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Generate a Word document (docx) using data from an XML file / Convert XML to a Word document based on a template

I have an XML file with the data that I need to be populated on a Word document.
I need to find a way, to define a template which can be used as a base line to populate data from an XML file and create an output document.
I believe there are two ways to do this.
Create an XSLT file which will be the "template" and use this to generate Word documents using it in conjunction with the XML file.
Use content controls in Word to create a template document and somehow map to an XML file.
I just don't know the details on how to implement either way. Or not sure if there is another, easier way to accomplish this task.
Could someone show an example of how this can be implemented. Just a simple example would be sufficient.
I prefer C# for any coding. I am using Word 2016 but want it to be compatible from Word 2007 to Word 2016 and everything in between if possible since users will be using these versions. Thank you!

Figured out how to use content controls to generate documents and how to populate data from an XML into content controls. I've divided this into 2 parts:
Part 1: Create your template document for document generation
Part 2: Use code in C# to generate documents based on template
Part 1: Create your template document for document generation
Create a sample XML based on which you can create the Word template for document generation. Preferably start with a less complicated version to get the hang of it.
I used the following XML for testing. For testing I didn't have repeating sections, pictures etc.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<mydata xmlns="http://CustomDemoXML.htm">
<field1>This is the value in field1 from the XML file</field1>
<field2>This is the value in field2 from the XML file</field2>
<field3>This is the value in field3 from the XML file</field3>
</mydata>
Note 1: This is will be just a sample XML to create your Word template. XML file(s) with real data in this same format can later be applied when generating Word document(s) from the template.
Note 2: The xmlns attribute can contain literally anything you want and it doesn't have to be a URL starting with http.
Save your sample XML file to any location so that it can be imported to the template you are about to create.
Make sure the Developer tab is enabled on your copy of Word [File -> Options -> Customize Ribbon -> Under Customize the Ribbon, make sure Developer is selected -> OK]. Details: How to: Show the Developer Tab on the Ribbon
Create a new Word document (or use an existing Word document) which will be your template for document generation.
On the Developer tab, click on XML Mapping Pane. This will open the XML Mapping Pane on the right side of the document.
On the XML Mapping Pane, select the Custom XML Part drop down -> Select (Add new part).
Select the XML file that you saved on step 1 -> Open.
On the XML Mapping Pane, select the Custom XML Part drop down -> Select the item with the text that was on the xmlns attribute of the custom XML file. If you use the sample file above, it would be http://CustomDemoXML.htm.
Add a some static text to a Word document and add a Plain Text Content Control next to it (on the Developer tab -> Controls section. Repeat for all fields you need to add.
For the sample XML above, I had the following Word document:
Click on the first Plain Text Content Control -> On the XML Mapping Pane, right click the field you want mapped to that content control -> Click Map to Selected Content Control. Repeat for all the fields you want to map.
Note: Alternatively, instead of adding the Plain Text Content Control items from the developer tab on step #8, you could right click on the field you want to map on the XML Mapping Pane -> Click Insert Content Control -> Click Plain Text.
Similarly, you can also add other types of controls such as checkboxes, date pickers and even repeating sections (it supports nested repeating sections too! - since Word 2013) and map data from XML to those using just native Word functionality and without any third party tools!
Save your template document.
Part 2: Use code in C# to generate documents based on template
This uses Microsoft's recommended OpenXML SDK to generate documents using an XML file containing real data.
Build your XML file/open an existing XML file with which to generate a document from the template created above. This needs to be in the same format as the sample XML file used to create the template.
Use the OpenXML SDK to delete any CustomXMLPart elements from the document. This assumes no other custom XML parts are used in the document which is the case in this example. For complex scenarios, you can delete specific XML parts if needed.
Use the OpenXML SDK to add a new CustomXMLPart based on the XML file in step#1 above.
Here is the sample code I have to "refresh"/"reload" the sample data in the template with a data from an XML file containing real data (assuming the XML file used to generate the document is already created and saved):
using System.IO;
using DocumentFormat.OpenXml.Packaging;
namespace SampleNamespace
{
public static class SampleClass
{
public static void GenerateDocument()
{
string rootPath = #"C:\Temp";
string xmlDataFile = rootPath + #"\MyNewData.xml";
string templateDocument = rootPath + #"\MyTemplate.docx";
string outputDocument = rootPath + #"\MyGeneratedDocument.docx";
using (WordprocessingDocument wordDoc = WordprocessingDocument.Open(templateDocument, true))
{
//get the main part of the document which contains CustomXMLParts
MainDocumentPart mainPart = wordDoc.MainDocumentPart;
//delete all CustomXMLParts in the document. If needed only specific CustomXMLParts can be deleted using the CustomXmlParts IEnumerable
mainPart.DeleteParts<CustomXmlPart>(mainPart.CustomXmlParts);
//add new CustomXMLPart with data from new XML file
CustomXmlPart myXmlPart = mainPart.AddCustomXmlPart(CustomXmlPartType.CustomXml);
using (FileStream stream = new FileStream(xmlDataFile, FileMode.Open))
{
myXmlPart.FeedData(stream);
}
}
}
}
}
That's it!

Ok, found a detailed guide on using XSLT as a template to generate the Word document here: Using XSLT and Open XML to Create a Word 2007 Document.
Looks like even though this article is for Word 2007, it works perfectly in Word 2016.
Only issue with this method is if changes are needed to the template later on, it takes a lot of effort to update the xslt file and it's not user friendly to do so since it cannot be updated in Word itself and the actual XML of the document needs to be manipulated.
On the plus side, document generation is VERY flexible with all the power available through XSL (foreach, variables, if conditions etc.)

We created an automated way to have XML file data populate into a Word or PowerPoint document. We utilize an add-in that uses content controls to link the Excel content (ranges, tables, charts, shapes, etc.) to Word or PowerPoint. The links are portable and robust. It's also easy to update if you need to make any changes do your documents. You can find the add-in through your Excel application - just search add-ins "Excel-to-Word Document Automation" through "Get Add-ins" on the Insert tab. You can also find out more about it here.

Get elements inside and outside table element in OpenXML

How can I discriminate the elements inside a table and those outside? And additionally how can I verify tables without a content control name?

I suggest you use Linq To XML. On MSDN there is an example console application that displays all paragraph text of a Word Document.
Near the bottom is a comment - Find all paragraphs in the document - this is the Linq To XML piece that pulls out the paragraphs from the body of the Word document.
// Find all paragraphs in the document.
var paragraphs =
from para in xDoc
.Root
.Element(w + "body")
.Descendants(w + "p") ...
Instead of a "p", you will need to use "tbl". This is how to collect all of the tables from a Document in order to verify their contents. To inspect each row and column will involve more code to loop through the tables data, but this should get you started.
If you install the Open XML Productivity Tool, you can view all of the xml of any Open XML document. The screen below shows the tool with a Word doc containing a table.
[]
The left pane show the structure of a typical table in a Word doc. The right is the Open XML Table spec. The tool helps you know what to read and what to ignore when you are writing your liq to xml code to read and verify the data in your tables.
If you have a specific table format you need to read for your project and you are stuck, post the table and the code you tried in another question. Otherwise based on your original question, this answer should be enough to help you get started towards your solution.

transformation of excel cells to xml nodes in c#

I am a newbie in C#. I have doubt regarding the transformation of excel sheet to XML in c#. I am currently in the part where I have some cells, that I have to access and print corresponding XML nodes to them in the XML file that I have created. For eg: If the cell A1 is there, it should print <abc> node. This has to be hardcoded. I want to do this by LINQ to XML, using XElement and XDocument. Any help would be appreciated.

Saving an XML file using Fileupload

How can I save the content of an xml file to a database( in field which has an XML type)
should I read the content of file with i.e:
FileUpload1.FileContent;
and then send it as a parameter to save in Database? Is it correct?

You have to first save it to the Server hard disk and then get the InnerXML of that to a string variable and then save it to the database.
Assuming you saved the file to some folder in your disk, you can use the below method (using LINQtoXML) to read the content
XElement elm = XElement.Load(Server.MapPath(#"../YourUploadFolder/yourXMl.xml"));
if(elm!=null)
{
var reader = elm.CreateReader();
reader.MoveToContent();
string xmlContent = reader.ReadInnerXml(); xmlContent
// Now save to the database
}

You should use the the XmlReader and XmlTextReader classes to load the XML file into memory. They are defined in the System.XML namespace. You could also use the XDocument class defined in the System.Xml.Linq namespace. For more information please look here :
http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/uploadfile/mahesh/readingxmlfile11142005002137am/readingxmlfile.aspx
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307548
var reader = new XmlTextReader("C:\\temp\\xmltest.xml");
You then store the XML content as XML in the DB if possible (depending on the DB system you use) or as varchar. Would be better to store them as XML though since you may then assure that its is well-formatted and validated against a certain schema for example !

You can basically fill columns of type XML from an XML literal string, so you can easily just use a normal INSERT statement and fill the XML contents into that field. For this, you have to read the XML file.
You can use the System.Xml.Linq namespace and use XDocument.Load(#"YourXmlFile.xml"); or any standard method to read the XML file as described here - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307548

XML from DataTable using Linq

This code
XmlDataDocument xmlDataDocument = new XmlDataDocument(ds);
does not work for me, because the node names are derived from the columns' encoded ColumnName property and will look like "last_x20_name", for instance. This I cannot use in the resulting Excel spreadsheet. In order to treat the column names to make them something more friendly, I need to generate the XML myself.
I like LINQ to XML, and one of the responses to this question contained the following snippets:
XDocument doc = new XDocument(new XDeclaration("1.0","UTF-8","yes"),
new XElement("products", from p in collection
select new XElement("product",
new XAttribute("guid", p.ProductId),
new XAttribute("title", p.Title),
new XAttribute("version", p.Version))));
The entire goal is to dynamically derive the column names from the dataset, so hardcoding them is not an option. Can this be done with Linq and without making the code much longer?

It ought to be possible.
In order to use your Dataset as a source you need Linq-to-Dataset.
Then you would need a nested query
// untested
var data = new XElement("products",
from row in ds.Table["ProductsTable"].Rows.AsEnumerable()
select new XElement("product",
from column in ds.Table["ProductsTable"].Columns // not sure about this
select new XElement(colum.Fieldname, rows[colum.Fieldname])
) );

I appreciate the answers, but I had to abandon this approach altogether. I did manage to produce the XML that I wanted (albeit not with Linq), but of course there is a reason why the default implementation of the XmlDataDocument constructor uses the EncodedColumnName - namely that special characters are not allowed in element names in XML. But since I wanted to use the XML to convert what used to be a simple CSV file to the XML Spreadsheet format using XSLT (customer complains about losing leading 0's in ZIP codes etc when loading the original CSV into Excel), I had to look into ways that preserve the data in Excel.
But the ultimate goal of this is to produce a CSV file for upload to the payroll processor, and they mandate the column names to be something that is not XML-compliant (e.g. "File #"). The data is reviewed by humans before the upload, and they use Excel.
I resorted to hard-coding the column names in the XSLT after all.