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

1. 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

2. 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

3. 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;
   

            }
   

4. 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;
   

            }
   

        }
   

    }
   

5. Build the application and Run it to launch Word

6. 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

Comments

• Anonymous
  January 31, 2011
  Doesn't work. No error but the drag-and-drop effect won't work. :(