extracting embedded objects(excel,ppt,doc.package) from office 2003 documents without installing office in c#

Question

I want to read all MS office 97-2003 documents in my application and I need to extract embedded objects on file system without having MS office installed on my machine. I have few queries regarding it-
openXml does it for office 2007 files.. How to read office 2003 files and extract all the embedded objects to hard drive.Is there any third party dll which does it?

Answer 1

Hi Tejashree,

As far as I know, your request cannot be realized. If you are processing a document in .docx format without Office install, then you can try OpenXML SDK. Sample given in this page.

However the OpenXML SDK cannot be used to process a Word 2003 document for Word 2003 saves file in binary format.

Hope this helps.

Best regards,
Quist

---

Quist Zhang [MSFT]
MSDN Community Support | Feedback to us

Answer 2

Hi Zhang,

Thanx for the response. :)

Yes I am using OpenXML sdk to extract the embedded objects from office 2007 documents. I have done it successfully. Even I am aware of openXML sdk cannot be used to process office 2003 docs as they are in binary format.

But my query is How can I read the office 2003 document and extract all the embedded documents included in that documnet to a folder. Is there any third party dll freely available which can be used for the same? Aspose DLL is not free. Any alternative??

many thanks and regards,

Tejashree

---

Tejashree Deshpande

Answer 3

Hi Tejashree,

Research done so far, I haven't found any 3rd party library yet. I'll inform you if there's any new discovery.

Best regards,
Quist

---

Quist Zhang [MSFT]
MSDN Community Support | Feedback to us

Answer 4

Hi Zhang,

Thank you!

Well if not DLL then, Is there any way around that can be implemented to read and extract the embedded objects from the office 2003(Binary format) documents?? like stream classes or somethg else? 

Or Is there any way(DLL) which will save as the office 2003 docs to  office 2007 format. (Without using COM interop)?

That will be helpful for me.

Regards,

Tejashree Deshpande

---

Tejashree Deshpande

Answer 5

Hi Tejashree,

According to Cindy's reply in this thread, there is no way to perform the conversion without automating Word.

Hope it helps.

Best regards,
Quist

---

Quist Zhang [MSFT]
MSDN Community Support | Feedback to us