Develop Reference

Is it possible to update a Word document that has been set to read only without having to make a copy of it?

I have to programmatically update 1000's of documents with new regulatory information (Covid-19 related), which are located in over 40,000 SharePoint document libraries.
Most of the documents can be updated OK, but on those that cannot, if I manually open the document I get this message:
"The author would like you to open this as read-only, unless you need to make changes."
Is there anyway to get round this using C#? Interop is not an option as the documents are updated on a server using SyncFusion software, so it is all back-end based.
Any thoughts?
Thanks in advance,
Jimmy

Change Document template path in multiple Word Templates

I have about 500 word documents that I need to change the server name in the Document template path. I am not an expert with VBA but I have tried several solutions that have not worked for me. Is there a way to do this (perhaps with C#, with a foreach loop on the directory?) that I can do a very simple find and replace on this field ?
i.e.
\\ASDCFS\NtierFiles\...
becomes
\\NewServer\NtierFiles\...

You can't write to the field in the dialog box directly. In the object model the equivalent is Document.AttachedTemplate and yes, you can work with that. Using in the object model (whether using VBA or C#) you'd loop the documents in a folder, open each in Word, assign the correct path, save and close.
More efficient and less prone to "hiccups" if the original template path is already invalid, would be to edit the documents' Word Open XML directly, without using the Word application. The Open XML SDK would be a good tool for this. It provides the AttachedTemplate class (https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/documentformat.openxml.wordprocessing.attachedtemplate(v=office.14).aspx).

You can use WTC to correct the template path in a bulk of documents. You find the source code and binary on Github: https://github.com/NeosIT/wtc

Writing to an Excel file from SQL Server Database

Currently, I need to be able to retrieve values from an SQL Server DB, populate an Excel file according to a certain template, and then allow the user to download the file. I also need this this certain template to be customizable, in the sense that the user can add new fields, and remove fields.
I understand that there are a couple of approaches I can take: using .xlt, and using C# directly. With C#, the user will need to interact with a UI, which will then populate a ExcelTemplate table in the SQL Server. This ExcelTemplate table will then be used when the user wishes to download a new Excel file.
I know all this stuff may sound kinda abstract, so please do tell me if there are some places I need to elaborate/clarify. Thanks a bunch, man.
EDIT: Sorry, I kinda missed this part out, but I'd prefer to allow the user to customize these Excel templates via a Silverlight UI.

You can create Data Sources in Excel and pull the data from MS SQL Server.
You can use MS Reporting Services which allow to get reports in MS Excel format. In this case users can use Report Builder to customize the reports.

For pulling down data from SQL Server and dumping it into Excel, you can use Officewriter. It has Reporting Services integration and supports generating .xls and .xlsx documents. There's also a template component that basically does what you're trying to do. The templates are actually Excel documents, so the users can edit them directly in Excel. Not Silverlight, but not bad. You can try an eval for free.
DISCLAIMER: I'm one of the engineers who built the latest version.

at the end of the day I think I'm gonna spend some time building a customized dashboard. It won't be generic, but rather focused on the existing database.
I know this answer is kinda vague and all, but I'd like to say thanks for all the help :) it'd be great if there are dynamic solutions for this in the future! I think...

Creating word documents within a c# application?

I've been searching on ways to create letters using a C# Windows Form application in Visual Studio based on information from a local SQL server. I've seen some other topics but each answer seems to be really different.
My knowledge is pretty basic about this and wouldn't mind a step in the right direction. Is it actually possible? is there a better solution rather than creating word documents?
I only really need to be able to create a word document which has some text and and tables is this possible?

If you are creating a document of same kind with different data then use a Word template (.dotx) and use content controls or bookmarks in the document.
Advantage: Saves your time in manipulating with formatting and alignment in the document
Then use Open XML to just replace your content controls or bookmarks with the values.
Advantage: You dont need Word Interop assemblies to be deployed. Faster and recommended by Microsoft.

Depending on your needs, you could either simply copy a pre-existing file, or if you need to modify the document from code, you can use Microsoft Office Automation. (see C# office 2010 automation)

Reading Word Documents stored in Oracle DB as a BLOB object using C#

We store a word document in an Oracle 10g database as a BLOB object. I want to read the contents (the text) of this word document, make some changes, and write the text alone to a different field in a C# code.
How do I do this in C# 2.0?
The easiest logic that I came up with is this -
Read the BLOB object
Store it in the FileSystem
Extract the text contents
Do your job
Write the text into a separate field.
I can use Word.dll but not any commercial solutions such as Aspose

I assume that you already know how to do steps 1 and 2 (use the Oracle.DataAccess and System.IO namespaces).
For step 3 and 5, use Word Automation. This MS support article shows you how to get started: How to automate Microsoft Word to create a new document by using Visual C#
If you know what version of Word it will be, then I'd suggest using early binding, otherwise use late binding. More details and sample code here: Using early binding and late binding in Automation
Edit: If you don't know how to use BLOBs from C#, take a look here: How to: Read and Write BLOB Data to a Database Table Through an Anonymous PL/SQL Block

This keeps coming up in my searches, so I'll add an answer for the benefit of future readers.
I highly recommend avoiding Word automation. It's painfully slow and subjects you to the whims of Microsoft's developers with each upgrade. Instead, process the files manually yourselves if you can. The files are nothing but zipped archives of XML files and resources (such as images embedded in the document).
In this case, you'd simply unzip the docx using your preferred library, manipulate the XML, and then zip the result back up.
This does require the use of docx files rather than doc files, but as the link above explains, this has been the default Word format since Office 2007 and shouldn't present an issue unless your users are desperately clinging to the past.
For an example of the time savings, Back in 2007 we converted one process that took 45 minutes using Word automation and, on the same hardware, it took 15 SECONDS processing the files manually. To be clear, I'm not blaming Microsoft for this - their Word automation methods don't know how you will manipulate the document, so they have to anticipate and track everything that you could possibly change. You, on the other hand, can write your method with laser focus because you know exactly what you want to do.