Adding more highlight colors to Word

[mansky99]

Hi all,
I'm running Word X and Word 2004 on Mac OSX (Jaguar, Panther and Tiger)
and would like to have more colors available to Users for highlight colors
than are currently displayed by default. I noticed that border colors has a
"More Colors" button that allows Users to choose from a wide array of colors.
I don't see an equivalent button, on Word X or Word 2004 on my Macs, to allow
Users to choose from wide array of highlight colors.

Does HighlightColor property support the use of the RGB function? How can
I add more color selections to the highlight colors for these versions of
Word?

Thanks!

Ed

 

[CyberTaz]

Highlight colors themselves cannot be modified. However you can use Format>
Borders & Shading to apply shading to a paragraph. The shading can be any
color you want & can also be included in a Style.

HTH |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[mansky99]

Thanks CyberTaz, I hadn't used the Format>Borders&Shadings dialog before.

Question: What's the difference between the .DefaultHighlightColorIndex
property and the BackgroundPatternColor property? Are they properties of
different objects? Hence the reason why one cannot have "more colors"
w/highlight color but can have "more colors" w/backgroundpatterncolor.

It looks like the .BackgroundPatternColor value is the result of an RGB
function call. Is that correct?

Ed

 

[CyberTaz]

Well, not being a programmer, Ed, I can't give you an absolute answer, but I
believe your analysis is pretty close if not spot on. I would expect that
others in the group - who know what they're talking about - may very well
jump in to bail me out here
Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Ed:

All colours in Microsoft Office are handled as RGB integers internally.

The difference in the palettes is indeed because they are different objects.

However, I suspect the real cause of the difference is that the objects were
implemented at different points in the product life-cycle. From memory, the
Highlight Colour Index object dates back in the mists of time to the first
GUI Word, when only 16 colours were available

The "Pattern" objects are much newer and I believe they support the full
24-bit colour table.

Cheers

Thanks CyberTaz, I hadn't used the Format>Borders&Shadings dialog before.

Question: What's the difference between the .DefaultHighlightColorIndex
property and the BackgroundPatternColor property? Are they properties of
different objects? Hence the reason why one cannot have "more colors"
w/highlight color but can have "more colors" w/backgroundpatterncolor.

It looks like the .BackgroundPatternColor value is the result of an RGB
function call. Is that correct?

Ed

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Sydney, Australia. mailto:[email protected]

 

[mansky99]

Thanks John, I suspected as much.

Do you know which element of the Dialogs collection class that Color dialog
window with the 5 Color menu items at the top (one of which is crayons)
corresponds to? This window pops up when one presses the "More Colors" button
on the Format>Borders&Shading>Tab Shading dialog window?

That's the window I'd like to get to directly with my macro, but I can't
find it listed in the VB help files on Word X or Word 2004.

Ed

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Ed:

Not off-hand, I don't. I could go look for it if you really need it.

However, I do not think you can get to that dialog. VBA hasn't been updated
for a while in Mac Word. The dialog you are referring to was one of the new
additions in 2004. I don't believe it was extended to the VBA interpreter
at all. And it is used in more than one place in the UI.

VBA was planned to go away when they did a lot of this work, so they did not
put any work into it.

However: You don't need the "Dialog", do you? Surely you can address the
object itself and fire in the colours you want directly?

With Selection.ParagraphFormat
With .Shading
.Texture = wdTextureNone
.ForegroundPatternColor = wdColorAutomatic
.BackgroundPatternColor = wdColorPink
End With
End Sub


Cheers

Thanks John, I suspected as much.

Do you know which element of the Dialogs collection class that Color dialog
window with the 5 Color menu items at the top (one of which is crayons)
corresponds to? This window pops up when one presses the "More Colors" button
on the Format>Borders&Shading>Tab Shading dialog window?

That's the window I'd like to get to directly with my macro, but I can't
find it listed in the VB help files on Word X or Word 2004.

Ed

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Sydney, Australia. mailto:[email protected]

 

[mansky99]

Hi John
I can, of course, hardcode a specific color in a macro for the
highlight/background pattern color. I really wanted however to be able to
allow the end User to select a color from the same large range of colors
available to the User as is available for the foreground color. It looked to
me as if the dialog window that opens upon pressing the "More Colors" button
is the main selection mechanism in Word to select from the full range of
colors. If I could call that dialog directly, that would be great.

I see this dialog window in both Word X and Word 2004, but can't find it
listed in the list of items in the "Built-in Dialog Windows" help in VB. If
you could pass along to me the name of this "Colors" dialog window, that
would be greatly appreciated, or tell me how to find it's name in VB help.

Related to this "Colors" dialog window, I noticed that the 3rd menu item
in the "Colors", called "Color Palattes", appears to allow the User to add
new colors to any of several lists of pre-defined colors. Are the colors in
these pre-defined lists of Colors correspond to the files in the folder
Office/Border Art? Is there any MS docs on the format of these color files?
I certainly would like to know how to add such files to my Office
installation. Any tips as to how to add color files to Office are also
greatly appreciated!

Many thanks!

Ed

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Ed:

Sorry: I wasn't clear. I can't get the name of that dialog because it does
not have a name in VBA. It is not a member of the VBA "Dialogs" collection.

I think you might find that it is an Apple system dialog. Microsoft Office
tries to be a good Mac citizen where possible -- it will always call a
system dialog in preference to creating its own if there is one that will do
the job.

You could try iterating the Dialogs collection, Showing each one in turn,
until you come to the one you want, and then get hold of its number.

To the best of my knowledge, the "Colour Palettes" you are looking at are
actually "Microsoft Office Themes". As far as I know, in Office 2004 they
are stored in the Normal template. But I am guessing.

In Office 2008, there is a folder for them. See /Applications/Microsoft
Office 2008/Office/Media/Templates/Office Themes/

I don't think there is any way short of hacking some C++ to reach them in
Office 2004.

Sorry: I just don't know.

Cheers

Hi John
I can, of course, hardcode a specific color in a macro for the
highlight/background pattern color. I really wanted however to be able to
allow the end User to select a color from the same large range of colors
available to the User as is available for the foreground color. It looked to
me as if the dialog window that opens upon pressing the "More Colors" button
is the main selection mechanism in Word to select from the full range of
colors. If I could call that dialog directly, that would be great.

I see this dialog window in both Word X and Word 2004, but can't find it
listed in the list of items in the "Built-in Dialog Windows" help in VB. If
you could pass along to me the name of this "Colors" dialog window, that
would be greatly appreciated, or tell me how to find it's name in VB help.

Related to this "Colors" dialog window, I noticed that the 3rd menu item
in the "Colors", called "Color Palattes", appears to allow the User to add
new colors to any of several lists of pre-defined colors. Are the colors in
these pre-defined lists of Colors correspond to the files in the folder
Office/Border Art? Is there any MS docs on the format of these color files?
I certainly would like to know how to add such files to my Office
installation. Any tips as to how to add color files to Office are also
greatly appreciated!

Many thanks!

Ed

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Sydney, Australia. mailto:[email protected]