AutoShapeType bug in Word 2007?

[Antagony]

I'm trying to write a macro to change the shape of the currently selected
picture to a rectangle with two diagonally opposing rounded corners
(msoShapeRound2DiagRectangle), but it just doesn't seem to work. I've coded
to check that the picture is converted to a Shape if it's an InlineShape and
the conversion code I'm using is this:

Selection.ShapeRange.AutoShapeType = msoShapeRound2DiagRectangle

Now, I've tried this in Excel and it work fine; so, as a workaround to this
apparent Word bug, I'm having to create an instance of Excel, cut the image
from the Word doc, paste it into Excel, apply the new auto shape format, cut
it from Excel and finally paste it back into Word! It works but it's
slow--especially on larger pictures--and it seems a ridiculous length to have
to go to to perform this simple task.

Is there another way to perform this task in Word 2007?

P.S. How does one report a bug like this to Microsoft? I can't find anything
obvious in the help or on their website.

 

[Tony Jollans]

You have stumbled over one of the new shape types that has not been
implemented in Word. When you use Excel as you suggest, the end result is
not an editable shape in Word. There is no workaround, or other way to do
it - although you may be able to achieve the same visual result by
overlaying two different shapes.

I don't know whether this can be classed as a bug or not but it is certainly
a feature of a poor implementation of a supposedly common Office feature.

 

[Antagony]

Thanks for the reply Tony and sorry for my slow response... my Hotmail has
stopped working in Thunderbird for some reason, so I didn't even realise
there had been a post here.

You say the shape type hasn't been implemented in Word, but it IS there as a
selectable shape in the 'Picture Shape' combo under the 'Format' ribbon.
Granted, it doesn't provide the full shape manipulation nodes like Excel
does, but I don't really need that as the basic shape is fine as it is for
me. Besides, I've tried using AutoShapeType to select the other basic shapes
and it isn't working for any of them. I don't think it's the shape which
isn't implemented, but the VBA method for changing it. In short, I think it
is a bug. As far as I'm concerned, if you can do something within the
application, it should be possible to do the same thing in a macro.

I just wish I could find a way of reporting this to Microsoft. For a company
which supposedly prides itself on listening to its customers, they sure
haven't made it easy for them to report problems in their software packages.

 

[Tony Jollans]

I'm sorry, I misread your question. Although I knew there were differences,
I had not quite realised just how different Shapes and shapes-applied-to
pictures were. The rounded rectangle is, as I said, a shape not implemented
for ordinary Shapes and, for reasons quite beyond me, it is, as you say,
available for pictures through the UI.

It seems as though there is very little at all that you can do with Pictures
and VBA. It's hard to say what is or isn't a bug when nothing is
documented - and there are other things that can be done in the UI for which
there is no VBA equivalent - but it is certainly a limitation of the
product.