Trying to access Word doc with MATLAB COM interface returns empty object

I am trying to read the contents of a Word document from MATLAB R2019b using the COM interface. However, even the most simple operations are showing that there is no content in my document, which is not the case:

word = actxserver('Word.Application'); 
wdoc = word.Documents.Open('C:\somewhere\somefile.docx'); 
wdoc.Content.Text  %indicates that there is no text in my document
wdoc.Sections  %indicates that there are 0 sections in my document

MATLAB is not showing any errors or warnings during this process, yet the output is still incorrect. How can I fix this?

Answer 1

[MathWorks Support Team]

1) Make sure that you can open the file in Word outside of MATLAB, just to verify that it isn't locked.

2) Open MATLAB with Administrative privileges. See the following MATLAB Answers post, which explains how to do this on Windows:

https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/344572-how-to-make-a-shortcut-to-always-run-as-administrator

3) In the command window, register MATLAB as a COM server and verify the release version:

>> ! matlab -regserver

A new MATLAB command window will be created. Verify the version is the same as the current MATLAB version using

>> version

Then close the window.

4) Run the following MATLAB code, which should output the content text and section headings of your document:

filename = 'C:\somewhere\somefile.docx'; %replace this with the full path of your document
word = actxserver('Word.Application'); 
word.Visible = 1;
wdoc = word.Documents.Open(filename); 
content = wdoc.Content.Text %make sure this output is correct
sections = wdoc.Sections %make sure this output is correct
Quit(word);
delete(word);