Combining Documents - Keeping Headers and Footers Intact

Aspose.Words Product Family
1

I have been going in circles trying to get this code to work. When I combine documents, I need to have the headers and footers stay intact in the destination document when copied from the source document. The headers and footers are not too fancy, but each document will have an individual primary header and/or footer. When I use this combining code, the footers keep spilling into the next appended document. And if a source document has a blank header or footer, it should stay that way. Please help… I have several different attempts inside this code. Also, the styles I am using will be consistent, so the issue is just the headers and footers. Also, I will not have a different first page header or footer.
Also, is there a way to add the page break without using the DocumentBuilder? In a previous post, you stated that I should not use the DocumentBuilder for this process, but the page break is necessary.

Private Sub AppendDoc(ByVal dstDoc As Document, ByVal srcDoc As Document)
Dim dstdocBuilder As DocumentBuilder = New DocumentBuilder(dstDoc)
Try
Dim i As Integer = 0
Do While i < srcDoc.Sections.Count
' Add a page break first.
If i = 0 Then
dstdocBuilder.MoveToDocumentEnd()
dstdocBuilder.InsertBreak(BreakType.SectionBreakContinuous)
dstdocBuilder.InsertBreak(BreakType.PageBreak)
End If
If i = 0 Then
'Dim srcsection As Section = srcDoc.Sections(srcDoc.Sections.Count - 1)
'Dim srcPrimaryHeader As HeaderFooter = srcsection.HeadersFooters(HeaderFooterType.HeaderPrimary)
'If Not srcPrimaryHeader Is Nothing Then srcPrimaryHeader.IsLinkedToPrevious = False
'Dim srcPrimaryFooter As HeaderFooter = srcsection.HeadersFooters(HeaderFooterType.FooterPrimary)
'If Not srcPrimaryFooter Is Nothing Then srcPrimaryFooter.IsLinkedToPrevious = False
'Dim srcdocBuilder As DocumentBuilder = New DocumentBuilder(srcDoc)
'srcdocBuilder.MoveToDocumentEnd()
'srcdocBuilder.MoveToHeaderFooter(HeaderFooterType.HeaderPrimary)
End If
Dim section As Section = CType(dstDoc.ImportNode(srcDoc.Sections(i), True, ImportFormatMode.KeepSourceFormatting), Section)
dstDoc.Sections.Add(section)
If i = 0 Then
'Dim primaryHeader As HeaderFooter = section.HeadersFooters(HeaderFooterType.HeaderPrimary)
'If Not primaryHeader Is Nothing Then primaryHeader.IsLinkedToPrevious = False
'Dim primaryFooter As HeaderFooter = section.HeadersFooters(HeaderFooterType.FooterPrimary)
'If Not primaryFooter Is Nothing Then primaryFooter.IsLinkedToPrevious = False
Dim dstPrimaryFooter As HeaderFooter = dstDoc.Sections(dstDoc.Sections.Count - 1).HeadersFooters(HeaderFooterType.FooterPrimary)
If Not dstPrimaryFooter Is Nothing Then dstPrimaryFooter.IsLinkedToPrevious = False
End If
section.PageSetup.SectionStart = SectionStart.Continuous
For Each paragraph As Paragraph In section.GetChildNodes(NodeType.Paragraph, True)
paragraph.ParagraphFormat.WidowControl = True
Next paragraph
i += 1
Loop
Catch ex As Exception
MessageBox.Show(ex.Message, "Error", MessageBoxButtons.OK, MessageBoxIcon.Stop)
End Try
End Sub
2

One more comment on this. The following code worked great in VBA. It would set these items in the source document before it got appended to the destination document. wrdDocCurrent is the source document. These steps are what I have been trying to reproduce in Aspose. After LinkToPrevious is set in the source document, when appended to the destination document, it would leave the headers and footers intact in each individual document. I inserted a continuous section break and then a page break in each source document before it was appended to the destination document. Now Aspose seems to add an extra section break in the append process, so that might be causing some difficulty. How do you think this can be solved?

Set myRange = wrdDocCurrent.Content
myRange.Collapse wdCollapseEnd
myRange.Sections.Last.Headers(wdHeaderFooterPrimary).LinkToPrevious = False
myRange.Collapse wdCollapseEnd
myRange.Sections.Last.Footers(wdHeaderFooterPrimary).LinkToPrevious = False
3

Here is a complete example:

Private Sub CombinDocuments()

' combine pre-built documents 1.doc - 12.doc
Dim dstDoc As Document = New Document
For k As Integer = 1 To 10
For i As Integer = 1 To 12
AppendDoc(dstDoc, New Document(Application.StartupPath & "\" & i & ".doc"))
Next
Next
dstDoc.FirstSection.Remove()
dstDoc.Save(Application.StartupPath + "\CombinedDoc.doc")
End Sub

Private Sub AppendDoc(ByVal dstDoc As Document, ByVal srcDoc As Document)

Dim i As Integer = 0
Do While i < srcDoc.Sections.Count
Dim section As Section = CType(dstDoc.ImportNode(srcDoc.Sections(i), True, ImportFormatMode.UseDestinationStyles), Section)
dstDoc.Sections.Add(section)
' Choose one of the following:
' either separate the combined documents with the page break
' or not.
' We should do this only for the first imported section
' Other section breaks should be left as they are in the source document.
If i = 0 Then
section.PageSetup.SectionStart = SectionStart.NewPage
'section.PageSetup.SectionStart = SectionStart.Continuous
End If
Dim primaryHeader As HeaderFooter = section.HeadersFooters(HeaderFooterType.HeaderPrimary)
If Not primaryHeader Is Nothing Then
primaryHeader.IsLinkedToPrevious = False
End If
Dim primaryFooter As HeaderFooter = section.HeadersFooters(HeaderFooterType.HeaderPrimary)
If Not primaryFooter Is Nothing Then
primaryFooter.IsLinkedToPrevious = False
End If
For Each paragraph As Paragraph In section.GetChildNodes(NodeType.Paragraph, True)
paragraph.ParagraphFormat.WidowControl = True
Next paragraph
i += 1
Loop
End Sub