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Document Information Panel and Document Properties

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The document properties a user enters through the document information panel are stored in specific sections of Office Open XML Formats files. For documents stored in Windows SharePoint Services, these property values are promoted back to the document library, as column values, when the user updates them in the document. Similarly, if the user updates the content type column values in the Windows SharePoint Services user interface, the new values are demoted into the document itself, as document properties.

For more information on working with the Office Open XML Formats, visit XML in Office Developer Portal.

Core Document Properties

Core document properties are those that are common to all Microsoft Office system applications—basic document properties such as title, subject, and category. These core document properties are stored in the Core File Properties part within the Office Open XML Formats document. This part contains the coreProperties element.

Windows SharePoint Services includes the following columns that are mapped to these core document properties:

  • Title

  • Subject

  • Author (maps to the Creator core document property)

  • Category

  • Keywords

  • Comments (maps to Description core document property)

  • Content Type

  • Status

If you include one of these columns in the content type assigned to a document, then the document property value gets promoted to or demoted from the document to the document library in which the document resides.

The following example shows the Core File Properties part of an Office Open XML Formats document:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<cp:coreProperties 
    xmlns:cp="https://schemas.openxmlformats.org/package/2006/metadata/core-properties" 
    xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" 
    xmlns:dcterms="http://purl.org/dc/terms/" 
    xmlns:dcmitype="http://purl.org/dc/dcmitype/" 
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
  <dc:title>My New Document</dc:title>
  <dc:subject></dc:subject>
  <dc:creator>CreatorUserName</dc:creator>
  <cp:keywords></cp:keywords>
  <dc:description></dc:description>
  <cp:lastModifiedBy>ModifierUserName</cp:lastModifiedBy>
  <cp:revision>2</cp:revision>
  <dcterms:created xsi:type="dcterms:W3CDTF">2006-12-08T23:35:00Z</dcterms:created>
  <dcterms:modified xsi:type="dcterms:W3CDTF">2006-12-21T19:50:00Z</dcterms:modified>
  <cp:contentType>Document</cp:contentType>
</cp:coreProperties>

Application-Specific Properties

Application-specific document properties are unique to the document at the application level, such as the number of pages, the number of lines of text, and the version of the application. These document properties are contained in the Extended File Properties part within the Office Open XML Formats.

By default, Windows SharePoint Services does not include columns mapped to extended document properties. In general, the values of these properties are automatically determined by the document content; for example, number of pages or number of lines of text.

The following example shows the extended properties from a Microsoft Office Word document. In this example, the Word document contains on page, with three paragraphs, for a total of 45 words.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<Properties 
    xmlns="https://schemas.openxmlformats.org/officeDocument/2006/extended-properties" 
    xmlns:vt="https://schemas.openxmlformats.org/officeDocument/2006/docPropsVTypes">
  <Template>Normal.dotm</Template>
  <TotalTime>1</TotalTime>
  <Pages>1</Pages>
  <Words>45</Words>
  <Characters>1024</Characters>
  <Application>Microsoft Office Word</Application>
  <DocSecurity>0</DocSecurity>
  <Lines>12</Lines>
  <Paragraphs>3</Paragraphs>
  <ScaleCrop>false</ScaleCrop>
  <Company>Tailspin Toys</Company>
  <LinksUpToDate>false</LinksUpToDate>
  <CharactersWithSpaces>1069</CharactersWithSpaces>
  <SharedDoc>false</SharedDoc>
  <HyperlinksChanged>false</HyperlinksChanged>
  <AppVersion>12.0000</AppVersion>
</Properties>

Custom Document Properties

User-defined properties are contained in the Custom File Properties part of the Office Open XML Formats. For documents stored in a Windows SharePoint Services library, this part contains a custom property that specifies the content type ID of the content type assigned to the document, as in the following example.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<Properties 
    xmlns="https://schemas.openxmlformats.org/officeDocument/2006/custom-properties" 
    xmlns:vt="https://schemas.openxmlformats.org/officeDocument/2006/docPropsVTypes">
  <property fmtid="{D5CDD505-2E9C-101B-9397-08002B2CF9AE}" pid="2" name="ContentTypeId">
    <vt:lpwstr>0x01010042D2ECEB487FD14A878A8B12B45AD0DF</vt:lpwstr>
  </property>
</Properties>

The content type ID property is never promoted from the document to the document library in which it resides.

Note

In Office system documents saved in a binary format, such as .doc, all custom properties, including those that would map to Windows SharePoint Services columns, are stored in the same location. You cannot bind Windows SharePoint Services columns to document properties in Office system documents saved as binary formats. If you save a binary file in Office Open XML Formats in Windows SharePoint Services, Windows SharePoint Services attempts to rationalize the properties present in the document. If the document contains a custom property that has the same name and data type as a column in the Windows SharePoint Services document library to which it is being saved, then Windows SharePoint Services assumes the two properties are the same and relocates the document property within the Office Open XML Formats accordingly. However, this rationalization of document properties is not performed on files saved in the Office Open XML Formats from the start.

Content Type Document Properties

Document properties that are defined in the content type assigned to the document are contained in the customXml section of the Office Open XML Formats. Specifically, they are contained in the documentManagement node of the properties data store item.

Note

Each data store item in the customXml section is contained in a part named itemN.xml, with N being an arbitrary number. Because of this, when you work with the data store items, you should identify them by the root element or namespace rather than by part name.

The following example shows a properties data store item that contains two document properties defined in the content type assigned to the document.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<p:properties xmlns:p="https://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2006/metadata/properties" 
      xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
  <documentManagement>
    <PropertyA xmlns="0523cb95-65e0-434b-b038-3cfd592e886c">first document property value</PropertyA>
    <PropertyB xmlns="0523cb95-65e0-434b-b038-3cfd592e886c">second document property value</PropertyB>
  </documentManagement>
</p:properties>

The following figure shows how document property values are assigned and stored, both in the document itself and in the document library. In this example, the content type for the document includes the Title column, which is mapped to the Title core document property. In addition, the content type also includes two other columns, Property A and Property B. Values for these properties are stored in the document in the customXml section, in the properties data store item. Changing values in the document information panel updates the values in the document itself; these new values are promoted to the document library when the document is next saved back to the library. Similarly, when you change the column value on the document library, the new column value is demoted into the document as the appropriate document property when the document is next downloaded.

Properties demoted through the information panel.

See Also

Tasks

How to: Create a Custom Document Information Panel from InfoPath
How to: Create or Edit a Custom Document Information Panel from within Office SharePoint Server 2007
How to: Update a Document Information Panel for Content Type Changes

Concepts

Document Information Panel Overview
Document Properties and Content Types
Content Type Document Information Panel Schema
Custom Document Information Panels