How can you dump the revision log in WORD to an EXCEL file?

[BBDJTracy]

I work at NASA, and we process very large documents with complex formats. We
are trying figure out an easy way to dump the revision log of a WORD document
to an EXCEL file with 1) who made the change, 2) contents of the change, and
3) date of change. Dumping this data to an EXCEL file would be beneficial to
any industry that maintains documents using a configuration control process.
The revision log can also help with generating metrics related to the volume
of changes. It can also help us analyze workload issues related to
last-minute decisions and the volume of changes being implemented during a
short period of time before deadlines.
We have created a macro that works some times, but it often croaks on
certain WORD formats. Our developer who used to work for Microsoft says the
tool croaks because of errors in Microsoft WORD and not errors in our tool.
It's frustrating because we can see the revision log on the screen, but we
can't find an easy way to dump that data to a file.

 

[Robert M. Franz (RMF)]

BBDJTracy wrote:
[..]

We have created a macro that works some times, but it often croaks on
certain WORD formats. Our developer who used to work for Microsoft says the
tool croaks because of errors in Microsoft WORD and not errors in our tool.

[I've yet to find a developer blaming his own creating before any 3rd
party tool ... ;-)]

It's frustrating because we can see the revision log on the screen, but we
can't find an easy way to dump that data to a file.

How can you "see" it, exactly? Can you create a view of this text only?
Have you tried printing it to file through a text-only printer driver
(ugly workaround, but hey ... if looping through some collection
through VBA doesn't do what you intended).

If you want advice on code-level, I suggest posting with the relevant
code in one of the .word.vba groups.

Greetinx
Robert

 

[BBDJTracy]

In answer to your question how can you "see" it, exactly?

If you select "Tools: Track Changes" and then select the reviewing pane
button, the reviewing pane is displayed at the bottom of the screen.

It would be great if Microsoft WORD had a feature (or a work-around) built
into WORD that allows us to transfer what we see in the reviewing pane to an
EXCEL file. Microsoft may have such a feature, but if they do, we can't find
it.

BBDJTracy wrote:
[..]

We have created a macro that works some times, but it often croaks on
certain WORD formats. Our developer who used to work for Microsoft says the
tool croaks because of errors in Microsoft WORD and not errors in our tool.

[I've yet to find a developer blaming his own creating before any 3rd
party tool ... ;-)]

It's frustrating because we can see the revision log on the screen, but we
can't find an easy way to dump that data to a file.

How can you "see" it, exactly? Can you create a view of this text only?
Have you tried printing it to file through a text-only printer driver
(ugly workaround, but hey ... if looping through some collection
through VBA doesn't do what you intended).

If you want advice on code-level, I suggest posting with the relevant
code in one of the .word.vba groups.

Greetinx
Robert
--
/"\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign | MS
\ / | MVP
X Against HTML | for
/ \ in e-mail & news | Word

 

[Shauna Kelly]

Hi BBDJTracy

I sympathize with your in-house developer: it is difficult to write code
dealing with tracked changes, because the information that Word exposes to
the programming language is not complete and does not always work very well.

However, you might like to consider a workaround.

First, some preliminaries. Do File > Print. At the top of that dialog, in
the Name list, do you have "Generic / Text Only" as an option? If so, then
continue. If not, then do Start > Settings > Printers and Faxes (or similar
commands, depending on your version of Windows). Choose to Add a printer.
When you get to the list of manufacturers, find Generic, and choose the
"Generic / Text only" printer.

In the Print dialog, in the Print What box, choose "List of markups". Tick
"Print to file" and click OK. Word will now ask you for a file name, and it
will then "print" the comments to a new Word document with the file name you
chose. Your programmer might be able to convert the information in that
document into the Excel file you need.

Hope this helps.

Shauna Kelly. Microsoft MVP.
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word

In answer to your question how can you "see" it, exactly?

If you select "Tools: Track Changes" and then select the reviewing pane
button, the reviewing pane is displayed at the bottom of the screen.

It would be great if Microsoft WORD had a feature (or a work-around) built
into WORD that allows us to transfer what we see in the reviewing pane to
an
EXCEL file. Microsoft may have such a feature, but if they do, we can't
find
it.

BBDJTracy wrote:
[..]

We have created a macro that works some times, but it often croaks on
certain WORD formats. Our developer who used to work for Microsoft
says the
tool croaks because of errors in Microsoft WORD and not errors in our
tool.

[I've yet to find a developer blaming his own creating before any 3rd
party tool ... ;-)]

It's frustrating because we can see the revision log on the screen, but
we
can't find an easy way to dump that data to a file.

How can you "see" it, exactly? Can you create a view of this text only?
Have you tried printing it to file through a text-only printer driver
(ugly workaround, but hey ... if looping through some collection
through VBA doesn't do what you intended).

If you want advice on code-level, I suggest posting with the relevant
code in one of the .word.vba groups.

Greetinx
Robert
--
/"\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign | MS
\ / | MVP
X Against HTML | for
/ \ in e-mail & news | Word