How to determine the merged columns and rows in a table

I am trying to convert the word table to xml format, for which i am not able
to determine the merged cells to replace with "colspan" and "rowspan"
attributes. I tried with WdInformation.wdEndOfRangeColumnNumber and
WdInformation.wdStartOfRangeColumnNumber, but for all cells the value is the
current column number.

Hi =?Utf-8?B?QW51cA==?=,

I am trying to convert the word table to xml format, for which i am not able
to determine the merged cells to replace with "colspan" and "rowspan"
attributes. I tried with WdInformation.wdEndOfRangeColumnNumber and
WdInformation.wdStartOfRangeColumnNumber, but for all cells the value is the
current column number.

The best way for you to do this would be to save the file to HTML format (as a
webpage) then parse that XML (Word's round-trip HTML). That does contain
colspan and rowspan information. Also, this would probably be a lot faster than
trying to convert a Word document through automation. In principle, you
probably should be able to create a transform to do the job.

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 8 2004)
http://www.word.mvps.org

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow question or reply
in the newsgroup and not by e-mail :-)

Thanks for your kind information.
Do we have any other method to find? instead of saving it as HTML and then
processing.

Anup

"Cindy M -WordMVP-" wrote:

Hi =?Utf-8?B?QW51cA==?=,

I am trying to convert the word table to xml format, for which i am not able
to determine the merged cells to replace with "colspan" and "rowspan"
attributes. I tried with WdInformation.wdEndOfRangeColumnNumber and
WdInformation.wdStartOfRangeColumnNumber, but for all cells the value is the
current column number.

The best way for you to do this would be to save the file to HTML format (as a
webpage) then parse that XML (Word's round-trip HTML). That does contain
colspan and rowspan information. Also, this would probably be a lot faster than
trying to convert a Word document through automation. In principle, you
probably should be able to create a transform to do the job.

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 8 2004)
http://www.word.mvps.org

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow question or reply
in the newsgroup and not by e-mail :-)

Hi =?Utf-8?B?QW51cA==?=,

Do we have any other method to find? instead of saving it as HTML and then
processing.

I'm assuming this isn't Word 2003, otherwise you wouldn't have to do a
conversion, you could just pick up the XML direclty...

No, there's not really any RELIABLE way to pick up which cells are merged.
The approach you mention in your first post is the only way. You have to
figure out how many columns/rows the table SHOULD have, then "walk" all the
cells. If a column or row number repeats, then a cell is merged. But things
can get tricky when you try to "walk" the cells, as you can end up repeatedly
in the same cell (endless loop). And the whole thing can only work if you
know which column and which row will NEVER have merged cells so that you can
determine what the total rows and columns for the table should be.

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 8 2004)
http://www.word.mvps.org

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow question or
reply in the newsgroup and not by e-mail :-)

Thanks a lot.

"Cindy M -WordMVP-" wrote:

Hi =?Utf-8?B?QW51cA==?=,

Do we have any other method to find? instead of saving it as HTML and then
processing.

I'm assuming this isn't Word 2003, otherwise you wouldn't have to do a
conversion, you could just pick up the XML direclty...

No, there's not really any RELIABLE way to pick up which cells are merged.
The approach you mention in your first post is the only way. You have to
figure out how many columns/rows the table SHOULD have, then "walk" all the
cells. If a column or row number repeats, then a cell is merged. But things
can get tricky when you try to "walk" the cells, as you can end up repeatedly
in the same cell (endless loop). And the whole thing can only work if you
know which column and which row will NEVER have merged cells so that you can
determine what the total rows and columns for the table should be.

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 8 2004)
http://www.word.mvps.org

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow question or
reply in the newsgroup and not by e-mail :-)