How to speed up Word Interop processing?

Question

I am Very new at C# and have written a fairly clunky code. I have been doing a lot of courses online and a lot say that there are several ways to approach problems. Now i have made a program that will Load up a .Doc Word file and then search for the relevant information using if statements.

Now my problem with my solution is that this program takes FOREVER!!! I am talking about 30Mins - 1Hour to complete the following code.

Any ideas of how to make my little program a little less clunky? I hope that solutions to this will increase my knowledge substantially so thanks in advance everyone!

regards chris

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Data;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using System.Windows.Forms;

namespace WindowsFormsApplication3
{
    public partial class Form1 : Form
    {
        public Form1()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
        }
        public int id = 0;
        public int[] iD = new int[100];
        public string[] timeOn = new string[100];
        public string[] timeOff = new string[100];
        public string[] dutyNo = new string[100];
        public string[] day = new string[100];

        private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {



            Microsoft.Office.Interop.Word.Application application = new Microsoft.Office.Interop.Word.Application();
            Microsoft.Office.Interop.Word.Document document = application.Documents.Open("c:\\Users\\Alien\\Desktop\\TESTJOBS.doc");
            //the following for will loop for all words

            int count = document.Words.Count;
            for (int i = 1; i <= count; i++)
            {
                // the following if statement will look for the first word that is On
                // this is then (on the file) proceded by  04:00 (thus i+2/3/4 respectively)
                if (document.Words[i].Text == "On")
                {
                    iD[id] = id;
                   // Console.WriteLine("ID Number ={0}", iD[id]);
                    dutyNo[id] = document.Words[i - 14].Text;
                   // Console.WriteLine("duty No set to:{0}", dutyNo[id]);
                    timeOn[id] = document.Words[i + 2].Text + document.Words[i + 3].Text + document.Words[i + 4].Text;
                   // Console.WriteLine("on time set to:{0}", timeOn[id]);
                    // the following if (runs if the last word was not "On" and then searches for the word "Off" which procedes "On" in the file format)
                    // this is then (on the file) proceded by  04:00 (thus i+2/3/4 respectively)
                }
                else if (document.Words[i].Text == "Off")
                {
                    timeOff[id] = document.Words[i + 2].Text + document.Words[i + 3].Text + document.Words[i + 4].Text;
                    //Console.WriteLine("off time set to:{0}", timeOff[id]);
                    // the following if (runs if the last word was not "Off" and then searches for the word "Duty" which procedes "Off" in the file format)
                    // this is then (on the file) proceded by  04:00 (thus i+2/3/4 respectively)
                }
                else if (document.Words[i].Text == "Days" && !(document.Words[i + 3].Text == "Type"))
                {

                    day[id] = document.Words[i + 2].Text;
                    //Console.WriteLine("day set to:{0}", day[id]);
                    //we then print the whole new duty out to ListBox1
                    listBox1.Items.Add(string.Format("new duty ID:{0} Time on:{1} Time off:{2} Duty No:{3} Day:{4}", iD[id], timeOn[id], timeOff[id], dutyNo[id], day[id]));
                    id++;
                }


            }

            for (int i = 1; i <= 99; i++)
            {
                Console.WriteLine("new duty ID:{0} Time on:{1} Time off:{2} Duty No:{3} Day:{4}", iD[id], timeOn[id], timeOff[id], dutyNo[id], day[id]);
            }


        }
    }
}

That's what happens when you open docs from Aliens... (_"Open("c:\\Users\\Alien\\Desktop\\TESTJOBS.doc"_) — Mihai-Daniel Virna, Apr 09 '16 at 15:51
Have you put timing diagnostics (Stopwatch class) into the code to see what's taking the time? — ChrisF, Apr 09 '16 at 15:56
i have not no, i will certainly look into it, i can pretty much guess though. In my opinion it is because it is cyceling through every single word (this includes spaces) then checking each one on the IF statements thus taking a long time one full cycle of a successful word to the next is around 20-30 seconds — Chris_livermore, Apr 09 '16 at 15:58
Learn how to profile a program first, and that tells you where it is slow. Without that how can you magically know what to fix? — Lex Li, Apr 09 '16 at 15:59
Aside from the fragility of the code (no error handling, expecting data in a specific format, etc.), you're doing a single pass over all the words in the document. That should be quite fast. Looks like there's something hidden (and very costly, apparently) going on in the interop layer. For reference, you can execute millions of string comparisons/ifs per second -- it's not the structure of your code itself that is slow in this case. — Cameron, Apr 09 '16 at 15:59
Thanks for the comments/tips gents the exception handling I have not bothered to put in yet due to having a test file that I know the format of will not change. I know that's bad practice! I will crack onto implementing better code and learning more (literally picking stuff every second!) thanks again for taking a look and taking the time to write your comments. — Chris_livermore, Apr 09 '16 at 16:19

score 3 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:08

Office Interop is fairly slow.

Openxml may have been faster, but the file is .doc, so it probably won't be able to handle it.

But just like with Excel in this question there is a way you can improve the performance - do not access each word in a Range by index, because AFAIK it causes creation of a separate Range instance wrapped in RCW, and that is primary candidate for a performance bottleneck in your application.

That means that your best bet to improve the performance is to load all the words (.Text) into some indexable collection of Strings before the actual processing, and only then use that collection to create the output.

How to do it in the fastest way? I am not exactly sure, but you can try either getting all the words from _Document.Words enumerator (though it may or may not be more performant, but at least you will be able to see how long it takes to just retrieve the required words):

var words = document
    .Cast<Range>()
    .Select(r => 
        r.Text)
    .ToList();

or you may try to use _Document.Content range Text, though you would then have to separate individual words by yourself.

Thank you Eugene I will get working on these changes tomorrow. — Chris_livermore, Apr 10 '16 at 16:40

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 13 '16 at 08:03

Ok Completed it so we now process all information as before and import the whole document still. Total runtime is 02:09.8 for 2780 sentences and approx 44,000 words (that includes spaces!) Below is my (Not perfect Code) not bad considering I picked up C# 2 weeks ago ;) Hope this helps someone out in the future.

    public Form1()
    {
        InitializeComponent();
    }
    public int id = 0;
    public int[] iD = new int[400];
    public string[] timeOn = new string[400];
    public string[] timeOff = new string[400];
    public string[] dutyNo = new string[400];
    public string[] day = new string[400];
    public string[] hours = new string[400];

    //Create File Location Var
    public string fileLocation = null;

    // On Click of Add Dutys
    private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        //Sets Progress Bar visible and prepares to increment
        pBar1.Visible = true;
        pBar1.Minimum = 1;
        pBar1.Value = 1;
        pBar1.Step = 1;


        //Stopwatch test Declared
        Stopwatch stopWatch = new Stopwatch();

        try {
            //Self Test to see if a File Location has been set for Duty document.
            if (fileLocation == null) {
                //If not set prompts user with message box and brings up file explorer
                MessageBox.Show("It Appears that a file location has not yet been set, Please Select one now.");
                Stream myStream = null;
                OpenFileDialog openFileDialog1 = new OpenFileDialog();
                //Sets default Location and Default File type as .doc
                openFileDialog1.InitialDirectory = "c:\\";
                openFileDialog1.Filter = "All files (*.*)|*.*|Word Files (*.doc)|*.doc";
                openFileDialog1.FilterIndex = 2;
                openFileDialog1.RestoreDirectory = true;
                //Waits for User to Click ok in File explorer and then Sets file location to var
                if (openFileDialog1.ShowDialog() == DialogResult.OK)
                {
                    try
                    {
                        //Checks to make sure a file location is set
                        if ((myStream = openFileDialog1.OpenFile()) != null)
                        {
                            using (myStream)
                            {
                                //This is where we set location to var
                                fileLocation = openFileDialog1.FileName;
                            }
                            //Prompts user to click a file before OK
                        }else { MessageBox.Show("Please Select a file location before clicking ok"); }
                    }
                    catch (Exception ex)
                    {
                        MessageBox.Show("Error: Could not read file from disk: " + ex.Message);
                    }
                }
            }

           //Loads New Duty file 
            Microsoft.Office.Interop.Word.Application application = new Microsoft.Office.Interop.Word.Application();
            Microsoft.Office.Interop.Word.Document document = application.Documents.Open(fileLocation);
            //Begin stop watch (COPY TIME)
            stopWatch.Start();

            //Sets Count to No of sentences and then prepares Array using Number of sentences 
            //**This process reduces amount of processng time by taking everything in to the program to start and then dealing with it.
            int count = document.Sentences.Count;
            string[] sents = new string[count];
            //Then sets the Progress bar to the Number of sentences that will be Copied to our array
            pBar1.Maximum = count;

            try {
                //For loop runs throug every sentence and adds it to the array.
                for (int i = 0; i < count; i++) {
                    sents[i] = document.Sentences[i+1].Text;
                    //increment Progress bar by 1 for every sentence(Parse made)
                    pBar1.PerformStep();
                }
                //Closes our instance of word
                application.Quit();
                try {

                    for (int i = 0; i < count; i++)
                    {
                        //Sets our Split criteria 
                        char[] delimiterChars = { ' ','\t' };
                        string[] test = (sents[i].Split(delimiterChars));
                        //we then enter For loop that runs for the number of ords found/Split
                        for (int a = 0; a < test.Length; a++)
                        {  
                            //If tests only begin if the word is NOT a space blank, tab , - As these do parse through into our Test arrays
                            if (!(test[a] == "" || test[a].Contains("/t")|| test[a].Contains("-") || test[a].Contains(" ")))
                            {
                                //If tests to find Duty numbers ours on off and assigns ID number for easy indexing. 
                                //##THIS DOES ASSUME THAT OUR TIMES ARE 1 SPACE AFTER THEIR IDENTIFIERS.
                                if (test[a] == "TG")
                                {
                                    dutyNo[id] = test[a + 2]; 
                                }
                                else if (test[a] == "On")
                                {
                                    iD[id] = id;
                                    timeOn[id] = test[a + 1];
                                }
                                else if (test[a] == "Off")
                                {
                                    timeOff[id] = test[a + 1];
                                }
                                else if (test[a] == "Hrs")
                                {
                                    hours[id] = test[a + 1];
                                }
                                else if (test[a] == "Days")
                                {
                                    day[id] = test[a + 1];
                                    //PRINTS TO USER VIA LIST BOX ALL THE DUTYS ADDED.
                                    listBox1.Items.Add(string.Format("ADDED:Duty No:{3} Time on:{1} Time off:{2} Hours{5} Day:{4} ID:{0}", iD[id], timeOn[id], timeOff[id], dutyNo[id], day[id], hours[id]));
                                    id++;
                                }

                            }
                        }
                    }
                }
                catch(Exception ex) { MessageBox.Show("Error in split:" + ex.Message); }
            }
            catch(Exception ex) { MessageBox.Show("error setting string to Document:" + ex.Message); }
            //Stopwatch Is then printed for testing purposes.
            TimeSpan ts = stopWatch.Elapsed;
            string elapsedTime = String.Format("{0:00}:{1:00}:{2:00}.{3:00}", ts.Hours, ts.Minutes, ts.Seconds,
            ts.Milliseconds / 10);
            Console.WriteLine("RunTime (total):" + elapsedTime);

            stopWatch.Reset();

        }
        catch(Exception ex) { MessageBox.Show("Error in reading/finding file: "+ ex.Message); }

    }


}

}

I use all this code with a fairly large List box (ListBox1) a Button (Button1)and a Non visible on start-up Progress bar (pBar1).

Your hope is coming true. Thank you. – Kanat Mar 20 '18 at 09:29 — Kanat, Mar 20 '18 at 09:29

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 12 '17 at 14:39

1

You can load the entire .Content range with OpenXml and process it like that, then reimport it

answered Feb 12 '17 at 14:39

Jbjstam

874
6
13

But then, wouldn't you need to parse the xml itself, and not have access to all of the nice features of `WordInterop`? And in doing so, you would need to thoroughly understand the `XML` structure to get the cells and content that you want. Am I missing something? – Matthew Kligerman Jul 16 '20 at 18:45
I had the same problem. Writing 1 table with wordInterop took 8 seconds on my system, using openXML I can write 300 tables in 17 seconds! Thanks for the suggestion! – Fil May 07 '22 at 13:28

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Apr 09 '16 at 16:52

0

Instead of using:

document.Words[i].Text

multiple times, do:

String Text = document.Words[i].Text;

at the top of the for loop and use "Text" (or whatever you want to call it) instead. Eugene Podskal's suggestions seem very helpful but this simple improvement (that I was thinking of before seeing Eugene's response) is very easy to do and could make a substantial improvement.

answered Apr 09 '16 at 16:52

Sam Hobbs

2,594
3
21
32

i don't think this would work, as i am using Words[i] and incrementing up and down within the If statements themselves to find the specific locations of the required information. Do correct me if i am wrong though! – Chris_livermore Apr 12 '16 at 08:53

How to speed up Word Interop processing?

4 Answers4