w:hidden (Hide Style from UI)

Permanently hides a style from the authoring application's UI, regardless of whether the style is used in the document.

Parent elements

w:style

Description

w:hidden is a toggle element that instructs authoring applications to never show the style in any style picker, the Quick Styles gallery, or the Styles pane, even if it has been applied somewhere in the document.

It is defined in ECMA-376 Part 1 §17.7.4.4.

Unlike w:semiHidden (which hides the style until first use), w:hidden suppresses the style unconditionally and permanently from the UI. The style can still be applied programmatically.

Attributes

Attribute	Type	Possible Values	Description
`w:val`	`ST_OnOff`	`true`, `false`, `1`, `0`, `on`, `off`	Enables or disables the hidden status. Omitting `w:val` is equivalent to `true`.

Examples

<w:style w:type="character" w:styleId="InternalRef">
  <w:name w:val="Internal Reference"/>
  <w:hidden/>
  <w:rPr>
    <w:color w:val="0070C0"/>
  </w:rPr>
</w:style>

using DocumentFormat.OpenXml.Wordprocessing;

var style = new Style(
    new StyleName { Val = "Internal Reference" },
    new StyleHidden(),   // w:hidden
    new StyleRunProperties(
        new Color { Val = "0070C0" }
    )
)
{
    Type = StyleValues.Character,
    StyleId = "InternalRef"
};

Notes

w:hidden is stronger than w:semiHidden: w:semiHidden hides until first use, w:hidden hides permanently.
In the Open XML SDK, w:hidden is represented by the StyleHidden class.
Use this for programmatic/internal styles that end-users should never see or apply manually.