Programmatically Access Document Properties for Word 2007 Documents

I needed to do this in PowerShell running on a server with no MS Office applications installed. The trick, as suggested above, is to look inside the office file and examine the embedded XML files inside.

Here's a function that works like a cmdlet, which means you can simply save the script in the PowerShell scripts directory and call the function from any other PowerShell script.

# DocumentOfficePropertiesGet
# Example usage
#   From a PowerShell script:
#       $props = Invoke-Expression "c:\PowerShellScriptFolder\DocumentOfficePropertiesGet.ps1 -DocumentFullPathName ""d:\documents\my excel doc.xlsx"" -OfficeProperties ""dcterms:created;dcterms:modified"""

# Parameters

#    DocumentFullPathName -- full path and name of MS Office document
#    OfficeProperties -- semi-colon delimited string of property names as they
#              appear in the core.xml file. To see these names, rename any
#              MS Office document file to have the extension .zip, then look inside
#              the zip file. In the docProps folder open the core.xml file. The
#              core document properties are nodes under the cp:coreProperties node.

#         Example: dcterms:created;dcterms:modified;cp:lastModifiedBy

# Return value

#   The function returns a hashtable object -- in the above example, $props would contain
#   the name-value pairs for the requested MS Office document properties. In the calling script,
#   to get at the values:

#        $fooProperty = $props.'dcterms:created'
#        $barProperty = $props.'dcterms:modified'

[CmdletBinding()]
    [OutputType([System.Collections.Hashtable])]
    Param
    (
        [Parameter(Position=0,
            Mandatory=$false,
            HelpMessage="Enter the full path name of the document")]
            [ValidateNotNullOrEmpty()]
            [String] $DocumentFullPathName='e:\temp\supplier_List.xlsx',
        [Parameter(Position=1,
            Mandatory=$false,
            HelpMessage="Enter the Office properties semi-colon delimited")]
            [ValidateNotNullOrEmpty()]
            [String] $OfficeProperties='dcterms:created; dcterms:modified ;cp:lastModifiedBy;dc:creator'
    )
# We need the FileSystem assembly
Add-Type -AssemblyName System.IO.Compression.FileSystem

# This function unzips a zip file -- and it works on MS Office files directly: no need to
# rename them from foo.xlsx to foo.zip. It expects the full path name of the zip file
# and the path name for the unzipped files
function Unzip
{
    param([string]$zipfile, [string]$outpath)

    [System.IO.Compression.ZipFile]::ExtractToDirectory($zipfile, $outpath) *>$null
}

# Remove spaces from the OfficeProperties parameter
$OfficeProperties = $OfficeProperties.replace(' ','')

# Compose the name of the folder where we will unzip files
$zipDirectoryName = $env:TEMP + "\" + "TempZip"

# delete the zip directory if present
remove-item $zipDirectoryName -force -recurse -ErrorAction Ignore | out-null

# create the zip directory
New-Item -ItemType directory -Path $zipDirectoryName | out-null

# Unzip the files -- i.e. extract the xml files embedded within the MS Office document
unzip $DocumentFullPathName $zipDirectoryName

# get the docProps\core.xml file as [xml]
$coreXmlName = $zipDirectoryName + "\docProps\core.xml"
[xml]$coreXml = get-content -path $coreXmlName

# create an array of the requested properties
$requiredProperties = $OfficeProperties -split ";"

# create a hashtable to return the values
$docProperties = @{}

# Now look for each requested property
foreach($requiredProperty in $requiredProperties)
{
    # We will be lazy and ignore the namespaces. We need the local name only
    $localName = $requiredProperty -split ":"
    $localName = $localName[1]
    # Use XPath to fetch the node for this property
    $thisNode = $coreXml.coreProperties.SelectSingleNode("*[local-name(.) = '$localName']")
    if($thisNode -eq $null)
    {
        # To the hashtable, add the requested property name and its value -- null in this case
        $docProperties.Add($RequiredProperty, $null)
    }
    else
    {
        # To the hashtable, add the requested property name and its value
        $docProperties.Add($RequiredProperty, $thisNode.innerText)
    }
}

#clean up
remove-item $zipDirectoryName -force -recurse

# return the properties hashtable. To do this, just write the object to the output stream
$docProperties