Accessing Office file Properties

[ivpotter]

Hi

I am trying to extract dome properties from a MS Word document using the following code ...

use Win32::OLE;

$doc = Win32::OLE->new('DSOleFile.PropertyReader', 'Quit') || die "\"Unable to create PropertyReader\"";
$doc_prop = $doc->GetDocumentProperties("./a.doc&quot || die "\"Unable to process properties of file\"";

print $doc_prop->author;
print $doc_prop->title;
print $doc_prop->comments;

... however the code fails to create the document object.

Can anyone see what I am doing wrong please.

Many thanks

Ivor

 

[MikeLacey]

Ivor,

What is the value of $! directly after the failure? Mike

"Experience is the comb that Nature gives us, after we are bald."

Is that a haiku?
I never could get the hang
of writing those things.

 

[ivpotter]

Mike

Thanks for your answer but I've now solved it - I spent ages trawling the net trying to find the answer to this thinking it a perl problem.

Since posting I tried achieving the same via VB and discovered that I didn't have DSOleFile installed - I'd presumed that this would be available if I had Win32::OLE available and I had already proved that to be the case.

Thanks anyway

Ivor

 

[ivpotter]

You could achieve this by accessing the datecreated method of $doc_prop via my original code.

You may need to install DSOleFile which can be obtained from ...

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;Q224351

Unfortunately I'm not sure how to interpret the format of the value returned and I'm struggling to find any info on this.

Hope you have better luck.

Cheers

Ivor

 

[MikeLacey]

Glad you're sorted Ivor Mike

"Experience is the comb that Nature gives us, after we are bald."

Is that a haiku?
I never could get the hang
of writing those things.

 

[ironpawz]

Excellent people using dsofile in perl for document properties. I can read them also but I can set them!

My script is a little messy (no perl expert but I love it). It will not set the properties am I doing something stupid? Thanks. BTW I do have a tool that does this in VB but it resets the dates and perl is simpler to use so I'd rather learn more perl. When I can write the properties I can set the modified dates back at the end of the job.


# use strict;
use Win32::OLE;
use File::Spec;

my $PropertyReader = Win32::OLE->new('DSOleFile.PropertyReader', 'Quit');

my $directory = "c:\\temp\\cst";


opendir(DNAME, $directory) || die "Unable to open the requested directory: $directory\n";

while( my $filename = readdir( DNAME ) ) {

next if ($filename eq '.' or $filename eq '..');
# next if /\.doc$/;

my $fullfilename = File::Spec->catdir($directory,$filename);

my $properties = $PropertyReader->GetDocumentProperties($fullfilename)

# my $propertiez = $PropertyReader->SetDocumentProperties($fullfilename)

|| die("Unable read file properties for '$fullfilename' ", Win32::OLE->LastError());


if (0 == 0)
# if ( !$properties->{title} || length($properties->{title}) == 0)
{
# print "File '$filename' --- Title not set setting to this\n";

$properties->SetProperty('title', "this one"

$properties->SetProperty('author', "this"
$properties->SetProperty('comments', "this"
$properties->SetProperty('company', "this"
$properties->SetProperty(title, "this one"
$properties->SetProperty(Title, "this one"
$properties->SetProperty({title}, "this one"
$properties->SetProperty("title", "this one"



# print "me File '$filename' --- Title property is set to '" . $properties->{title} ."'\n";

# print $properties->author;
print $properties->title;
print "\n\n";

# print $properties->comments;
# print $properties->datecreated;
# print $properties->company;


# } else {
# print "File '$filename' --- Title property is set to '" . $properties->{title} ."'\n";

}

}

closedir(DNAME);

 

[ironpawz]

If anyone gets here looking for document properties settings this script works really well. Get the latest dsofile.exe from MS first and try this.

use File::Find;
use Win32::OLE;

$feeddir = @ARGV[0];
$feeddir =~ s/\\/\//; # If the dir is given using \ (like c:\temp) then subsitute all \ for /'s
$feeddir =~ s/\\/\//;
$feeddir =~ s/\\/\//;
#if ($feeddir eq "&quot
#{
#system("cls"
#print "$feeddir\n";
#print "\n\n\n\nNo directory specified\n\n";
#print "You need to specify a driectory to search down EG... thisfile.pl c:\\csvdir\n\n\n\n\n";
#die;
#}

chdir("$feeddir" # Change working directory to the now corrected directory given on the command line

find(\&wanted, "$feeddir" # use the built in find command with the wanted subroutine and send it the $feeddir variable


sub wanted # the wanted subrouting is used to select only documents and change the company name

{
# pass over any file not ending in doc/DOC/xls/XLS etc

/\.doc$/ or /\.DOC$/ or /\.xls$/ or /\.XLS$/ or /\.ppt$/ or /\.PPT$/ or /\.dot$/ or /\.DOT$/ or return;
$filename = $File::Find::name;


my $PropertyReader = Win32::OLE->new('DSOleFile.PropertyReader', 'Quit');
my $comp = "see you in hell";
#print "$filename\n";
my $properties = $PropertyReader->GetDocumentProperties($filename);
# || die("Unable read file properties for '$fullfilename' ", Win32::OLE->LastError());

if ( !$properties->{title} || length($properties->{title}) >= 0)
{

# heart of the file Record filename / current company field / current date
# change the company name and print file name again and company name


print "1 $filename CN $properties->{'company'} \n";
$properties->{'company'} = $comp; #|| die("Unable set 'Title' for '$filename' ", Win32::OLE->LastError());
print "2 $filename CN $properties->{'company'} \n\n";


}
}
closedir(DNAME);