Programmatically hide text in documents

You can hide text in a document by setting the Hidden property of the Font for a particular range of text.

For example, you can temporarily hide the text within a Bookmark (in a document-level customization) or a Bookmark (in a VSTO Add-in) before sending a document to a printer.

Applies to: The information in this topic applies to document-level projects and VSTO Add-in projects for Word. For more information, see Features available by Office application and project type.

To hide text in a Bookmark control while printing the document

  1. Create a procedure that hides all text that is in a specified range.

    static void HideText(Word.Range rng)
    {
        rng.Font.Hidden = 1;  // 1 = True
    }
    
  2. Create a procedure that unhides all text that is in a specified range.

    static void UnhideText(Word.Range rng)
    {
        rng.Font.Hidden = 0;  // 0 = False
    }
    
  3. Pass the range of a bookmark to the HideText method, print the document, and then pass the same range to the UnhideText method.

    The following code example can be used in a document-level customization. To use this example, run it from the ThisDocument class in your project.

    HideText(bookmark1.Range);
    
    object oTrue = true;
    object oFalse = false;
    object range = Word.WdPrintOutRange.wdPrintAllDocument;
    object items = Word.WdPrintOutItem.wdPrintDocumentContent;
    object copies = "1";
    object pages = "";
    object pageType = Word.WdPrintOutPages.wdPrintAllPages;
    
    this.PrintOut(
        ref oTrue, ref oFalse, ref range, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing,
        ref items, ref copies, ref pages, ref pageType, ref oFalse, ref oTrue,
        ref missing, ref oFalse, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing);
    
    UnhideText(bookmark1.Range);
    

    The following code example can be used in a VSTO Add-in. This example uses the active document. To use the example, run it from the ThisAddIn class in your project.

    HideText(bookmark1.Range);
    
    this.Application.ActiveDocument.PrintOut(true, false, Word.WdPrintOutRange.wdPrintAllDocument,
        Item:Word.WdPrintOutItem.wdPrintDocumentContent, Copies:"1", Pages:"", 
        PageType:Word.WdPrintOutPages.wdPrintAllPages, PrintToFile:false, Collate:true, 
        ManualDuplexPrint:false);
    
    UnhideText(bookmark1.Range);
    

Compile the code

This code example assumes that the document contains a Bookmark control (in a document-level customization) or Bookmark control (in a VSTO Add-in) that is named bookmark1.