Read or transfer or put my head through my monitor ... Word Bullets

[Matthew C]

I have about a hundred Word 2000 documents with tables in them that
are product lists. I'm looping over these product lists with VBA and,
based on a key field, transferring information over to a new table in
a newly created and formatted document. My problems arise when I try
to transfer bulleted items over to the new document. I need to be able
to transfer exact bullets over because they are either checked or
unchecked boxes. Very important information. No matter what I do I
can't seem to be able to transfer reliably or even read the bullets I
am dealing with. I have spun my wheels with this for literally hours
and read extensively on this newsgroup and other sources about the
bugs and problems with trying to do this and I am really at my wits
end.

Can someone please tell me if what I am trying to do is impossible or
point me in the right direction with a code snip or words of advice?

many thanks,
Matthew

 

[Shauna Kelly]

Hi Matthew

Here are some ideas that alone or together might help.

First, you could put all paragraphs with a Ticked box bullet into a
paragraph style called "Ticked", and all the paragraphs with an Unticked
bullet into a style called "NotTicked". Then, after you've copied and pasted
the text, re-create the numbering scheme in code so that all paragraphs in
style Ticked have a ticked box and all paragraphs in style Unticked have an
un-ticked box.

Alternatively, working on a copy of your document, you could use
ActiveDocument.ConvertNumbersToText. That will change all automatic
numbering to plain text (including bullets). After you copy the text, you
could search for the appropriate bullet characters and apply the appropriate
bulleting. Note that doing .ConvertNumbersToText is irreversible: you can't
get your automatic numbering back again without re-applying it.

Finaly, you could find out what is actually causing the problem in the first
place. It is probably because of style issues, and the following may help:
Why does text change format when I copy it into another document?
http://www.ShaunaKelly.com/word/styles/FormatOfTextChanges.html

Once you've discovered the underlying cause of the problem, the solution may
be obvious.

Hope this helps.

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