Anyone good at MS Word Visual Basic macros? [resolved]

I have a very ingraned, hard to stop habit of skimming and filling in the blanks while I read. I have to give a history presentation in a few days and one thing that helps me a lot is to have every second word in bold.

Normally I wouldnt make a request like this, but Ive helped a lot of people on this forum, and I believe this would be quick and easy for those who already know how to do it.

If its not too much trouble for you, could someone please make me a simple macro that makes every second word bold?

Id appreciate it very much! :blush:

Am I any good at Word Macros? Never laid eyes on the beasts until about 30 minutes ago....but being the curious sort that I am, I opened Word and came up with the following:

VB Code:

Sub Macro1()
    Dim i As Integer
    Dim bDone As Boolean
    Selection.HomeKey Unit:=wdStory
    
    For i = 1 To Application.ActiveDocument.Words.Count Step 2
        Selection.MoveRight Unit:=wdWord, Count:=1, Extend:=wdExtend
        bDone = False
        Do While Not bDone
            If Selection.Text = "," Or Selection.Text = "." Or Selection.Text = " " Then
                Selection.MoveRight Unit:=wdWord, Count:=1
            Else
                bDone = True
            End If
        Loop
        Selection.Font.Bold = wdToggle
        Selection.MoveRight Unit:=wdWord, Count:=2
    Next i
 
End Sub

I started by recording my actions, then looking at the code. Made some changes, added a bit of logic to omit punctuation like commas and periods (you might want look at skipping the double quotes as well) and voila - it bolds every second word. Best of luck with your presentation. cheers.

Okay, this one is a bit more difficult than it sounds.

Using the word.count does not count as you think it would. As indicated, it does count things like commas and periods as words... don't forget semi-colons, colons, apostrophes, and the whole gamut of symbols!!! NOT TO MENTION PARAGRAPHS (you can see them by toggling show/hide on the toolbar). You can get a more accurate word count using/automating the word count dialog box... however, then the complication comes when navigating through the document... because Word will still go through these items that you and I would not consider words (commas, periods, paragraphs, etc.). Hyphens of course cause the worst problem, because you have to account for these as being in the middle of what you would consider a word in this instance (you wouldn't want half bold).

Through trial-and-error you can modify your code as you find non-words cropping up... you will need to determine how much time you really want to spend on getting this just right, or close enough. If you find a modification you need to make in the code, you can simply undo the previous macro bold assignment, revise your case selection, then run the code again!!

I tried several ways last night to accomplish this with "simple" code, but to no avail. Following is what I've settled into. It does not account for everything, but I don't have a need to do anything like this so I'll let you decide how much more time to invest.

VB Code:

Private Sub BoldEOWord()
'Declare variable for count of words in active document
    Dim iDocWordCount As Integer
'If you want to use the word count dialog box use the following code, but the rest
'of my code uses the active document's word.count property
    'Dim DialogWordCount As Word.Dialog
    'Set DialogWordCount = Dialogs(wdDialogToolsWordCount)
    'DialogWordCount.Execute
   ' iDocWordCount = DialogWordCount.Words
    
'Declare variable for active document
    Dim DocToUse As Word.Document
    'Set document to currently active document
    Set DocToUse = Word.ActiveDocument
    Let iDocWordCount = DocToUse.Words.Count
'Declare variable for word to bold
    Dim iWordToBold As Integer
    'Set value to 1, or set to 2 if you want to start on the second word
    Let iWordToBold = 1
'Declare toggle variable for bold or not bold
    Dim EvenWord As Boolean
'Start the process
With DocToUse
      'Go to first word
      .Words(iWordToBold).Select
        With Selection
            .Font.Bold = True
        End With
       EvenWord = False
        iWordToBold = iWordToBold + 1
'Start loop on second word
    Do Until iWordToBold >= iDocWordCount
      .Words(iWordToBold).Select
      Select Case Selection.Characters.Count
        Case Is = 1
                    If Selection.Text = "-" Then
                        If EvenWord = False Then
                            Selection.Font.Bold = True
                            EvenWord = True
                        Else
                            EvenWord = False
                        End If
                    End If
            iWordToBold = iWordToBold + 1
        
        Case Is = 2
            Select Case Selection.Text
                Case Is = ". "
                     iWordToBold = iWordToBold + 1
                Case Is = ", "
                     iWordToBold = iWordToBold + 1
                Case Is = ": "
                     iWordToBold = iWordToBold + 1
                Case Is = "; "
                     iWordToBold = iWordToBold + 1
                Case Else
                    'small words like "a" "I", this is where number lists
                    'and bullets may cause issues
                    With Selection
                        If EvenWord = True Then
                            .Font.Bold = True
                            EvenWord = False
                        Else
                            EvenWord = True
                        End If
                    End With
                iWordToBold = iWordToBold + 1
            End Select
        
        Case Is = 3
            If Selection.Text = ".  " Then
                iWordToBold = iWordToBold + 1
            Else
                    With Selection
                        If EvenWord = True Then
                            .Font.Bold = True
                            EvenWord = False
                        Else
                            EvenWord = True
                        End If
                    End With
                iWordToBold = iWordToBold + 1
            End If
        Case Is > 3
                With Selection
                    If EvenWord = True Then
                        .Font.Bold = True
                        EvenWord = False
                    Else
                        EvenWord = True
                    End If
                End With
            iWordToBold = iWordToBold + 1
      End Select
            
    Loop
End With
 
End Sub

You will need to add error trapping as you see fit.

Also, this uses direct formatting... if your document contains any special formatting that includes bold, you may get unexpected results (I didn't use styles, bullets, numbers, etc. during my testing, so you might want to account for that if other people will need to use this macro later).

Save the macro in your Normal.dot, add it to your toolbar and it's there and ready for you at the click of a button!

Good luck!
Mary

Thanks a lot for this! Its going to be a big help! Im impressed how much you two did.

p.s. Sorry for not replying sooner.