How to: Remove Data from the Data Store When Deleting a Content Control

You can delete a content control by calling the Delete method of the ContentControl object. For example, the following code deletes the content control with the title "MyTitle".

ActiveDocument.ContentControls.Item("MyTitle").Delete

You can also delete a single node by calling the Delete method of the CustomDataXMLNode object that you want to remove. You can delete an entire custom XML part by calling the Delete method of the CustomXMLPart object that you want to remove.

For more information about content controls, see Working with Content Controls.

The objects used in these samples are:

• ContentControl

• ContentControls

• CustomXMLPart (2007 Microsoft Office system core object model)

• CustomXMLParts (2007 Microsoft Office system core object model)

• XMLMapping

Sample 1

The first code sample creates a content control and sets an XML mapping on a content control.

Build a valid custom XML file, save it to your hard disk drive, and add a data store to the document that contains the information you want to map to.

Suppose the content control is mapped to the following sample custom XML file.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> 
<tree> 
  <fruit> 
    <fruitType>peach</fruitType> 
    <fruitType>pear</fruitType> 
    <fruitType>banana</fruitType> 
  </fruit> 
</tree>

Now, suppose the content control is mapped to a <fruitType> node of the previous custom XML part.

Sub AddContentControlAndCustomXMLPart() 
 
    Dim strTitle As String 
    strTitle = "MyTitle" 
    Dim oContentControl As Word.ContentControl 
 
    Set oContentControl = ActiveDocument.ContentControls.Add(wdContentControlText) 
    oContentControl.Title = strTitle 
 
    ActiveDocument.CustomXMLParts.Add 
    ActiveDocument.CustomXMLParts(4).Load ("c:\mySampleCustomXMLFile.xml") 
 
    Dim strXPath As String 
    strXPath = "tree/fruit/fruitType" 
    oContentControl.XMLMapping.SetMapping strXPath 
     
End Sub

Sample 2

The second code sample removes the entire CustomXMLPart object when the content control is deleted.

Private Sub Document_ContentControlBeforeDelete( _ 
        ByVal OldContentControl As ContentControl, _ 
        ByVal InUndoRedo As Boolean) 
 
    Dim objPart As CustomXMLPart 
     
    'Always void changing the Word document surface during undo! 
    If InUndoRedo Then 
        Return 
    End If 
 
    'Also delete the part with a root element called 'tree' 
    If OldContentControl.Title = "MyTitle" Then 
        For Each objPart In ActiveDocument.CustomXMLParts 
            If objPart.DocumentElement.BaseName = "tree" Then 
                objPart.Delete 
            End If 
        Next part 
    End If 
 
End Sub

Bind a Content Control to a Node in the Data Store