Finding in Word with Regular Expressions

[Evan Stone]

Is is possible to perform a Find operation (and by extension, a replace) in
Word with Regular Expressions using automation, and if so, how does one go
about doing it? Is it similar to the standard Find methodology?

....and I'm asking this from a C# perspective.

Thanks!

evan stone | software engineer

 

[Charu Tevari]

Hmm, It's surprising that when we call Find while defining a word macro, the
dialog does not present the option of using regular expressions so doing
striaght regex search/replace automation may not be possible.

I suppose you could always use brute force by operating on a string
consisting of the range for the entire document:

String wholeDocStr = theDoc.range.text;
<do the regex stuff here transforming wholeDocStr >
theDoc.range.text = wholeDocStr;


-Charu

 

[Kalpesh]

Hi,

Word does allow find/replace based on regular expressions
You will have to use word object model to do such a thing

For eg
my document has the following text
Ab1a
Ab2b
Ab3c
Ab4d
Ab5e
Ab51f

The following code will search for the text based on the pattern
Here is the code

<code>
Selection.Find.ClearFormatting
With Selection.Find
.Text = "Ab[0-9][a-c]"
.Forward = True
.Wrap = wdFindContinue
.MatchWildcards = True
End With
Selection.Find.Execute
</code>

This will match only the first 3 lines (matching with the find pattern)
So, you will have to use interop to word object model.

Does this help ?

Kalpesh