Manage Document Properties

Introduction

Microsoft Excel provides the ability to add properties to spreadsheet files. These document properties provide useful information and are divided into 2 categories as detailed below.

System-defined (built-in) properties: Built-in properties contain general information about the document like document title, author name, document statistics, and so on.
User-defined (custom) properties: Custom properties defined by the end user in the form of name‑value pairs.

The most important point to know about built-in and custom properties is that built-in properties can be accessed and modified, but not created or removed. However, custom properties can be created and managed.

How to Manage Document Properties Using Microsoft Excel

Microsoft Excel allows you to manage the document properties of the Excel files in a WYSIWYG manner. Please follow the below steps to open the Properties dialog in Excel 2016.

From the File menu, select Info.

Selecting Info Menu

Click on Properties heading and select “Advanced Properties”.

Clicking Advanced Properties Selection

Manage the file’s document properties.

Properties Dialog

In the Properties dialog, there are different tabs, like General, Summary, Statistics, Contents, and Custom. Each tab helps configure different kinds of information related to the file. The Custom tab is used to manage custom properties.

How to Work with Document Properties Using Aspose.Cells

Developers can dynamically manage the document properties using the Aspose.Cells for Python via .NET APIs. This feature helps developers to store useful information along with the file, such as when the file was received, processed, time‑stamped, and so on.

Aspose.Cells for Python via .NET directly writes the information about API and Version Number in output documents. For example, upon rendering Document to PDF, Aspose.Cells for Python via .NET populates Application field with the value ‘Aspose.Cells’ and PDF Producer field with the value, e.g., ‘Aspose.Cells for Python via .NET v17.9’.

Please note that you cannot instruct Aspose.Cells for Python via .NET to change or remove this information from output Documents.

How to Add or Remove Custom Document Properties

As we described earlier at the beginning of this topic, developers cannot add or remove built-in properties because these properties are system‑defined, but it is possible to add or remove custom properties because these are user‑defined.

How to Add Custom Properties

Aspose.Cells for Python via .NET APIs has exposed the add method for the CustomDocumentPropertyCollection class in order to add custom properties to the collection. The add method adds the property to the Excel file and returns a reference for the new document property as an Aspose.Cells.Properties.DocumentProperty object.

Advanced topics

Print and Preview workbook Manage Worksheets of Microsoft Excel files.