How to find and replace text inside table in Word document?

8 mins read

Syncfusion Essential DocIO is a .NET Core Word library used to create, read, and edit Word documents programmatically without Microsoft Word or interop dependencies. Using this library, you can find and replace text inside table in Word document in C#.

Steps to find and replace text inside table in Word document:

Create a new C# .NET Core console application project.

Create .NET Core console application in Visual Studio for .NET Core Word library

Install the Syncfusion.DocIO.NET.Core NuGet packages as a reference to your ASP.NET Core application from NuGet.org.

Add DocIO NuGet packages of .NET Core Word library.

Include the following namespaces in the Program.cs file:

using Syncfusion.DocIO;
using Syncfusion.DocIO.DLS;

Use the following code snippet to find and replace text inside table in the Word document:

//Open the file as Stream.
using (FileStream fileStreamPath = new FileStream(Path.GetFullPath(@"../../../Data/Input.docx"), FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read, FileShare.ReadWrite))
{
    //Load the input document.
    using (WordDocument document = new WordDocument(fileStreamPath, FormatType.Docx))
    {
        //Access table in Word document.
        WTable table = document.Sections[0].Tables[0] as WTable;
        //Find the text in Word document.
        TextSelection textSelection = document.Find("Adventure Works Cycles", false, true);
        //Find and replace text inside table.
        FindAndReplaceInTable(table, textSelection);
        using (FileStream outputFileStream = new FileStream(Path.GetFullPath("../../../Sample.docx"), FileMode.Create, FileAccess.ReadWrite))
        {
            //Save the document.
            document.Save(outputFileStream, FormatType.Docx); 
        }
    }
}

Helper method to find and replace text inside table in the Word document.

C#r

/// <summary>
/// Find and replace text inside table in the Word document.
/// </summary>
private static void FindAndReplaceInTable(WTable table, TextSelection textSelection)
{
    //Iterate through the rows of table.
    foreach (WTableRow row in table.Rows)
    {
        //Iterate through the cells of rows.
        foreach (WTableCell cell in row.Cells)
        {
            //Iterates through the items in cell.
            foreach (Entity entity in cell.ChildEntities)
            {
                if (entity.EntityType == EntityType.Paragraph)
                {
                    WParagraph paragraph = entity as WParagraph;
                    //Replace the specified regular expression with a TextSelection in the paragraph.
                    paragraph.Replace(new Regex("<<(.*)>>"), textSelection);
                }
                else if (entity.EntityType == EntityType.Table)
                {
                    FindAndReplaceInTable(entity as WTable, textSelection);
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

A complete working sample to find and replace text inside table in Word document in C# can be downloaded from GitHub.

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

Output document generated in ASP.NET Core Word

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

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