Word Document Control Automation in WPF Application

Question

Hi All,

A word document control is embedded in WPF application and its content is visible for editing and reading. I am trying to automate this control but facing issue as elucidated below

I am making use of UI Automation API to automate WPF control in Coded UI Test and code to automate above scenario as follows

AutomationElement applicationElement=<application Element assingned here>

AutomationElement wordElement=applicationElement.FindFirst(TreeScope.Descendants, new System.Windows.Automation.PropertyCondition(AutomationElement.NameProperty,"Microsoft Word Document"));

Object objWordCtrl=wordElement;

Microsoft.office.Interop.Word.Document worddoc=(Microsoft.office.interop.Word.Document) wordElement;

But I am getting expection error saying unable to cast object of type 'System.Windows.Automation.AutomationElement' to type 'Microsoft.office.Interop.word.Document'

Can you please help me on above error so that i can make use of word API to act on word document.

Answer 1

Any help would be really appreciated.

Answer 2

Hi,

In Coded UI test, Excel is not supported officially. However, fortunately product engineering team wrote an extension for this scenario. You may get some idea from this: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/gautamg/archive/2010/01/05/3-introducing-sample-excel-extension.aspx

On the other hand, embedded Excel in WPF could be difference case. Do you use a third party Excel WPF control? You can also consulted control provider in this case.

Regards.

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Forrest Guo | MSDN Community Support | Feedback to us

Answer 3

Thanks Forrest.

Here a word document is embedded in WPF app. User can view content and edit to document. I want to know how can object casting work as shown in above code.

Answer 4

Vijay,

I don't think we can make such type conversion. Not only because wordElement of type AutomationElement is different from Word object model Document interface, AutomationElement doesn't implement the interface.

AutomationElement class represents a UI Automation element in the UI Automation tree, and contains values used as identifiers by UI Automation client applications http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.automation.automationelement.aspx

Word Document interface: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.office.interop.word.document(v=office.14).aspx

And, which kind of control do you use to host the word document?

Word UI doesn't support UIA automation framework, you may turn to MSAA for help. A MSAA sample can be found at: http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/CSOfficeRibbonAccessibility-cd7fe67f

Regards,

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Forrest Guo | MSDN Community Support | Feedback to us

Answer 5

Vijay,

Have you got the answer of this question?

Regards,

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Forrest Guo | MSDN Community Support | Feedback to us

Answer 6

Thanks Forrest.

I will check what type of control used to host word document and get back to you.