Generating Open XML WordprocessingML Documents

This is a blog post series on parameterized Open XML WordprocessingML document generation.  While it is easy enough to write an purpose-built application that generates WordprocessingML documents, too often, developers find themselves building new applications for similar but somewhat different scenarios.  However, if we take the right approach, it is possible to build a simple document generation system that makes it far easier to address a wide variety of scenarios.  I believe that a flexible document generation system can be written in a few hundred lines of code.  This page lists the posts that are part of the series.  I’ll be updating this page with new posts as I write them.

	Post Title	Description
1	Generating Open XML WordprocessingML Documents	Introduces this blog post series, outlines the goals of the series, and desribes various approaches that I may take as I develop some document generation examples.
2	Using a WordprocessingML Document as a Template in the Document Generation Process	In this post, I examine the approaches for building a template document for the document generation process. In my approach to document generation, a template document is a DOCX document that contains content controls that will control the document generation process.
3	The Second Iteration of the Template Document	Based on feedback, this post shows an updated design for the template document.
4	More enhancements to the Template Document	This post discusses an enhancement to the document template that enables the template designer to add infrastructure code. In addition, it discusses how the document generation process will work.
5	Generating C# Code from an XML Tree using Virtual Extension Methods	Presents code that given any arbitrary LINQ to XML tree, can generate code that will create that tree. The code to generate code is written as a recursive functional transform from XML to C#.
6	Simulating Virtual Extension Methods	Shows one approach for extending a class hierarchy by simulating virtual extension methods.
7	Refinement: Generating C# code from an XML Tree using Virtual Extension Methods	Makes the approach of generating code that will generate an arbitrary XML tree more robust.
8	Text Templates (T4) and the Code Generation Process	Explores T4 text templates, and considers how they can be used in the Open XML document generation process.
9	A Super-Simple Template System	Defines a template system that makes it easier to generate C# code.
10	Video of use of Document Generation Example	Screen-cast that shows the doc gen system in action.
11	Release of V1 of Simple DOCX Generation System	Release of the first version of this simple prototype doc gen system.
12	Changing the Schema for the Document Generation System	Contains a short screen-cast that shows how to adjust the data coming into the doc gen system, and to adjust the document template to use the new data.

Read more: Eric White's Blog

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