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

Related Links

Bind a Content Control to a Node in the Data Store