is a process of merging data from data source to a Word template document. Syncfusion Essential DocIO is a .NET Word library used to generate reports like invoice, payroll, letter, and more 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 Azure Cloud Service.

Steps to Mail merge Word document programmatically:

Create a new Azure Cloud Service application Project.
In new Microsoft Azure Cloud Service dialog, select ASP.NET Web Role, and click the right arrow button to add into your solution. You can also rename the role using context menu by right-clicking the selected role.
Select an empty project template for creating ASP.NET applications.
Finally, the Cloud Service project is created successfully as shown in the following screenshot.
Install the Syncfusion.DocIO.AspNet NuGet package as a reference to your ASP.NET Web project from NuGet.org.
Add a new Web Form in your project. Right-click the project, select Add > New Item, and add a Web Form from the list. Name it as Default.

Add a new button in the Default.aspx as shown in the following code sample.

<%@ Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeBehind="Default.aspx.cs" Inherits="MailMergeWord.Default" %>
<!DOCTYPE html>
 
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head runat="server">
    <title></title>
</head>
<body>
    <form id="form2" runat="server">
    <div>
    <asp:Button ID="Button1" runat="server" Text="Create Document" OnClick="OnButtonClicked" />
    </div>
    </form>
</body>
</html>

Include the following namespace in your Default.aspx.cs file.

using Syncfusion.DocIO;
using Syncfusion.DocIO.DLS;
using System;
using System.Web;

Include the following code in the click event of the button in Default.aspx.cs to mail merge Word document and download it.

//Opens the Word template document
using (WordDocument document = new WordDocument(ResolveApplicationDataPath("/") + "/Letter Formatting.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);
 
    //Saves the Word file to disk in DOCX format
    document.Save("Result.docx", FormatType.Docx, HttpContext.Current.Response, HttpContentDisposition.Attachment);
}
 
//Get the path for Word template document
protected string ResolveApplicationDataPath(string fileName)
 {
        //Data folder path is resolved from requested page physical path
        string dataPath = new System.IO.DirectoryInfo(Request.PhysicalPath + "..\\..\\Data\\").FullName;
        return string.Format("{0}\\{1}", dataPath, fileName);
}

Publish in Azure Cloud Service

In Solution Explorer, right-click the project and select Publish.
Create Cloud service and storage account.
Sign in with your Azure credentials. Go to Settings > create a new cloud service. Select the following details in the drop-down list and then click Next:

Environment > Production
Build Configuration > Release
Service Configuration > Cloud
Enable remote desktop, so that you can access the VM.

Azure publish setting wizard

After enabling the remote desktop, it prompts to enter user credentials to connect remotely.
Select Diagnostic menu and enable the “Send diagnostics data to Application Insights” checkbox to easily diagnose the issues in Cloud service.
Click "Publish". Get the URL from the deployment result and test it.
Open the published Azure cloud app URL in browser to generate mail merged Word document in Azure Cloud Service.

A complete working example of mail merge Word document in Azure Cloud Service 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 will find basic Word document processing options along with features like mail merge, merge and split documents, find and replace text in the Word document, protect the Word documents, and most importantly PDF and Image conversions with code examples.

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

An online example to perform mail merge in Word document.

How to mail merge Word document in Azure Cloud Services

Steps to Mail merge Word document programmatically:

Publish in Azure Cloud Service

Access denied