How to remove content above a specific table in a Word document

Syncfusion Essential DocIO is a .NET Word library used to create, read, edit, and convert Word documents programmatically without Microsoft Word or interop dependencies. Using this library, you can remove content above a specific table in a Word document using C#.

Steps to remove content above a specific table in a Word document:

1. Create a new .NET Core console application project.
2. Install the Syncfusion.DocIO.Net.Core NuGet package as a reference to your project from NuGet.org.
   
   

3. Include the following namespaces in Program.cs file
   C#

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

4. Use the following code example to remove content above a specific table in a Word document
   C#

//Opens the input Word document template from the specified path.
using (FileStream inputFileStream = new FileStream(Path.GetFullPath("Data/Input.docx"), FileMode.Open, FileAccess.ReadWrite))
{
   //Loads the Word document into a WordDocument object.
   using (WordDocument document = new WordDocument(inputFileStream, FormatType.Docx))
   {
       //Finds the table in the document by using the table's Title property, with the value "Table1".
       WTable table = document.FindItemByProperty(EntityType.Table, "Title", "Table1") as WTable;
       //Removes the content that exists before the located table in the document.
       RemoveContentBeforeTable(document, table);
       //Saves the modified document to the specified output path.
       using (FileStream outputFileStream = new FileStream(Path.GetFullPath("Output/Result.docx"), FileMode.Create, FileAccess.Write))
       {
           document.Save(outputFileStream, FormatType.Docx); //Saves the document in DOCX format.
       }
   }
}

5. Use the following helper method to remove all content before the specified table.
   C#

/// <summary>
/// Removes all content before the specified table, including content in previous sections, in a Word document.
/// </summary>
void RemoveContentBeforeTable(WordDocument document, WTable inputTable)
{
   //Get the index of the input table.
   int tableIndex = inputTable.OwnerTextBody.ChildEntities.IndexOf(inputTable);
   //Get the section entity.
   WSection currSection = GetOwnerSection(inputTable, ref tableIndex);
   //Get the section index.
   int sectionIndex = document.Sections.IndexOf(currSection);
   //Remove the items before the table in the current section.
   for (int i = tableIndex - 1; i >= 0; i--)
       currSection.Body.ChildEntities.RemoveAt(i);
   //Remove the previous sections.
   for (int i = sectionIndex - 1; i >= 0; i--)
       document.Sections.RemoveAt(i);
}

6. Use the following helper method to traverse the entity hierarchy to find its owning section and updates the table index accordingly.
   C#

/// <summary>
/// Traverses the entity hierarchy to find its owning section and updates the table index accordingly.
/// </summary>
WSection GetOwnerSection(Entity entity, ref int tableIndex)
{
   while (!(entity is WSection))
   {
       //If the entity is table, then get the table index.
       if (entity is WTable)
       {
           WTable table = entity as WTable;
           tableIndex = table.OwnerTextBody.ChildEntities.IndexOf(table);
       }
       //If the entity is block content control, then remove the child entities before the table.
       //and consider the block content control index as tableIndex.
       else if (entity is BlockContentControl)
       {
           BlockContentControl blockContentControl = entity as BlockContentControl;
           //Remove the child entitites of block content control before the table.
           for (int i = tableIndex - 1; i >= 0; i--)
               blockContentControl.TextBody.ChildEntities.RemoveAt(i);
           //Get the block content control index.
           tableIndex = blockContentControl.OwnerTextBody.ChildEntities.IndexOf(blockContentControl);
       }
       //Move to the owner entity.
       entity = entity.Owner;
   }
   return entity as WSection;
}

You can download a complete working sample to remove content above a specific table in a Word document from the GitHub.

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

Conclusion
I hope you enjoyed learning about how to remove content above a specific table in a Word document.

You can refer to our ASP.NET Core DocIO feature tour page to know about its other groundbreaking feature representations and documentation, and how to quickly get started for configuration specifications. You can also explore our ASP.NET Core DocIO example to understand how to create and manipulate data.

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