Word 2007

[Larry]

Word 2007 sounds like a radically newly designed version of Word. Apparently
it doesn't even have menus and toolbars. Will macros from older versions of
Word work in Word 2007?

http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/office2007_beta2.asp

 

[Jay Freedman]

_Most_ macros from older versions will run with no problems. They'll
need some minor revision if they explicitly assign .doc or .dot
extensions when opening or saving files, as the new extensions are
..docx (or .docm for macro-enabled documents) and .dotx (or .dotm).

If they do anything with CommandBars or some things with AutoText
(which is now part of the BuildingBlocks collection), they may need to
be modified or redesigned, or maybe trashed and recreated as RibbonX
(the XML code for the ribbon).

In some cases, old workarounds for Word's shortcomings can be replaced
with newer features. In particular, if you're using protected forms
and VBA userforms mainly to prevent users from messing up formatting,
look at Content Controls as a replacement.

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

 

[Larry]

Hmm. I have hundreds of macros that took untold hours to create. The
thought that any of them become unusable and must be recreated because of
Word's "advances" is not a happy one.

 

[Jonathan West]

Hmm. I have hundreds of macros that took untold hours to create. The
thought that any of them become unusable and must be recreated because of
Word's "advances" is not a happy one.

Fact of life, I'm afraid. Almost by definition, when you move code to a new
platform, you need to retest to see if it continues to work right. At least
we haven't had the problem that VB6 users had in 2000, when VB.NET was
introduced and just about every VB6 project had to be rewritten from the
ground up if it was going to get into VB.NEt, the languages were so
different.

 

[Shauna Kelly]

Hi Larry

The basics will work, but I think we are all going to have to test all our
code thoroughly and make changes as appropriate. For example:

- any hard-coding of "doc" might have to change to "docx" or cope with both
file extensions

- some uses of AutoText may have to change, since AutoTexts are now part of
Building Blocks.

- any code that uses features that have been removed from the product
obviously needs to change (eg Versions, the marching ants and their friends,
Clippy, display as white on blue and so on)

- some instructions to the user (eg "click x") will need to change

- and, of course, custom toolbars no longer displayed added-in to the UI;
they're now add-ons in their own separate section of the UI

Hope this helps.

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

 

[Larry]

- any code that uses features that have been removed from the product
obviously needs to change (eg Versions, the marching ants and their friends,
Clippy, display as white on blue and so on)

Shauna, What's happening with the display of white on blue? Don't tell me
they're eliminating that feature? Years ago, the fact that Word had that
feature and WordPerfect didn't, was one of the reasons I chose Word.

 

[Greg Maxey]

Are you the Larry that is using Word95?

If so, think you will find Word2007 is about as different from your
current version as your current version is different from a scroll and
quill pen.

Good luck.

 

[Larry]

I use Word 97.

Are you the Larry that is using Word95?

If so, think you will find Word2007 is about as different from your
current version as your current version is different from a scroll and
quill pen.

Good luck.

 

[Larry]

- any hard-coding of "doc" might have to change to "docx" or cope with
both

file extensions

Meaning all macros that refer to a document address using the .doc extenson
have to be changed?

I wonder how many other changes there are that render long-existing macros
unusable, short of modifying them or completely re-writing them.

 

[Sam Albergotti]

Hi Larry

The basics will work, but I think we are all going to have to test all our
code thoroughly and make changes as appropriate. For example:

- any hard-coding of "doc" might have to change to "docx" or cope with both
file extensions

- some uses of AutoText may have to change, since AutoTexts are now part of
Building Blocks.

- any code that uses features that have been removed from the product
obviously needs to change (eg Versions, the marching ants and their friends,
Clippy, display as white on blue and so on)

- some instructions to the user (eg "click x") will need to change

- and, of course, custom toolbars no longer displayed added-in to the UI;
they're now add-ons in their own separate section of the UI

Hope this helps.

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

 

[Sam Albergotti]

Shauna: I have a large number of macros which I use to edit documents. For
instance, a macro which removes excess paragraph marks and places a space
before the paragraphs selected. Is there some way to get the same
functionality that custom menus used to provide? If not, I may not upgrade.
I have been waiting for Vista and the new Office to come out to buy a new
laptop, but if has been crippled too much I may not do it, or try to install
my old Office on it.

 

[Shauna Kelly]

Hi Sam

There is no equivalent to Tools > Customize to customize the user interface
in Word 2007. That feature was removed from the product, possibly because
Microsoft didn't believe enough people used it.

The new way is somewhat more complicated: see http://pschmid.net/ for more
information, work arounds, and an add-in that may solve some of the
problems.

Hope this helps.

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