MS Word - Bulk Content Control Duplication

Question

I'm creating an Application-Level Add-in for MS Word 2007, 2010 & 2013 which needs to duplicate and modify a Content Control and it's contents 1 to 1000+ times.

Does anyone have any tips as to the best approach\methods to use when creating lots of duplicate Content Controls and modifying their contents?

So far I've hit a limit of around 800 duplicates before Word stops responding. This was achieved using Range.Copy and Range.PasteAndFormat and refreshing the screen periodically every 50-100 records using Globals.ThisAddIn.Application.ScreenRefresh(). Content Controls are modified by registering to the Globals.ThisAddIn.Application.ActiveDocument.ContentControlAfterAdd event.

Answer 1

Get the content as Flat OPC XML, manipulate it via the Open XML SDK, and then inject it back into your docx again.

See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/ff191178(v=office.14).aspx

For more on Flat OPC, see http://ericwhite.com/blog/flat-opc-expanded/