How do I program a C# program to read a Word file on the company's SharePoint

Question

There are several issues I am facing.

1. A document in Microsoft Word format is difficult to open and parse through for reading from a C# program. Are their API's to do this from code?
2. The document is on SharePoint. Does this mean I will need the ClientContext class and set up a username and password with a SecureString class?
3. I would like to open the file and parse through it. HTML files are ASCII and easier to parse through. But saving a Word document as an HTML web page in SharePoint takes a simple text and adds CSS and Javascript content. It makes it look fancy for the end-user. Plus it makes it uneditable to another user. I want the end user to be able to edit the document. So we are stuck with having it as a Word document.

Answer 1

@William Thompson,

To read a Word file on the company's SharePoint using a C# program, you can use the SharePoint Client Side Object Model (CSOM) and the Open XML SDK. The CSOM can be used to access SharePoint using the ClientContext class and set up a username and password with a SecureString class and the Open XML SDK can be used to read and manipulate the contents of the Word file.

It is possible to save a Word document as an HTML web page in SharePoint, but this may not be the best option if you want the end user to be able to edit the document. Instead, you can use the CSOM to download the Word file and then use the Open XML SDK to read and manipulate the contents of the file.

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