Is there a way to load data from a document without opening it entirely?

Similar to when you load a drawing, the document is loaded but not shown as an open document.  I've tried using the silent option with OpenDoc6, but no luck.  The document just opens like normals.

I have a custom drawing options that needs custom data from the references files, so it would be ideal to be able to access this in the background.  I realize there was a previous post about this, but the solution was posted as a link which is now broken.

Thanks in advance.