This advice is old enough to drive, but Joel Spolsky suggested doing just that. "Word and Excel have extremely complete object models, available via COM Automa

This advice is old enough to drive, but Joel Spolsky suggested doing just that. "Word and Excel have extremely complete object models, available via COM Automation, which allow you to programmatically do anything. In many situations, you are better off reusing the code inside Office rather than trying to reimplement it. Here are a few examples..." https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2008/02/19/why-are-the-microsoft-office-file-formats-so-complicated-and-some-workarounds/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2008/02/19/why-are-the-micros...