How to create Word document in Xamarin.iOS?

7 mins read

Syncfusion® Essential® DocIO is a Xamarin Word library used to create, read, and edit Word documents programmatically without Microsoft Word or interop dependencies. Using this library, you can create a Word document in Xamarin.iOS.

Steps to create Word document programmatically:

Create a new C# Xamarin iOS application project.

Create Xamarin.iOS application in Visual Studio

Select a project template, minimum iOS version, and device support for the application.

Select Xamarin.iOS project template and iOS version

Install the Syncfusion.Xamarin.DocIO NuGet package as reference to your .NET Framework applications from NuGet.org.

Add DocIO NuGet package reference to the project

In the project, add new UIViewController class.

Add new UIViewController class to the project

In AppDelegate.cs, add the following code on FinishedLaunching() to load the UIViewController1 at top of the window.

//Load the UIViewController for UI Window
Window.RootViewController = new UIViewController1();

In UIViewController1.cs, add the following code in the ViewDidLoad() method to add the button in the UIView.

var btn = UIButton.FromType(UIButtonType.System);
btn.Frame = new CoreGraphics.CGRect(20, 200, 280, 44);
btn.SetTitle("Generate Word Document", UIControlState.Normal);
btn.TouchUpInside += OnButtonClicked;
View.AddSubview(btn);

Include the following namespace in the UIViewController1.cs file.

using Syncfusion.DocIO;
using Syncfusion.DocIO.DLS;
using System.IO;

In the click event method (OnButtonClicked), add the following code to create a Word document and save it in a stream.

using (WordDocument document = new WordDocument())
{
     document.EnsureMinimal();
     document.LastParagraph.AppendText("Hello World");
     //Save the document to the stream
     MemoryStream stream = new MemoryStream();
     document.Save(stream);
     //Close the document
     document.Close(true);
     //Save the stream as a file in the device and invoke it for viewing
     SaveIOS saveIOS = new SaveIOS();
     saveIOS.SaveAndView("Result.docx", "application/msword", stream);
}

Add the SaveIOS class to the project, where the stream will be saved to a physical file and the file can be opened for viewing. Refer to the following code.

class SaveIOS
{
  //Method to save document as a file and view the saved document
  public async Task SaveAndView(string filename, string contentType, MemoryStream stream)
  {
    //Get the root path in iOS device
    string path = Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.Personal);
    string filePath = Path.Combine(path, filename);
    //Create a file and write the stream into it
    FileStream fileStream = File.Open(filePath, FileMode.Create);
    stream.Position = 0;
    stream.CopyTo(fileStream);
    fileStream.Flush();
    fileStream.Close();
    //Invoke the saved document for viewing
    UIViewController currentController = UIApplication.SharedApplication.KeyWindow.RootViewController;
    while (currentController.PresentedViewController != null)
        currentController = currentController.PresentedViewController;
    UIView currentView = currentController.View;
    QLPreviewController qlPreview = new QLPreviewController();
    QLPreviewItem item = new QLPreviewItemBundle(filename, filePath);
    qlPreview.DataSource = new PreviewControllerDS(item);
    currentController.PresentViewController(qlPreview, true, null);
  }
}

Note:

To preview the Word document in QuickLook, add the PreviewControllerDS, QLPreviewItemFileSystem, and QLPreviewItemBundle classes in the project. The code for these helper classes can be found from this link (iOS -> PreviewControllerDS.cs).

Compile and execute the application. Now, this application creates a simple Word document.

A complete working sample can be downloaded from Create-Word-file.zip

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

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

How to create Word document in Xamarin.iOS?

Steps to create Word document programmatically:

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