Putting signatures to Word documents

Question

Is it possible to put signatures (simple texts) to the Word documents before the user starts downloading the file?

Thanks.

Answer 1

You could do this with a custom solution to manipulate the OpenXML (assuming 2007+ format).

There is an older MSDN blog post that details the following:

• Reading the document into a byte array using the SPFile.OpenBinary method.
• Creating a resizable MemoryStream object using the parameterless constructor of the MemoryStream class.
• Writing the byte array into the MemoryStream.
• Opening the document using the Open XML SDK. Trap the System.IO.FileFormatException when opening.
• Modifying the document using LINQ to XML and the Open XML SDK.
• Writing the document back to the document library.

Post is available here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ericwhite/archive/2008/12/12/modifying-open-xml-documents-using-the-sharepoint-object-model.aspx

You cant really control all the download methods, so you will want to capture it on upload to make your changes.

Answer 2

You might be able to utilize Information Rights Management to add labels to your Word documents when opened.