How to split a table by columns 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 split a table by columns in a Word document using C#.

Follow the steps below:

• Get the table to split by columns.
• Clone the original table for the second part.
• Remove columns up to the specified index from the original table.
• Keep only columns after the specified index in the cloned table.
• Insert the cloned table after the original.
• Add a heading before both tables.

Steps to split a table by columns 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.DLS;
using Syncfusion.DocIO;
using System;
using System.IO; 

4. Use the following code example to split a table by columns in a Word document.
   C#

using (FileStream fileStreamPath = new FileStream(Path.GetFullPath(@"Data/Template.docx"), FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read, FileShare.ReadWrite))
{
   //Open an existing Word document.
   using (WordDocument document = new WordDocument(fileStreamPath, FormatType.Docx))
   {
       //Access the first table in the Word document.
       WTable table = document.Sections[0].Tables[0] as WTable;
       //Get the index of the table within the document's text body.
       int index = table.OwnerTextBody.ChildEntities.IndexOf(table);
       //Determine the column index at which the table will be split.
       int columnIndex = (int)Math.Floor((double)table.Rows[0].Cells.Count / 2);
       //Split the table into two parts based on the calculated column index.
       WTable secondTable = SplitTableByColumns(table, columnIndex);
       
       //Insert a heading above the first part of the table.
       WParagraph titleParaOne = new WParagraph(document);
       titleParaOne.AppendText("Part 1 of 2").CharacterFormat.Bold = true;
       table.OwnerTextBody.ChildEntities.Insert(index, titleParaOne);
       //Insert a heading above the second part of the table.
       WParagraph titleParaTwo = new WParagraph(document);
       titleParaTwo.AppendText("Part 2 of 2").CharacterFormat.Bold = true;
       table.OwnerTextBody.ChildEntities.Insert(index + 2, titleParaTwo);
       
       //Insert the second part of the table into the Word document.
       table.OwnerTextBody.ChildEntities.Insert(index + 3, secondTable);
       //Create a file stream to save the modified Word document.
       using (FileStream outputFileStream = new FileStream(Path.GetFullPath(@"Output/Result.docx"), FileMode.Create, FileAccess.ReadWrite))
       {
           //Save the modified Word document to the file stream.
           document.Save(outputFileStream, FormatType.Docx);
       }
   }
}

5. Use the following helper method to split a table into two parts based on the specified column index.
   C#

/// <summary>
/// Split a table into two parts based on the specified column index.
/// </summary>
public static WTable SplitTableByColumns(WTable originalTable, int columnsToSplit)
{
   //Clone the original table to create the second part of the table.
   WTable clonedTable = originalTable.Clone();
   //Remove cells from the cloned table to keep only the columns after the split point.
   foreach (WTableRow row in clonedTable.Rows)
   {
       //Check if the table has enough columns before attempting to remove.
       if (columnsToSplit >= 0 && columnsToSplit < row.Cells.Count)
       {
           //Remove cells from the first part of the table (columns before the split point).
           for (int i = columnsToSplit; i >= 0; i--)
           {
               row.Cells.RemoveAt(i);
           }
       }
   }
   //Remove cells from the original table to keep only the columns before the split point.
   foreach (WTableRow row in originalTable.Rows)
   {
       //Check if the table has enough columns before attempting to remove.
       if (columnsToSplit < row.Cells.Count)
       {
           //Remove cells from the second part of the table (columns after the split point).
           for (int i = row.Cells.Count - 1; i > columnsToSplit; i--)
           {
               row.Cells.RemoveAt(i);
           }
       }
   }
   //Return the second part of the table.
   return clonedTable;
}

You can download a complete working sample to split a table by columns in a Word document from the GitHub.

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

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

Conclusion

I hope you enjoyed learning how to replace the table cell content in .NET Core 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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