How do I get the Hwnd / Process Id for a Word Application, and set as Foreground Window

Question

I want to my Word Application to come to the Foreground when automation has completed.

The equivalent in Excel is straight forward - the Excel Application object has a .Hwnd property which you can use in conjunction with the Windows API :

SetForegroundWindow((IntPtr)excelApp.Hwnd);

However the Word application does not have a .Hwnd property.

I've tried using Activate() in this sequence:

wordDoc.Activate();
wordApp.Activate();

but this does not work.

I've had a look at finding the process using the application name, but there could be more than one copy of Word running.

Thanks

Joe

Well there is a post on SO describing it. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/814936/get-pid-from-word-applicationclass — Dimi Takis, Mar 01 '12 at 17:47
Thanks Greco - I did see that post, I was hoping to keep the code overhead down.. — Joe.Net, Mar 01 '12 at 17:53

score 5 · Accepted Answer · edited Jan 02 '21 at 18:42

5

You may need to iterate the processArray beyond the first. With word 2010 only one WinWord shows in the task manager no matter how many instances are open.

System.Diagnostics.Process[] processArray =
    System.Diagnostics.Process.GetProcessesByName("WinWord");
System.Diagnostics.Process word = processArray[0];
SetForegroundWindow(word.MainWindowHandle);

edited Jan 02 '21 at 18:42

Olivier Jacot-Descombes

104,806
13
138
188

answered Mar 01 '12 at 19:10

Rich Wawrzonek

189
4
15

+1 for the info, but I have to interject: that is definitely not true about Word 2010+ only ever spawning one "WinWord" process -- just calling "new Application(...)" twice is all it takes. – BrainSlugs83 Nov 24 '13 at 22:07

How do I get the Hwnd / Process Id for a Word Application, and set as Foreground Window

1 Answers1

Linked