how to select multiple discontinuous blocks of text with VBA

[Chip Orange]

It's possible to use the control key when selecting text with the mouse to
have multiple areas of selected text that aren't continuous with one
another.
I need to do this with VBA.

I've tried recording a macro to see how it's done, but that didn't work.

I've tried defines range for each block I need selected, but as I use the
range.select method on each successive block of text, it unselects the
previous block.

Can anyone tell me how this can be done?

Thanks.

Chip

 

[Jay Freedman]

It can't be done in VBA, because the programming was never done to
support it: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=288424

You have to handle the blocks separately and sequentially.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
newsgroup so all may benefit.

 

[Chip Orange]

Thanks Jay; I wouldn't have thought to just give up!!! I can't handle them
separately, as I need to present them all at once to the user, in the source
document, for approval or modification, before I process them.

I've never done this before, but what if I opened multiple window views on
the source document, could I then have a block of selected text in each
window?

Thanks.

Chip

 

[Jay Freedman]

It looks like multiple window views can have separate selections, at
least in the UI, but I haven't tried to set that up in a macro. Seems
to me it would be a really sucky way to show it to a user unless there
were at most three or four blocks.

Have you thought of using highlighting or shading to indicate the
changed areas, which the macro could remove after the user has
approved or modified the changes?

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
newsgroup so all may benefit.

 

[Russ]

Chip,
Something I stumbled upon the other day is that the "Spike" is a special
part of AutoText for separated text and can be manipulated through VBA.

Look up the word Spike in regular Word Help for use with keystrokes and in
Word VBA Help for 'appendtospike' examples.

 

[Chip Orange]

It looks like multiple window views can have separate selections, at
least in the UI, but I haven't tried to set that up in a macro. Seems
to me it would be a really sucky way to show it to a user unless there
were at most three or four blocks.

Yah, you're probably right about that.

Have you thought of using highlighting or shading to indicate the
changed areas, which the macro could remove after the user has
approved or modified the changes?

I like that, but if changes were need (expanding or shrinking the "selected"
block of text), it would be hard for the user to do that way ... still, let
me think about that.

Thanks again,

Chip

 

[Chip Orange]

Thanks for the response Russ, but I don't need to just collect the text, I
need it displayed, selected, but in it's original context in the source
document. I don't think the spike helps me with anything other than
concatenating the text into a single place.

Thanks anyway,

Chip

 

[Helmut Weber]

Hi Chip,

shrink highlighting to the selection:

Sub Test612()
Dim rTmp As Range
Set rTmp = Selection.Range
With rTmp.Characters
While .First.Previous.HighlightColorIndex <> wdNoHighlight
.First.Previous.HighlightColorIndex = wdNoHighlight
rTmp.Start = rTmp.Start - 1
Wend
While .Last.Next.HighlightColorIndex <> wdNoHighlight
.Last.Next.HighlightColorIndex = wdNoHighlight
rTmp.End = rTmp.End + 1
Wend
End With
End Sub

--
Greetings from Bavaria, Germany

Helmut Weber, MVP WordVBA

Win XP, Office 2003
"red.sys" & Chr$(64) & "t-online.de"

 

[Chip Orange]

Thanks Helmut.

If I understand this, and I'm not sure I do, I think it's not exactly what I
need, but it gives me an idea of how to get there.

I need to present to the user a document, with multiple discontiguous blocks
of text highlighted, and let them change the highlighting (which is serving
as a substitute for selecting). When they're done they can signal to my
program in some way, and I'll process the highlighted text as if it had been
selected (that is, I'll copy it all out and do something with it).

They're used to selecting the text to be processed, but they complain it's
too time-consuming, and have asked me to pre-select the correct text for
them to approve with just a click. I would have to get them used to
highlighting instead of selecting.

Thanks for the idea.

Chip

 

[Helmut Weber]

Hi Chip,

interesting.

The following should remove highlighting
from an highlighited range of text,
if the cursor is the insertion point
and within the range.

If the cursor is extended, it will
reduce surrounding highlighting to the selection.

Sub SetHighlight()
Dim rTmp As Range
Set rTmp = Selection.Range
Selection.Range.HighlightColorIndex = wdYellow
With rTmp.Characters
While .First.Previous.HighlightColorIndex <> wdNoHighlight
.First.Previous.HighlightColorIndex = wdNoHighlight
rTmp.Start = rTmp.Start - 1
Wend
While .Last.Next.HighlightColorIndex <> wdNoHighlight
.Last.Next.HighlightColorIndex = wdNoHighlight
rTmp.End = rTmp.End + 1
Wend
End With
End Sub

But it is slow.

And there is:
"Tools, Options, Edit,
When selecting, automatically select entire word",
which should be unchecked.

One could speed it up a lot, if your docs are large
and your users are, so to speak, not compliant,
by checking whether the selection is "inrange"
with a highlighted range it touches.

But, IMHO, thats overdoing it.

--
Greetings from Bavaria, Germany

Helmut Weber, MVP WordVBA

Win XP, Office 2003
"red.sys" & Chr$(64) & "t-online.de"

 

[Russ]

Chip,
Another thing you could do is add two macros to the user's contextual menu.
Also called shortcut menu for Text, when right clicking in a main text body,
using the Tools/Customize menu. When adding macros to menu lists, you can
name the menuitem text whatever you want and create shortcut key
combinations to activate macros.
One right click menu item macro would be added for highlighting selected
text and another would be added to remove the highlighting from selected
text. (Also remind user of the Undo and Redo buttons) Editing should be
swift even on your pre-suggested highlighted text and you can still use the
discontinuous selection method for editing/(un)highlighting selections.

 

[Russ]

Chip,
The two macros could be basically one-liners, such as:

Selection.Range.HighlightColorIndex = wdTeal
and
Selection.Range.HighlightColorIndex = wdNoHighlight

 

[Chip Orange]

Thanks Rus, but I completed the project before I saw this suggestion. I
will look into contextual item macros, as I didn't know this was possible,
and it would come in very handy in some situations.

In this one however, avoiding the use of selecting discontinuous text by the
user was the goal, as it's easy to lose all your selections by clicking
without the control key just once!

Having them highlight, and then my processing all the highlighted text when
they're done is apparently working well, and less prone to error.

Regards,

Chip

 

[Russ]

Chip,
Selecting text and highlighting the selected text with a right click menu
option, I thought would be the fastest way to highlight a bunch of separate
text, without messing with their current format font options.
You could also show the user how to use the Format Painter Icon in the
standard toolbar. If you are not familiar with the Format Painter, use the
regular Word Help system and search for the word 'painter'. Double clicking
the icon causes it to become 'sticky'.

 

[Chip Orange]

Hi Rus,

You're right about what's fastest. My problem, unless I'm mis-understanding
you, is that they could spend 10 minutes selecting just the right text in a
very large document, and then accidentally click or do something that loses
all that selection. They get *very* perterbed when that happens, and they
asked me for a way both for my program to pre-indicate the text to be
processed (highlighted or selected), and to make it more "fool proof" so
that one wrong click won't cause a loss of all work thusfar. That's why,
since I can't pre-select distinct blocks of text, and since selections can
so easily be lost, I'm avoiding use of selected text (except they can select
as they go I suposed and highlight using the contextual macros you suggest,
which could save them some clicks, but I'm hoping my preprocessing will save
them even more if I can always guess right).

Thanks again.

I'll go look at the painter.

Chip

 

[Russ]

Chip,
By highlight, of course I mean changing the background color of text to a
highlight color (green, yellow, etc.).

I was just offering a fast way for either you or them to select and
(un)highlight batches of text. They don't need to do it all with one big
selection. Select some and (un)highlight, select more and (un)highlight,
etc. That's the normal process anyone uses to highlight text manually. The
right click menu choices or hotkey combinations just offer a faster way to
do the (un)highlighting part of the process.

When everything wanted is highlighted, then you process the highlighted
text.

You can pre-indicate text for them and the right click menu method still
offers a quick way for them to edit the pre-indicated text.

 

[Chip Orange]

Yes, of course Rus; sorry if I confused things.

I will add those context menu shortcuts as soon as I lookup how to do so, as
I agree with you, it will be of even more help to them. I've been working
lately on pre-selecting/highlighting just the right text (this is a problem
for inexperienced employees).

Thanks again,

Chip

 

[Russ]

Chip,
If there are very specific patterns to what you want highlighted all the
time, you can create macros to do the work for you. Afterwards, double check
what the macros found and amend that.

For example, I use at work what is called G-Code to program metal cutting
machines. I created a macro that colors G-Code syntax commands and variables
and uses other things in the code, including spacing, to make the code
'pretty' or easier to read. It 'filters' through the raw code to create a
pretty copy for human reading.

I'm just suggesting to use macros to help you pre-highlight certain
patterns.

 

[Chip Orange]

Thanks Rus,

That's exactly what I'm doing; highlighting the pre-selected text with
macros, allowing them to change the highlighting, and when they close it,
intercepting the event and copying the highlighted text into another
document, formatting it, and placing it into the proper locations, adding
hyperlinks, etc.

They're much happier with the arrangement of highlighting the text rather
than my previous arrangement of having them select disjoint blocks of text
for copying. It's much more obvious what's going to be copied, and it's
less likely a mistake will be made.

Regards,

Chip