How to Convert Word Table to PDF using VBA

Export Word Table as PDF using VBA

Anyone who is using Word for quite sometime will agree that Tables and Images are bit scary when it comes to viewing across versions or machines. A Table which looks great in your machine might not look so if he uses a different version of Word.

In that case it is better to have the Table converted as PDF in your machine and circulate the same. In last post we saw how to export part of text to a new document using ExportFragment method. Here we export a Table as PDF using ExportAsFixedFormat method.

The following snippet does exactly the same:

Sub Table2PDF()

Dim oTab As Word.Table
Dim oRange As Word.Range

Set oTab = ActiveDocument.Tables(1)

oTab.Range.ExportAsFixedFormat "D:\Documents and Settings\Admin\My Documents\Tab_PDF.pdf", wdExportFormatPDF

End Sub

See also:
Convert Word to PDF using VBA

How to Export Parts of Document using Word VBA

Copy Content with Formatting to New Document using Word VBA

Not all the tens and hundreds of pages in a Word document interests you or matters to you. There are some documents, which we use for reference. All we need is a paragraph/section from the document. If it is a book we used to take a photo-copy of the same and keep it in a folder. How to do the same in a Word document - and in an automated way with all the formatting intact?

 ExportFragment method in Word VBA provides the solution. It creates a new document from the existing one for the Range of your choice.

Here is an example where it exports eleventh paragraph of the document to a new one.

Sub PartofText()

Dim oWDRange As Word.Range

Set oWDRange = ActiveDocument.Paragraphs(11).Range
oWDRange.ExportFragment "D:\Documents and Settings\Admin\My Documents\Reference_11.docx", wdFormatDocumentDefault

End Sub

See also

How to export Word Range as RTF using VBA

How to Format Part of Content Controls in Word VBA

Word VBA - Format Some portion of Rich Text Content Control Programatically

ContentControls have become ubiquitous with Word documents nowadays. Rich Text Content Control is used by many developers and authors to represent useful information.

At times there is a necessity to highlight / format some part of the Text in that control. You can either search for the text and highlight it or Highlight them based on position

The following example shows how to boldface certain portion of ContentControl

Sub FormatContentControl()

Dim oCC As ContentControl
Dim oCCRange As Range
Dim oCCRngFormat As Range
Dim oChr As Range

Set oCC = ActiveDocument.ContentControls(1)
oCC.Type = wdContentControlRichText
Set oCCRange = oCC.Range
Set oCCRngFormat = oCCRange.Duplicate

oCC.LockContentControl = False
oCC.LockContents = False

oCCRngFormat.Start = 20
oCCRngFormat.End = oCCRange.End

For Each oChr In oCCRngFormat.Characters
    oChr.Font.Bold = True
Next oChr

oCCRngFormat.Font.Bold = -1
oCCRngFormat.Font.Underline = WdUnderline.wdUnderlineSingle

oCCRngFormat.Start = oCCRange.End
oCCRngFormat.Font.Bold = 0
oCCRngFormat.Font.Underline = WdUnderline.wdUnderlineNone


End Sub

See also
How to retrieve value from Content Controls using Word VBA
How to add Content Controls using VBA

How to Search and Highlight/Tag a string in Word VBA

How to Search Content for Specific String/Text using Word VBA

This action is performed often by programmers - there are couple of ways to do

1. Selection.Find
2. Content.Find

We will have a look at how to search a string, highlight the string and tag the same using Word VBA. This needs document to be open

Sub Highlight_Tag_Found_Word()

Dim sFindText As String

sFindText = "Olympics"

Selection.ClearFormatting

Selection.HomeKey wdStory, wdMove

Selection.Find.ClearFormatting

Selection.Find.Execute sFindText

 

Do Until Selection.Find.Found = False

        Selection.Range.HighlightColorIndex = wdPink
        
        Selection.InsertBefore "< FoundWord >"
        
        Selection.InsertAfter < /FoundWord >
        
        Selection.MoveRight
        
        Selection.Find.Execute

Loop

 

End Sub

How to create a Trendline Chart using Excel VBA

Excel VBA - Trendline Charts

Here are some snippets useful to create a TrendLine Chart in Excel

Have used the entire data from the given sheet to create the chart. Have used the UsedRange function to get that.

If you want to have a specified range you can pass that also

Sub Create_TrendLine_Chart_Excel_2003(ByRef oRep As Worksheet, ByVal iLeft As Double, ByVal iTop As Double, ByVal sChartTitle As String, ByRef oSource As Range)
Dim oChts As ChartObjects           '* Chart Object Collection
Dim oCht As ChartObject             '* Chart Object
On Error GoTo Err_Chart
    Set oChts = oRep.ChartObjects
    Set oCht = oChts.Add(iLeft, iTop, 400, 450)
   
    oCht.Chart.SetSourceData oSource, PlotBy:=xlColumns
    oCht.Chart.ChartType = xlLineMarkers
   
    oCht.Chart.HasTitle = True
    oCht.Chart.ChartTitle.Text = sChartTitle
   
    oCht.Chart.Legend.Position = xlLegendPositionRight
   
    oCht.Chart.HasAxis(XlAxisType.xlCategory) = True
    oCht.Chart.Axes(XlAxisType.xlCategory, xlPrimary).HasTitle = True
    oCht.Chart.Axes(XlAxisType.xlCategory, xlPrimary).AxisTitle.Characters.Text = ""
   
    oCht.Chart.HasAxis(XlAxisType.xlValue) = True
    oCht.Chart.Axes(XlAxisType.xlValue, xlPrimary).HasTitle = True
    oCht.Chart.Axes(xlValue, xlPrimary).AxisTitle.Text = "Percentage Done" '.Axes(Type:=XlAxisType.xlValue).AxisTitle.Text = "% Done"
    oCht.Chart.Axes(xlValue).MaximumScale = 1
   
    oCht.Chart.Axes(xlCategory).TickLabelSpacing = 1
    oCht.Chart.Axes(xlCategory).TickLabels.Font.Size = 8
   
    'oCht.Chart.SetElement (msoElementPrimaryCategoryGridLinesMajor)
    If Not oCht Is Nothing Then Set oCht = Nothing
    If Not oChts Is Nothing Then Set oChts = Nothing

Err_Chart:
If Err <> 0 Then
   Debug.Assert Err = 0
   Debug.Print Err.Description
   If Err.Number = 94 Then  'Invalid Use of Null Error
        Err.Clear
        Resume Next
   Else
        Err.Clear
        Resume Next
   End If
End If

End Sub

For some reason the above was creating a problem in Excel 2007 and above. Hence created a separate snippet for it

Sub Create_TrendLine_Chart_Excel_2007(ByRef oRep As Worksheet, ByVal iLeft As Double, ByVal iTop As Double, ByVal sChartTitle As String)
Dim oChts As ChartObjects           '* Chart Object Collection
Dim oCht As ChartObject             '* Chart Object
On Error GoTo Err_Chart
    Set oChts = oRep.ChartObjects
    Set oCht = oChts.Add(iLeft, iTop, 400, 450)
   
    oCht.Chart.ChartWizard Source:=oRep.UsedRange
    oCht.Chart.ChartType = xlLineMarkers
   
    oCht.Chart.HasTitle = True
    oCht.Chart.ChartTitle.Text = sChartTitle
   
    oCht.Chart.Legend.Position = xlLegendPositionRight
   
   
    oCht.Chart.HasAxis(XlAxisType.xlCategory) = True
    oCht.Chart.Axes(XlAxisType.xlCategory, xlPrimary).HasTitle = True
    oCht.Chart.Axes(XlAxisType.xlCategory, xlPrimary).AxisTitle.Characters.Text = ""
   
    oCht.Chart.HasAxis(XlAxisType.xlValue) = True
    oCht.Chart.Axes(XlAxisType.xlValue, xlPrimary).HasTitle = True
    oCht.Chart.Axes(xlValue, xlPrimary).AxisTitle.Text = "Percentage Done" '.Axes(Type:=XlAxisType.xlValue).AxisTitle.Text = "% Done"
    oCht.Chart.Axes(xlValue).MaximumScale = 1
    'oCht.Chart.SetElement (msoElementPrimaryCategoryGridLinesMajor)

Err_Chart:
If Err <> 0 Then
   Debug.Assert Err = 0
   Debug.Print Err.Description
   If Err.Number = 94 Then  'Invalid Use of Null Error
        Err.Clear
        Resume Next
   Else
        Err.Clear
        Resume Next
   End If
End If

End Sub

ChartType = xlLineMarkers makes this Chart a TrendLine. You can try your luck by selecting other types

How to Extract Properties from Excel/Word without Opening File using VBA

How to get CustomProperties from Excel Workbook/Word Document (VBA) without physically opening the file


There are many cases where we need to get the document property without the file being opened in VBA.

This can be achieved by using the objects available in DSOFile.dll. This file can be downloaded from http://support.microsoft.com/kb/224351

Once this downloaded and installed. You need to add a reference to DSO Ole Document's property library (refer image below)

Function GetPropFromDSO(ByVal sFile As String, ByVal sCP As String) As String

Dim oFil As DSOFile.OleDocumentProperties
Dim oCP As DSOFile.CustomProperties

On Error GoTo Err_Tp
    
    Set oFil = New OleDocumentProperties
    
    oFil.Open sFile, True
    
    Set oCP = oFil.CustomProperties
    GetRevFromDSO = oCP(sCP)
.Value    
    oFil.Close

Err_Tp:
If Err <> 0 Then
    Err.Clear
    Resume Next
End If

End Function

The function gets the Filename and the Property to be extracted and returns the property value.

Here are some important custom properties

How to know if a Excel Workbook has Macro without opening it

How to link Excel Table to ListBox using VBA

Fill a ListBox from Excel Table using VBA / Populate a ListBox from Excel Table using VBA

Let us take a Excel table as shown below - a list of Top 10 All time hits .

Let us assume that we need to populate the Listbox with values from Column 2

The following code will help you populate the data

Dim oWS As Worksheet
    Set oWS = ThisWorkbook.Sheets(3)
    Me.ListBox1.List = oWS.ListObjects(1).ListColumns("Title").DataBodyRange.Value
End Sub

How to XCOPY files using VBA

How to copy set of files from one folder to another using VBA / How to run DOS Commands in VBA

After a long hibernation I am posting in this blog, thanks to Yaswi.

There is nothing like using the command prompt. This gives a good satisfaction for any programmer / administrator as s/he moves around the files, typing the commands etc

Here is a simple code that moves all the files from one folder to another using XCOPY. You can use all the options of XCOPY with VBA

Sub Copy_Bunch_Of_Files()

Shell "cmd /c xcopy /y c:\temp\*.* C:\Temp\Backup"

End Sub

How to copy RichTextBox contents to Word document

How to insert Rich Text Box Content to Word document using VBA

Let us have a form with a RichTextBox and a Command Button as shown below

The following VBA code will copy the Contents of RichTextBox to the First Paragraph of the ActiveDocument

Private Sub cmdCopyRTFContent_Click()
    
    Dim oRange As Word.Range            ' Word Range
    Dim sPath As String                 ' Temp Path
    
    Set oRange = ActiveDocument.Paragraphs(1).Range
    
    sPath = "c:\shasurdata\Temp.rtf"
    
    Open sPath For Output As 1
        Print #1, RichTextBox1.TextRTF
    Close #1
    
    oRange.ImportFragment sPath
    
End Sub

The program Exports the contents of RichTextBox to a RTF file and then imports to the Word document

How to edit Linked Objects using Word VBA

How to open and edit Linked Excel files from Word using VBA

One can insert an object in word by either linking or embedding. We have already seen How to Read and Edit Embedded objects using VBA, The following code will throw light on accessing a linked object from Word (Excel sheet) and editing the same.

Sub Edit_Linked_Excel_Objects()




Dim oXL As Excel.Application ' Excel App Object

Dim oWB As Excel.Workbook ' Workbook Object

Dim sWB As String ' Linked String

Dim oIShape As InlineShape ' Inline Shape Object



On Error GoTo Err_Report



Set oXL = New Excel.Application



For Each oIShape In ActiveDocument.InlineShapes

If InStr(1, oIShape.OLEFormat.ProgID, "Excel") Then



' Check if the Object is Linked

If oIShape.Type = wdInlineShapeLinkedOLEObject Then



' Get the Source Name of Linked Workbook

sWB = oIShape.LinkFormat.SourceFullName



If Len(Dir(sWB)) <> 0 Then

Set oWB = oXL.Workbooks.Open(sWB, , False)

oWB.Sheets(1).Range("A1").Value = "ID"

oWB.Save

oWB.Close False

oIShape.LinkFormat.Update

Else

MsgBox "Linked file not found"

End If

End If

End If







Next oIShape



Finally:



oXL.Quit

If Not oXL Is Nothing Then Set oXL = Nothing

If Not oWB Is Nothing Then Set oWB = Nothing

If Not oIShape Is Nothing Then Set oIShape = Nothing



Exit Sub

Err_Report:

MsgBox Err.Description & " - " & Err.Number

Err.Clear

GoTo Finally



End Sub

Hide Sheet Tabs using VBA / Hide Excel Sheet Tabs (2007/2010)

How to Hide Excel Sheet Names using VBA

If you want to hide the Sheet Tab (as shown below) you can do that using Excel Options

Hide / Unhide Sheet Tab using Excel VBA

Uncheck the Show sheet tabs checkbox from Advanced Tab of Options Menu

Hide / Unhide Sheet Tab using Excel VBA

You can do the same through Excel VBA

ActiveWindow.DisplayWorkbookTabs = False

How to Read Excel Sheet embedded in Word Document using VBA

How to edit Embedded Objects (Excel Workbook) using Word VBA

In our previous posts we have seen how to Embedd an Word Document in Excel Object . Now let us try to read Excel spreadsheet embedded in Word document.

Excel Object Libarary Reference

You need to add a reference to the Excel Object Libary as shown above from Tools --> References from Visual Basic Editor (VBE)

The code loops through the available InlineShapes and activates them if they are Excel Spreadsheet. Then it is assigned to an Excel workbook object, which can be programatically handled.

Sub Edit_Embedded_Excel_Objects()

Dim oWB As Excel.Workbook
Dim oIShape As InlineShape


For Each oIShape In ActiveDocument.InlineShapes
    If InStr(1, oIShape.OLEFormat.ProgID, "Excel") Then
        oIShape.OLEFormat.Activate
        Set oWB = oIShape.OLEFormat.Object
        oWB.Sheets(1).Range("A1").Value = "ProdID"
    End If
Next oIShape

End Sub

The code edits the value of the cell as shown below:

Edited Embedded Object using VBA

See how other Embedded objects are programmed

How to Extract All Formula's in Excel Sheet using VBA

Highlight all cells containing Formulas using Excel VBA

The following snippet highlights all cells that contain formula

Sub HighLight_Formula_Cells()

Dim oWS As Worksheet
Dim oCell As Range

Set oWS = ActiveSheet

For Each oCell In oWS.Cells.SpecialCells(xlCellTypeFormulas)
    oCell.Interior.ColorIndex = 36
    MsgBox oCell.Formula
Next oCell


End Sub

How to Connect XLSX file (Excel Workbook) through ADO

Using Excel (Xlsx) file as a database using VBA (ActiveX Data Objects - ADO)

In the past we have already seen how to Connect to an Excel file using ADO and query its contents. That was using Microsoft Excel 2003 or earlier. With Office 2007 the file formats haver changed to XLSX, which might create the following problems

External table is not in the expected format - Excel ADO VBA

or

Could not find installable ISAM.
Excel ADO VBA

to solve that use the following Connection string:


cN.ConnectionString = "Provider=Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0;Data Source=C:\Users\comp\documents\visual studio 2010\Projects\ExcelWorkbookDocLevel\ExcelWorkbookDocLevel\ExcelWorkbook1.xlsx;Extended Properties=Excel 12.0;Persist Security Info=False"

Excel VBA Autofilter - Specify Multiple Criteria using Array

How to pass an Array as Criteria in Excel Autofilter - VBA

After long time let us revisit our good old Autofilter Fruits example. The following figure shows the data available

If you need to filter say Oranges and Apples alone, you can either pass both criteria (Yes! I have avoided using - Mutliple criteria) or can try using an Array where you can pass multiple values



Sub AutoFilter_Using_Arrays()

Dim oWS As Worksheet

On Error GoTo Err_Filter

Dim arCriteria(0 To 1) As String

Set oWS = ActiveSheet

arCriteria(0) = "Apple"
arCriteria(1) = "Orange"

oWS.UsedRange.AutoFilter Field:=2, Criteria1:=arCriteria, Operator:=xlFilterValues

Finally:

If Not oWS Is Nothing Then Set oWS = Nothing

Err_Filter:
If Err <> 0 Then
MsgBox Err.Description
Err.Clear
GoTo Finally
End If
End Sub


If you leave out the Operator in Excel VBA Autofilter- Only Last Value of the Array Will be displayed

You can also pass the values directly like:


oWS.UsedRange.AutoFilter Field:=2, Criteria1:=Array("Apples","Peaches","Grapes), Operator:=xlFilterValues


Program/Macro to Highlight Editable Ranges in Protected Sheet

How to identify Editable ranges in a protected Excel sheet using VBA

My good friend Srikanth Srinivasan is a Project Manager whom Microsoft will definitely want to hire as evangelist. He uses the functionality of Excel to great extent and made it ubiquitous.

The following code was for him, which highlights the ranges that are not protected in Excel sheet


Sub HighLight_Editable_Ranges()


Dim oWS As Worksheet
Dim oRng As AllowEditRange

Set oWS = ActiveSheet

oWS.Unprotect

For Each oRng In oWS.Protection.AllowEditRanges
oRng.Range.Interior.ColorIndex = 35
Next oRng

oWS.Protect

End Sub



How to retrieve value from Content Controls using Word VBA

The following snippet validates the user selection using VBA. This code uses the content control created in previous example - (How to add Content Controls using VBA)

Sub Validate_ContentControl()

Dim oCC As ContentControl
Dim OCCEntry As ContentControlListEntry

Set oCC = ActiveDocument.ContentControls(1)

For i = 1 To oCC.DropdownListEntries.Count
     If oCC.DropdownListEntries.Item(i).Text = oCC.Range.Text Then
        Set OCCEntry = oCC.DropdownListEntries.Item(i)
        ' Check the text against value - can be checked directly with text
        If OCCEntry.Value = 1 Then
            MsgBox "Correct"
        Else
            MsgBox "Try Again"
            Exit Sub
        End If
     End If
    
Next i

How to add Content Controls using VBA

Add Combobox to Word document using VBA

The following code would add a Combo Box control to the existing Word document:

Sub Add_A_ContentControl()

Dim oCC As ContentControl

Set oCC = ActiveDocument.ContentControls.Add(wdContentControlComboBox, Selection.Range)
oCC.SetPlaceholderText , , "Which Team Won the World Cup 2010"

oCC.Title = "World Cup Teams"
oCC.DropdownListEntries.Add "Spain", 1
oCC.DropdownListEntries.Add "Netherlands", 0
oCC.DropdownListEntries.Add "France", 2
oCC.DropdownListEntries.Add "Uruguay", 3

' Prevents the Control from being deleted
oCC.LockContentControl = True
End Sub

Lock the control by setting the LockContentControl attribute to prevent it getting accidentally deleted.

The content control gets added as shown below

Combobox Content Control in Word VBA

GetObject Error with Internet Explorer

How to get active Internet Explorer Object using Getobject in VBA

Set IEBrowser = GetObject(, "InternetExplorer.Application")

Using GetObject for Internet Explorer in VBA throws Runtime error 429 - ActiveX can't create object. The  solution for this is to use ShellWindows

Runtime error 429 - ActiveX can't create object - GetObject for Internet Explorer

Public Function IENavigate(ByRef IEBrowser) As Boolean

Dim theSHD As SHDocVw.ShellWindows
Dim IE As SHDocVw.InternetExplorer
Dim i As Long
Dim bIEFound As Boolean

On Error GoTo Err_IE
    
    Set theSHD = New SHDocVw.ShellWindows
    For i = 0 To theSHD.Count - 1
        Set IE = theSHD.Item(i)
        If Not IE Is Nothing Then
            If InStr(1, IE.LocationURL, "file://", vbTextCompare) = 0 And Len(IE.LocationURL) <> 0 Then
                If IE.Visible = True Then bIEFound = True: Exit For
                
            End If
        End If
    Next

    If bIEFound = True Then
        Set IEBrowser = IE
        IENavigate = True
    Else
        IENavigate = False
    End If
      
' -------------------------------------
' Error Handling
' -------------------------------------
Err_IE:
    If Err <> 0 Then
        Err.Clear
        Resume Next
    End If
End Function

The above code uses Microsoft Internet controls reference:

Microsoft Internet controls reference

without which the following error might occur

---------------------------
Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications
---------------------------
Compile error:

User-defined type not defined
---------------------------
OK Help
---------------------------

Once you get the Internet Explorer object, you can use it as shown below:


Sub GEt_IE()

  Dim IEBrowser As InternetExplorer
  IENavigate IEBrowser
  If Not IEBrowser Is Nothing Then
    MsgBox IEBrowser.Document.Title
  End If




How to extract file name from FullPath string using VBA

Extract Name of the File from Path / Fullname using VBA

There are many methods to extract the filename from a given string. You can use FileSystemObject's function GetFileName or can use Arrays to get the last element of the array split by path separator

Here we use even simpler functions like Dir and InStrRev to achieve the same

Dir function will retrieve the name only if the file exists:


strFilePath = "C:\Users\comp\Documents\sample.xlsx"

sFileName = Dir(strFilePath)


If the file doesn't exist, Dir function will return an empty string. The following would be a better option


strFilePath = "C:\Users\comp\Documents\sample.xlsx"

sFileName = Mid(strFilePath, InStrRev(strFilePath, "\") + 1, Len(strFilePath))


Try it out and post the options you use