Lyonizing Word: Formatting with Macros

Formatting with Macros

by Jack Lyon

Most users of Microsoft Word format text by selecting a paragraph and then applying a font. More advanced users apply a style. Here’s why:

1. Styles are easier to use than direct formatting. Once you have the style set up (with, say, 12-point Arial bold, condensed by 1 point, left justified, with 24 points of leading above and 12 points of leading below), you can apply that style with a single click. But if you apply the same formatting without using a style, you’ll have to make a dozen clicks for each heading. If your document has 50 headings, that’s hundreds of clicks—versus 50 clicks if you use a style.
2. If you need to change the formatting of, say, level-2 headings, you can simply modify the style rather than tediously selecting each heading and applying a different font. Modify the style, and the formatting of all those headings is automatically changed.

But there is a way to handle formatting that is even more powerful—by using macros.

Suppose that you’ve dutifully applied styles to the various parts of a document, but then your client asks you to change the font—everywhere in the document—from Times New Roman to Adobe Garamond. (No, you should not just select the whole document and apply Adobe Garamond. Why? Because that simply “paints over” the real formatting that is still there in the styles, and it will almost certainly lead to inconsistent formatting somewhere down the line.) You could manually modify each style, but if there are dozens of styles in use, there is a better way. That way is a macro, like this one:

Sub SetFontInAllStyles()
Dim aStyle As Style
For Each aStyle In ActiveDocument.Style
aStyle.Font.Name = "Adobe Garamond"
Next
End Sub

Well, that was easy. Let’s look at each line of the macro (excluding the first and last lines, which simply define the beginning and end of the macro).

Dim aStyle As Style

This line defines (dimensions) a variable, aStyle (which name I just made up), as a style. At one point as the macro runs, aStyle might represent the style Heading 1. At another point it might represent Heading 3. But it will always represent a style.

For Each aStyle In ActiveDocument.Styles

Here's where things start to get interesting. That line tells the macro to cycle through each style (represented by aStyle) in all of the styles in the active document (the document in which your cursor is currently sitting).

aStyle.Font.Name = "Adobe Garamond"

And that line tells Word to set the font for the style currently being represented by aStyle to be Adobe Garamond.

Next

The “Next” line tells Word to go to the next style in the document.

When you run the macro, it will cycle through each style in the document (For Each…) and set Adobe Garamond as the font used in that style.

But what if you want to change the font only in heading styles (Heading 1, Heading 2, and so on)? Try this:

Dim aStyle As Style
For Each aStyle In ActiveDocument.Styles
If InStr(aStyle.NameLocal, "Heading") Then aStyle.Font.Name = "Adobe Garamond"
Next
End Sub

Here's the line of interest:

If InStr(aStyle.NameLocal, "Heading") Then aStyle.Font.Name = "Adobe Garamond"

That line uses a macro command we haven't seen before, InStr, which checks for specific text in a larger string of text. In this case, it checks to see if the text “Heading” appears in the name of the style (for example, “Heading 4”). If it does, then the macro sets the font for the Heading style as Adobe Garamond.

Armed with that little beauty, you can pull off all kinds of formatting marvels. Here are just a few of the options available:

If InStr(aStyle.NameLocal, "Heading") Then aStyle.Font.Bold = True

If InStr(aStyle.NameLocal, "Heading") Then aStyle.ParagraphFormat.Alignment = wdAlignParagraphCenter

If InStr(aStyle.NameLocal, "Heading") Then aStyle.NoSpaceBetweenParagraphsOfSameStyle = True

You can even specify the exact name of the style (rather than using InStr):

If aStyle.NameLocal = "Normal" Then aStyle.ParagraphFormat.Alignment = wdAlignParagraphJustify

If aStyle.NameLocal = "Heading 3" Then aStyle.Font.Italic = True

All of Word’s formatting options are at your disposal.

So yes, if you’re formatting a Word document, you should always use styles. But if you need to modify styles en masse, now you know how.

Jack Lyon (editor@editorium.com) owns and operates the Editorium, which provides macros and information to help editors and publishers do mundane tasks quickly and efficiently. He is the author of Microsoft Word for Publishing Professionals and of Macro Cookbook for Microsoft Word. Both books will help you learn more about macros and how to use them.

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How to Add Macro to Word & to the QAT

Here’s how to put this macro (or any other) into Microsoft Word so it will be available when you need it:

1. Copy the text of the macro, starting with the first “Sub” and ending with the last “Sub.”
2. Click the “View” tab on Microsoft Word’s ribbon.
3. Click the “Macros” button.
4. Type a name for the macro in the “Macro name” box — probably the name used after the first “Sub.” For this macro, that’s “______________.”
5. Click the “Create” button.
6. Delete the “Sub [macro name]” and “End Sub” lines that Word created in the macro window. The macro window should now be completely empty (unless you already have other macros in there).
7. Paste the macro text at the current insertion point.
8. Click “File,” then “Close and Return to Microsoft Word.”

To actually use the macro:

1. Place your cursor ___________________.
2. Click the “View” tab on Microsoft Word’s ribbon.
3. Click the “Macros” button.
4. Click the name of your macro to select it.
5. Click the “Run” button. (If you wanted to delete the macro, you could press the “Delete” button instead.)

Here’s how to put the macro on Word’s QAT (Quick Access Toolbar):

1. Locate the QAT (it’s probably on the top left of your screen either above or below Word’s Ribbon interface).
2. Right-click the QAT.
3. Click “Customize Quick Access Toolbar.”
4. Under “Choose commands from:” click the dropdown list and select “Macros.”
5. Find and select your macro in the list on the left.
6. Click the “Add” button to add it to the QAT.
7. Click the “OK” button to finish.