How to merge Word documents while keeping the same headers and footers?

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 merge Word documents while keeping the same headers and footers using C#.

To achieve this, iterate through the sections of the source document and check if any header or footer count is zero. If true, add an empty paragraph to prevent the destination document’s headers and footers from appearing in the source document while merging.

Steps to merge Word documents while keeping the same headers and footers:

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; 

4. Use the following code example to merge multiple word documents without inheriting headers and footers from the destination document.
   C#

using (FileStream destStream = new FileStream(@"Data/DestinationDocument.docx", FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read))
{
   using (WordDocument destinationDocument = new WordDocument(destStream, FormatType.Docx))
   {
       //Get source document from the specified directory
       string[] sourceData = Directory.GetFiles(@"Data/sourceDocuments");
       foreach (string inputFile in sourceData)
       {
           using (FileStream sourceStream = new FileStream(inputFile, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read))
           {
               using (WordDocument sourceDocument = new WordDocument(sourceStream, FormatType.Docx))
               {
                   foreach (WSection section in sourceDocument.Sections)
                   {
                       WSection currentSection = section;
                       //If the source document doesn't have a header or footer, it will retain the destination's header or footer when merged.
                       //To prevent this, add an empty paragraph to the source's header or footer
                       if (section.HeadersFooters.FirstPageHeader.Count == 0)
                           section.HeadersFooters.FirstPageHeader.AddParagraph();
                       if (section.HeadersFooters.FirstPageFooter.Count == 0)
                           section.HeadersFooters.FirstPageFooter.AddParagraph();
                       if (section.HeadersFooters.OddHeader.Count == 0)
                           section.HeadersFooters.OddHeader.AddParagraph();
                       if (section.HeadersFooters.OddFooter.Count == 0)
                           section.HeadersFooters.OddFooter.AddParagraph();
                       if (section.HeadersFooters.EvenHeader.Count == 0)
                           section.HeadersFooters.EvenHeader.AddParagraph();
                       if (section.HeadersFooters.EvenFooter.Count == 0)
                           section.HeadersFooters.EvenFooter.AddParagraph();
                   }
                   // Import the entire content of the source document into the destination document.
                   destinationDocument.ImportContent(sourceDocument);
               }
           }
       }
       using (FileStream outputStream = new FileStream(@"Output/CombinedDocument.docx", FileMode.Create, FileAccess.ReadWrite))
       {
           destinationDocument.Save(outputStream, FormatType.Docx);
       }
   }
}

You can download a complete working sample to merge Word documents while keeping the same headers and footers from the GitHub.

Input Word documents

Combined result document

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 about how to merge Word documents while keeping the same headers and footers 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.

For current customers, you can check out our components from the License and Downloads page. If you are new to Syncfusion®, you can try our 30-day free trial to check out our other controls.

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