Range.Replace with table cell characters (slash a)

Aspose.Words Product Family
, ,
1

I am using bookmarks as placeholders for replacing conditional text using Aspose.Words C#. I am trying to run Range.Replace on a portion of the text of a bookmark which contains a table. The Range.Replace will not work whenever I have ‘/a’ in the pattern. Range.Text contains the ‘/a’ character(s), but Range.Replace with those in the pattern replaces nothing. How can accomplish replacing some text that includes ‘/a’ (ControlChar.CellChar)?

2

@jonpund54

To replace text that includes the ControlChar.CellChar (represented as ‘/a’) within a bookmark using Aspose.Words in C#, you may encounter issues because the Range.Replace method does not handle certain control characters as expected.

Cause: The Range.Replace method in Aspose.Words does not effectively manage control characters, which can lead to unexpected behavior when attempting to replace them.

Solution: Follow this step-by-step approach to achieve your goal:

  1. Extract the Text: Retrieve the text from the bookmark and store it in a string variable.
  2. Replace the Control Character: Use the String.Replace method to replace the ‘/a’ character in the extracted text.
  3. Update the Bookmark: After performing the replacement, set the modified text back to the bookmark.

Here’s a sample code snippet to illustrate this:

Document doc = new Document("YourDocument.docx");
Bookmark bookmark = doc.Range.Bookmarks["YourBookmarkName"];
if (bookmark != null)
{
    // Extract the text from the bookmark
    string bookmarkText = bookmark.Text;

    // Replace the ControlChar.CellChar (represented as '/a')
    string updatedText = bookmarkText.Replace("/a", "YourReplacementText");

    // Update the bookmark with the new text
    bookmark.Text = updatedText;
}

doc.Save("UpdatedDocument.docx");

Next Steps: Implement the above code in your project. Ensure that the bookmark is correctly defined and that the text you are trying to replace actually exists within the bookmark. If you continue to face issues, consider checking the document structure or the specific content of the bookmark.

This approach allows you to handle the replacement of text that includes control characters effectively. Please let me know if you need further assistance!

3

@Professionalize.Discourse
This solution did not work for me, as I’m using the Range.Replace to be able to replace the parts I don’t want with an empty string so that the parts I do want to keep in the document retain their style. I tried this:

bookmark.Text = bookmark.Text.Replace(ControlChar.Cell, "&c");
//do the replacing of parts I don't want
bookmark.Text = bookmark.Text.Replace("&c", ControlChar.Cell);

The original styles were not kept in the final bookmark text.

4

@jonpund54 I am afraid there is no way to replace whole cells using Aspose.Words. Could you please provide your sample input and expected output you would like to get? We will check your documents and provide you more information.