Question Accessing MS/Word document properties

[Vlip]

I am trying to access MS/Word document properties without opening the file in Word. Right now I have an app that reads the document properties but it has to open the document in word. This makes it run very slowly and also makes it susceptible to crashing if the document is corrupted. In Windows Explorer, you can right-click on a word document file and select properties. The ensuing dialog box contains, in addition to the usual information, two additional tabs labelled "Summary" and "Custom" that correspond to the same tabs in the dialog box you can open from File/Properties menu in Word. I know windows explorer is not opening the document in word because there is no instance of word.exe in task manager and because it has no difficulty in obtaining this information from the file even when it cannot be opened in Word because the document has become corrupted.
If anyone could help me figure out how to read custom and built-in document fields (properties) from the file without opening it in Word, I would greatly appreciate it!

Thanks,
Vlip

 

[JohnH]

see post 3 here: http://www.vbdotnetforums.com/vb-net-general-discussion/16772-file-properties.html