Refresh fields in MS Word via method

We are using D2's extension pack (O2) for transferring metadata from Documentum D2 to a MS Word document's properties. This is also working in the back-end as part of life-cycle changes using D2's provided method. However these properties are used as fields in the MS Word document to display status, version or other fields. In O2 this relies on using macro-scripts in the MS Word document that are refreshes the fields based on the update queries. For various reasons, we want to be independent on client run macro scripts and have the fields refreshed in the back-end.

Does anyone have done something similar? Any recommendations or thoughts? We are currently considering to use Aspose for Word or docx4j to implement this.

(note: for generating PDF's this is not an issue, because the fields are updated in ADTS before PDF is created).

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DCTM_Guru

Have you looked at Apache POI:

http://poi.apache.org/

boon046

We are indeed also looking into Apache POI. Both docx4j and Apache POI provide ways to traverse through the document, however do not provide a simple "document.updateFields()" unfortunately.

DCTM_Guru

This is old example, but it may provide you hints on do what you requested:

http://developer-content.emc.com/developer/componentexchange.htm

Microsoft Word Document Filler Service

lastnitescurry

Johnny Gee wrote:Have you looked at Apache POI:http://poi.apache.org/

POI has ver good support for Office 2003 word documents and earlier formats.

Unfortunately there is no one driving the POI development for Word 2007+ formats.

boon046

Indeed, based on what we have found so far, we have the option to either write code to traverse using docx4j or to simply call 1 method in the aspose.word library.

Thanks both for your input and help.

boon046

We were able to resolve this easily with aspose. Three line code to update fields in word documents and three line to update linked content in excel documents.

dctmadi

At what point does this code get triggered?

boon046

We have a custom method that is called at lifecycle events after the calling the O2 update action and before the rendition request action.