How to: Create and Modify Custom Document Properties
The Microsoft Office applications listed above provide built-in properties that are stored with documents. In addition, you can create and modify custom document properties if there is additional information you want to store with the document.
Applies to: The information in this topic applies to document-level projects and VSTO add-in projects for the following applications: Excel; PowerPoint; Project; Word. For more information, see Features Available by Office Application and Project Type.
Use the CustomDocumentProperties property of a document to work with custom properties. For example, in a document-level project for Microsoft Office Excel, use the CustomDocumentProperties property of the ThisWorkbook class. In a VSTO Add-in project for Excel, use the CustomDocumentProperties property of a Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.Workbook object. These properties return a T:Microsoft.Office.Core.DocumentProperties object, which is a collection of T:Microsoft.Office.Core.DocumentProperty objects. You can use the Item property of the collection to retrieve a particular property, either by name or by index within the collection.
The following example demonstrates how to add a custom property in a document-level customization for Excel and assign it a value.
For a related video demonstration, see How Do I: Access and Manipulate Custom Document Properties in Microsoft Word?.
void TestProperties()
{
Microsoft.Office.Core.DocumentProperties properties;
properties = (Office.DocumentProperties)this.CustomDocumentProperties;
if (ReadDocumentProperty("Project Name") != null)
{
properties["Project Name"].Delete();
}
properties.Add("Project Name", false,
Microsoft.Office.Core.MsoDocProperties.msoPropertyTypeString,
"White Papers");
}
private string ReadDocumentProperty(string propertyName)
{
Office.DocumentProperties properties;
properties = (Office.DocumentProperties)this.CustomDocumentProperties;
foreach (Office.DocumentProperty prop in properties)
{
if (prop.Name == propertyName)
{
return prop.Value.ToString();
}
}
return null;
}
Attempting to access the Value property for undefined properties raises an exception.
Programming VSTO Add-Ins
Programming Document-Level Customizations
How to: Read from and Write to Document Properties