Saving an xml document results in corrupt file

Question

I have a question on how to save an xmldoc as a word file. I want to open the word file, do some manipulation on the undelying xml structure using the xmldocument class and then resave it back to the word file. This is what im currently doing:

using (WordprocessingDocument wordDoc = WordprocessingDocument.Open(@"E:\HelloWorld.docx", true))
                {
                   MainDocumentPart mainPart = wordDoc.MainDocumentPart;
                   var xmlDoc = new XmlDocument();
                   using (Stream partStream = part.GetStream())
                   using (XmlReader partXmlReader = XmlReader.Create(partStream))
                     xmlDoc.Load(partXmlReader);
                   //xml node manipulation here

                   xmlDoc.Save(@"E:\HelloWorld.docx");
                 }

This results in a corrupt document however. What is the proper way to do this functionality?

Answer 1

OpenXML document is more than just a XML file (actually, it's a ZIP archive containing several files, XML files among them).

What you should do is to modify your WordprocessingDocument and then save it (which is done automatically at the end of the using block), not save the XML file that represents part of the document:

using (var wordDoc = WordprocessingDocument.Open(fileName, true))
{
    MainDocumentPart mainPart = wordDoc.MainDocumentPart;

    using (Stream partStream = mainPart.GetStream())
    {
        var xmlDoc = new XmlDocument();

        using (XmlReader partXmlReader = XmlReader.Create(partStream))
            xmlDoc.Load(partXmlReader);

        //xml node manipulation here

        partStream.Position = 0;

        using (XmlWriter partXmlWriter = XmlWriter.Create(partStream))
            xmlDoc.Save(partXmlWriter);
    }
}

Answer 2

If you have successfully performed the manipulation you can later save back to file using Close() on your wordDoc variable. The MSDN states that this also saves the content.

Answer 3

docx will be an XML file, not DOCX.

var xmlDoc = new XmlDocument();
... 
xmlDoc.Save(@"E:\HelloWorld.docx");

What you want is either create new WordprocessingDocument or update existing one with the XML you've modified. Something along the lines

using (StreamWriter sw =
    new StreamWriter(wordDoc.MainDocumentPart.GetStream(FileMode.Create)))
    {
        xmlDoc.Save(sw);
    }

See more samples in the MSDN: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/documentformat.openxml.wordprocessing.document.aspx