Java: Hide a Specific Paragraph in Word

When working with a Word document, we can encrypt the document to ensure its confidentiality. As an alternative, we can also choose to hide specific text content to prevent others from seeing them. This article will demonstrate how to programmatically hide a specific paragraph in a Word document using Java codes.

DEPENDENCY

In order to realize the function of hiding a specific paragraph in Word, we’ll need to use a free third-party library called Free Spire.Doc for Java. First of all, we can get the library from the link, and then add Spire.Doc.jar as a dependency in Java program. Or directly import it by adding the following Maven configuration in the pom.xml file.

<repositories>
<repository>
<id>com.e-iceblue</id>
<name>e-iceblue</name>
<url>https://repo.e-iceblue.com/nexus/content/groups/public/</url>
</repository>
</repositories>
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>e-iceblue</groupId>
<artifactId>spire.doc.free</artifactId>
<version>3.9.0</version>
</dependency>
</dependencies>

USING THE CODE

Free Spire.Doc for Java provides TextRange.getCharacterFormat().setHidden(boolean value) method to hide a specific paragraph in a Word document. The following are detailed steps.

l  Create a Document instance.

l  Load a sample Word document using Document.loadFromFile() method.

l  Get a specific section of the Word document using Document.getSections().get() method.

l  Get a specific paragraph of the section using Section.getParagraphs().get() method.

l  Loop through the child objects of the paragraph, and convert each child object as a text range if it is plain text. Then hide the text range using TextRange.getCharacterFormat().setHidden(boolean value) method.

l  Save the document to another file using Document.saveToFile() method.

import com.spire.doc.*;

import com.spire.doc.documents.*;
import com.spire.doc.fields.*;

public class HideParagraph {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        //Create a Document instance
        Document document = new Document();

        //Load a sample Word document
        document.loadFromFile("C:\\Users\\Test1\\Desktop\\sample.docx");

        //Get a specific section of Word
        Section sec = document.getSections().get(0);

        //Get a specific paragraph of the section
        Paragraph para = sec.getParagraphs().get(1);

        //Loop through the child objects
        for (Object docObj : para.getChildObjects()) {
            DocumentObject obj = (DocumentObject)docObj;

            //Determine if a child object is an instance of TextRange
            if ((obj instanceof TextRange)) {
                TextRange range = ((TextRange)(obj));

                //Hide the text range
                range.getCharacterFormat().setHidden(true);
            }
        }

        //Save the document to another file
        document.saveToFile("output/hideParagraph.docx", FileFormat.Docx_2013);
    }
}