With TX Text Control, the most flexible and complete library, you can programmatically generate MS Word DOCX files in .NET applications running on Windows and Linux. You can either create these documents from scratch or generate them from existing templates by merging data into placeholders or by assembling documents from different sources and other document types.

This tutorial will guide you through the steps necessary to create a new DOCX file from scratch and show you how to add specific elements to it programmatically.

Prerequisites

You need to download and install the trial version of TX Text Control .NET Server for ASP.NET:

Creating the Application

Make sure that you downloaded the latest version of Visual Studio 2022 that comes with the .NET 8 SDK.

  1. In Visual Studio 2022, create a new project by choosing Create a new project.

  2. Select Console App as the project template and confirm with Next.

  3. Enter a project name and choose a location to save the project. Confirm with Next.

  4. Choose .NET 8.0 (Long Term Support) as the Framework.

  5. Enable the Enable container support checkbox and choose Linux as the Container OS.

  6. Choose Dockerfile for the Container build type option and confirm with Create.

    Creating the .NET 8 project

Adding the NuGet Packages

  1. In the Solution Explorer, select your created project and choose Manage NuGet Packages... from the Project main menu. Select Text Control Offline Packages as the Package source.

    Install the following package:

    • TXTextControl.TextControl.Core.SDK

    ASP.NET Core Web Application

Creating a Document

  1. Find the Program.cs file in the Solution Explorer and replace the code with the following code snippet:

    using TXTextControl;
    using (TXTextControl.ServerTextControl tx = new TXTextControl.ServerTextControl())
    {
    tx.Create();
    // Add a paragraph to the document
    TXTextControl.Selection selection = new TXTextControl.Selection(0, 0);
    selection.Text = "Hello, Office Open XML!";
    // Set the paragraph format
    selection.ParagraphFormat = new ParagraphFormat()
    {
    Alignment = HorizontalAlignment.Center,
    };
    // Set the font format
    selection.FontSize = 240; // 240 twips = 12 pt
    selection.FontName = "Lato";
    selection.Bold = true;
    // Apply the changes to the document
    tx.Selection = selection;
    // Save the document
    tx.Save("results.docx", TXTextControl.StreamType.WordprocessingML);
    }
    view raw test.cs hosted with ❤ by GitHub

  2. Now run the project that runs the application in a Docker container, WSL, or locally on your Windows.

It will create a new document that will insert a centered paragraph with bold formatting.

Created document with TX Text Control

Creating Tables with Formulas (Programmatically)

TX Text Control provides a powerful API for creating tables with formulas. The following code snippet shows how to create a table with formulas to calculate a row total and a total for all rows:

using TXTextControl;
class LineItem
{
public string Name { get; set; }
public string Description { get; set; }
public int Quantity { get; set; }
public decimal Price { get; set; }
}
class DocumentGenerator
{
const int RowCount = 4;
const int ColumnCount = 5;
public void CreateDocument()
{
using (ServerTextControl tx = new ServerTextControl())
{
tx.Create();
// Add table
tx.Tables.Add(RowCount, ColumnCount);
Table table = tx.Tables[1];
// Define formats
var currencyFormat = new TableCellFormat
{
TextType = TextType.Number,
NumberFormat = "$#,##0.00"
};
// Set column formats
table.Columns[4].CellFormat = currencyFormat;
table.Columns[5].CellFormat = currencyFormat;
// Add line item
var lineItem = new LineItem
{
Name = "Sample Item",
Description = "This is a sample item description.",
Quantity = 10,
Price = 19.99m
};
// Fill rows with data and formulas
for (int row = 1; row < RowCount; row++)
{
table.Cells[row, 1].Text = lineItem.Name;
table.Cells[row, 2].Text = lineItem.Description;
table.Cells[row, 3].Text = lineItem.Quantity.ToString();
table.Cells[row, 4].Text = lineItem.Price.ToString();
table.Cells[row, 5].Formula = $"SUM(C{row}*D{row})";
}
// Set total formula in last row, last column
table.Cells[RowCount, ColumnCount].Formula = "SUM(above)";
// Save document
tx.Save("results.docx", StreamType.WordprocessingML);
}
}
}
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
DocumentGenerator generator = new DocumentGenerator();
generator.CreateDocument();
Console.WriteLine("Document created successfully.");
}
}
view raw test.cs hosted with ❤ by GitHub

In this example, we will create a table with 5 columns and 4 rows. The first two columns contain text, and the third column contains the number of items. The fourth column contains the price per item, and the fifth column contains the total price for each row. The last row contains a formula that calculates the total price for all rows.

When you run the application, it creates a new document with a table containing the calculated values:

Created document with TX Text Control

Creating the Table using MailMerge

One way to create these tables with formulas is to create them programmatically using the very powerful and flexible API as shown above. But another way is to prepare a template with the ready-made table and formulas and merge JSON data into it.

This allows the user to design the table exactly as needed. The advantage of TX Text Control is that it comes with a programmable document editor (the only true WYSIWYG editor on the market) that can be given to end users to design their templates.

This is what the same table looks like in TX Text Control. It has a more polished design, with merge fields and formulas added.

Created document with TX Text Control

The following JSON data is used to merge the table with the line item data:

[
{
"line-items": [
{
"Name": "Wireless Mouse",
"Description": "Ergonomic wireless mouse with USB receiver",
"Quantity": 2,
"Price": 25.99
},
{
"Name": "Mechanical Keyboard",
"Description": "Backlit mechanical keyboard with blue switches",
"Quantity": 1,
"Price": 79.50
},
{
"Name": "HDMI Cable",
"Description": "2-meter high-speed HDMI cable",
"Quantity": 3,
"Price": 8.75
}
]
}
]
view raw test.json hosted with ❤ by GitHub

And the following code snippet shows how to merge the JSON data into the template:

using TXTextControl;
using TXTextControl.DocumentServer;
const string TemplatePath = "template.tx";
const string JsonDataPath = "data.json";
const string OutputPath = "results.docx";
string jsonData = File.ReadAllText(JsonDataPath);
using (var tx = new ServerTextControl())
{
tx.Create();
// Load the template document
tx.Load(TemplatePath, StreamType.InternalUnicodeFormat);
// Perform the merge
var mailMerge = new MailMerge { TextComponent = tx };
mailMerge.MergeJsonData(jsonData);
// Save the merged document
tx.Save(OutputPath, StreamType.WordprocessingML);
}
view raw test.cs hosted with ❤ by GitHub

When you run the application, it creates a new document with a table containing the calculated values:

Created document with TX Text Control

Conclusion

TX Text Control provides a powerful API for creating documents programmatically. It allows you to create tables with formulas and merge JSON data into templates. This makes it easy to create complex documents with dynamic content.

In this tutorial, we have shown you how to create a new DOCX file from scratch and how to add specific elements to it programmatically. We also showed you how to create tables with formulas and merge JSON data into templates.