Word: How to do “Drag and Drop” of Content controls from Task Pane to the document

Article
10/02/2009

Create a Word VSTO application level project for Word using Visual Studio 2008/2005 (For VS 2005, you need to install VSTO SE). To do that, go to File Menu in VS -->New-->Project-->Expand Office hive-->Select Word 2007 Add-in
Add a user control item (Name it as CTP.cs) to the project and insert a List box (Name it as, lstItems). To add a user control to the project, go to Project Menu-->Add User Control-->Name it as CTP.cs

Add the code snippet below in the ThisAddIn_Startup event (You will see this when you view the code for ThisAddin.cs). This will add our custom task pane while loading Word

         Microsoft.Office.Tools.CustomTaskPane WCTP;

         private void ThisAddIn_Startup(object sender, System.EventArgs e)

            //To add our CTP to the Custom Task panes collection of Word. We need to set the Visible property to true, otherwise, by

            //default it is false

 WCTP = (Microsoft.Office.Tools.CustomTaskPane)this.CustomTaskPanes.Add(new CTP(), "Do Drag Drop");

             WCTP.Visible = true;

The code snippet that we need to have in the user control class is as below,

 using System;

 using System.Collections.Generic;

 using System.ComponentModel;

 using System.Drawing;

 using System.Data;

 using System.Linq;

 using System.Text;

 using System.Windows.Forms;

 using Word = Microsoft.Office.Interop.Word;

 namespace DragDrop_ContentControls

     public partial class CTP : UserControl

         public CTP()

             InitializeComponent();

         object missing = System.Type.Missing;

         private Rectangle dragBoxFromMouseDown;

         private void lstItems_MouseDown(object sender, MouseEventArgs e)

                 // Remember the point where the mouse down occurred. The DragSize indicates

                 // the size that the mouse can move before a drag event should be started.

                 Size dragSize = SystemInformation.DragSize;

                 // Create a rectangle using the DragSize, with the mouse position being

                 // at the center of the rectangle.

                 dragBoxFromMouseDown = new Rectangle(new Point(e.X - (dragSize.Width / 2),

                                                                e.Y - (dragSize.Height / 2)), dragSize);

         private void lstItems_MouseMove(object sender, MouseEventArgs e)

                                                                 //To check if the Mouse left button is clicked

 if ((e.Button & MouseButtons.Left) == MouseButtons.Left)

                 // If the mouse moves outside the rectangle, start the drag.

                 if (dragBoxFromMouseDown != Rectangle.Empty &&

                     !dragBoxFromMouseDown.Contains(e.X, e.Y))

                             //Start Drag Drop

                             DoDragDrop("", DragDropEffects.All);

                             Word.ContentControl cntCtrl;

                             //Insert Content Control at the selected range

                             cntCtrl = Globals.ThisAddIn.Application.Selection.Range.ContentControls.Add(Microsoft.Office.Interop.Word.WdContentControlType.wdContentControlText, ref missing);

                             cntCtrl.Range.Text = lstItems.Text; //This is how we set the value to be to populated in the content controls

                             //To set the XPath for custom XML binding for content controls. This is optional

                             string xPath = @"Root\" + lstItems.Text.Replace(" ", "_");

                             cntCtrl.XMLMapping.SetMapping(xPath, "", null); //This is required when you want to bind to a custom XML part

         private void lstItems_MouseUp(object sender, MouseEventArgs e)

             // Reset the drag rectangle when the mouse button is raised.

             dragBoxFromMouseDown = Rectangle.Empty;

Build the application and Run it to launch Word
When you drag an item from List box in the Task Pane onto the document surface, you will see a content control being added with the caption of the list item name

Word: How to do “Drag and Drop” of Content controls from Task Pane to the document

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