Creating tables for copy from Word to Excel - excel

So, I needed to take some data done in MS Word tables, and manipulate in excel.
I decided to get it from word to excel via a VBA subroutine to "save time".
My source word document contained like twentysomething tables.
I took my source document's tables, extracted my data and made a new document, with a new table, only needing me to copy and paste it into excel.
However, while the final table before copy looks good in word. When i copy it to excel, it breaks up the cells that contain whole paragraphs into separate cells.
As most excel peeps would know, even though a solution looks like in excel, doing a merge and center - that only preserves the content in the uppermost cell in the selection!
So, any advice, on either a better merge and center, or a better "time saver" alltogether, would be great.
Here's a sample of the code so far:
Sub First()
Dim tableLength, tableIndex
tableLength = ThisDocument.Tables.Count
Dim tblReport As Table
Dim docReport As Document
Set docReport = Documents.Add
Set tblReport = docReport.Tables.Add(Selection.Range, 1, 2)
With tblReport
Dim fieldOne, subvalueAription, subvalueA, subvalueB, subvalueC
For tableIndex = 1 To tableLength
fieldOne = ThisDocument.Tables(tableIndex).Rows(2).Cells(2).Range.Text
subvalueA = Trim(ThisDocument.Tables(tableIndex).Rows(4).Cells(2).Range.Text)
subvalueB = "A: " & Trim(ThisDocument.Tables(tableIndex).Rows(5).Cells(2).Range.Text)
subvalueC = "B: " & Trim(ThisDocument.Tables(tableIndex).Rows(6).Cells(2).Range.Text)
subvalueAription = subvalueA & subvalueB & subvalueC & "C: "
Dim rowNext As row
Set rowNext = .Rows.Add
rowNext.Cells(1).Range.Text = fieldOne
rowNext.Cells(2).Range.Text = subvalueA & subvalueB & subvalueC
Next
End With
End Sub

Excel uses a different line terminator than Word. In order to avoid the problem with the text from the Word table being split over several Excel cells, you need to handle the line terminator conversion yourself.
'Word > Excel
newText = Replace(wordText, vbCrLf, vbLf)
I'm posting this by memory, but that's the root of that problem.

Related

How to save a Word template file as a .docx in VBA? Or create multiple specific documents from one excel sheet?

I am trying to copy a bunch of text data from an excel spreadsheet into multiple separate word documents (one excel row = one document, but each column's heading has to be included before the text from the respective field of the row). I also want these documents' names to be the text from specific fields in the spreadsheet (row headers).
Because I want fancy formatting, and a specific order of copying/pasting things (not all fields are included), I am using a word template with bookmarks that I can feed into VBA. It fills the template well, but I cannot save it as a standard word document before repeating the loop. I get the error 'Object doesn't support this property or method'. Is there a way to overcome it, or a more elegant method I've missed?
Here is the code:
Sub Primitive()
Dim objWord As Object
Dim ws As Worksheet
Dim i As Integer
Set ws = ThisWorkbook.Sheets("Sheet1")
i = 2 ' First row to process
'Start of loop
Do Until ws.Range("B" & i) = ""
Set objWord = CreateObject("Word.Application")
objWord.Visible = True
'Change to local path of template file
objWord.Documents.Open "C:path of template file.dotx"
With objWord.ActiveDocument
.Bookmarks("FirstBookmark").Range.Text = ws.Range("B" & i).Value & " " & ws.Range("C" & i)
.Bookmarks("headlineZ").Range.Text = ws.Range("Z1").Value
lots of this^ here to arrange the data right in the document
NewFileName = "C:\path of where I want the new file" & ws.Range("C" & i).Value & ".docx"
This is the line that gives the error 483:
objWord.SaveAs2 Filename:="NewFileName"
End With
objWord.Close
Set objWord = Nothing
i = i + 1
Loop
End Sub
You are trying to save Word, rather than the document. If you replace this
objWord.SaveAs2 Filename:="NewFileName"
with this
objWord.ActiveDocument.SaveAs2 Filename:="NewFileName"
it should work better. That said, you should not use ActiveDocument in your macros. Consider replacing
objWord.Documents.Open "C:path of template file.dotx"
with something like
Set TargetDocument = objWord.Documents.Open("C:path of template file.dotx")
and replace all ActiveDocument with TargetDocument.

Update Word bookmarks with formatted Excel data from Excel

The following code is intended to update Word bookmarks with formatted data from Excel, however the formatting doesn't come across and unsure why, would appreciate any suggestions. The formatted data is text with certain works underlined.
Set wb = ActiveWorkbook
TodayDate = Format(Date, "mmmm d, yyyy")
Path = wb.Path & "\update_file.docx"
'Create a new Word Session
Set pappWord = CreateObject("Word.Application")
'Open document in word
Set docWord = pappWord.Documents.Add(Path)
'Loop through names in the activeworkbook
For Each xlName In wb.Names
'if xlName's name is existing in document then put the value in place of the bookmark
If docWord.Bookmarks.Exists(xlName.Name) Then
docWord.Bookmarks(xlName.Name).Range.Text = Range(xlName).Text
End If
Next xlName
Try this instead, using Copy and the (poorly-documented) ExecuteMso method. You need to use Copy against the range (in order to capture formatting) and then you can effectively do the same as the right-click Paste + Keep Source Formatting option:
If docWord.Bookmarks.Exists(xlName.Name) Then
xlName.RefersToRange.Copy
docWord.Bookmarks(xlName.Name).Select
docWord.Application.CommandBars.ExecuteMso "PasteSourceFormatting"
End If
Alternatively, and this might be better because ExecuteMso is asynchronous and can result in timing issues:
xlName.RefersToRange.Copy
docWord.Bookmarks(xlName.Name).Range.PasteAndFormat 16 'wdFormatOriginalFormatting

Numeric Values Change During Access VBA DoCmd.TransferSpreadsheet

I'm developing a module to automatically import Excel worksheets into an Access table. The design of the worksheets being imported are identical. Using DoCmd.TransferSpreadsheets imports columns A-O (a mix of text and numeric data) well, however the values for columns P-AD have issues...
Column P and Q represent beginning and ending odometer values with R their elapsed distance. For example, on the worksheet Vehicle OHS-11 is reported as beginning at 154952, ending at 155636, for an elapsed distance of 684. The imported record shows as beginning AND ending at 155636, for an elapsed distance of 0.
Columns S-AA just refuse to import at all. Column AB imports 0 for all records including those with legitimate values (i.e., not null). Columns AC-AD sporadically import a 0, but many records are blank. See the figure below:
I've tried to no avail:
setting the field types in Access
letting Access create the table from scratch
DoCmd.RunSavedImport isn't ideal since the source spreadsheets have different names
a SELECT * INTO will create a new table for each worksheet and I am needing to consolidate the data from all spreadsheets to a single table
It is peculiar that the imports are successful without transfer error tables being created but yet the values are being ignored/swapped. Should it matter, the cells in columns E-P, R and AB-AD are formulas.
I am using Excel 2016 and Access 2016 on a Windows 10 tablet system. Here is the code:
Option Compare Database
Sub Import_New_WS()
'--- Import new worksheets to temporary table
Dim dbAC As Database
Dim rsList, rsMonth, rsXfer As Recordset
Dim strDestPath, strFilePath, strMFRSheetNo, strRange As String
Set dbAC = CurrentDb()
Set rsList = dbAC.OpenRecordset("SELECT * FROM [XFER_LIST_ONLY_LATEST_MFR]")
Set rsMonth = dbAC.OpenRecordset("SELECT * FROM [FP_MO_CAL_MO]")
'Set rsXfer = dbAC.OpenRecordset("SELECT * FROM [XFER_WS]")
If rsList.EOF = True Then Exit Sub 'Checks that there are worksheets to process
'--- Delete existing records from MFR consolidation table
'DoCmd.SetWarnings False
'DoCmd.RunSQL "DELETE * FROM [XFER_WS];"
'DoCmd.SetWarnings True
'--- Import worksheets into consolidation table
rsList.MoveFirst
strMFRSheetNo = Right(CStr(rsList.Fields("MFR_LAST_FP")), 2)
Do Until rsList.EOF
rsMonth.FindFirst "FISCAL_MO = " & strMFRSheetNo
strRange = rsMonth.Fields("WS_NAME") & "!A2:AD" & Format(rsList.Fields("NO_ROWS") + 1, "0")
strFilePath = rsList.Fields("FILE_PATH")
DoCmd.TransferSpreadsheet acImport, acSpreadsheetTypeExcel12, "XFER_WS", strFilePath, False, strRange
strDestPath = "I:\Dept\DCS\MPOOL\Fleet Management Data\MFR\MFR FY " & Mid(CStr(rsList.Fields("MFR_LAST_FP")), 3, 2) & _
"\" & Mid(strFilePath, 81, Len(strFilePath))
Debug.Print strDestPath
'FileCopy strFilePath, strDestPath
'Kill strFilePath
rsList.MoveNext
Loop
Set dbAC = Nothing
Set rsList = Nothing
Set rsXfer = Nothing
Set rsMonth = Nothing
DeleteImportErrorTables
End Sub
After much research and testing multiple strategies to address this issue I simply went back to my original code and somehow it spontaneously started working correctly. The following day however, it was back to the original anomalous behavior!
Unable to find a solution to the issue I coded around the problem by saving the worksheet as a comma separated value (.csv) file and using DoCmd.TransferText instead. This strategy circumvented Access' data type guesswork and quickly imported the data into the table. (As an aside, DoCmd.TransferText doesn't like filenames with more than a single period in them.)

Generate Word Documents (in Excel VBA) from a series of Document Templates

Hey all. I'll try to make this brief and simple. :)
I have
40 or so boilerplate word documents with a series of fields (Name, address, etc) that need to be filled in. This is historically done manually, but it's repetitive and cumbersome.
A workbook where a user has filled a huge set of information about an individual.
I need
A way to programatically (from Excel VBA) open up these boilerplate documents, edit in the value of fields from various named ranges in the workbook, and save the filled in templates to a local folder.
If I were using VBA to programatically edit particular values in a set of spreadsheets, I would edit all those spreadsheets to contain a set of named ranges which could be used during the auto-fill process, but I'm not aware of any 'named field' feature in a Word document.
How could I edit the documents, and create a VBA routine, so that I can open each document, look for a set of fields which might need to be filled in, and substitute a value?
For instance, something that works like:
for each document in set_of_templates
if document.FieldExists("Name") then document.Field("Name").value = strName
if document.FieldExists("Address") then document.Field("Name").value = strAddress
...
document.saveAs( thisWorkbook.Path & "\GeneratedDocs\ " & document.Name )
next document
Things I've considered:
Mail merge - but this is insufficient because it requires opening each document manually and structuring the workbook as a data source, I kind of want the opposite. The templates are the data source and the workbook is iterating through them. Also, mail merge is for creating many identical documents using a table of different data. I have many documents all using the same data.
Using placeholder text such as "#NAME#" and opening each document for a search and replace. This is the solution I would resort to if nothing more elegant is proposed.
It's been a long time since I asked this question, and my solution has undergone more and more refinement. I've had to deal with all sorts of special cases, such as values that come directly from the workbook, sections that need to be specially generated based on lists, and the need to do replacements in headers and footers.
As it turns out, it did not suffice to use bookmarks, as it was possible for users to later edit documents to change, add, and remove placeholder values from the documents. The solution was in fact to use keywords such as this:
This is just a page from a sample document which uses some of the possible values that can get automatically inserted into a document. Over 50 documents exist with completely different structures and layouts, and using different parameters. The only common knowledge shared by the word documents and the excel spreadsheet is a knowledge of what these placeholder values are meant to represent. In excel, this is stored in a list of document generation keywords, which contain the keyword, followed by a reference to the range that actually contains this value:
These were the key two ingredients required. Now with some clever code, all I had to do was iterate over each document to be generated, and then iterate over the range of all known keywords, and do a search and replace for each keyword in each document.
First, I have the wrapper method, which takes care of maintaining an instance of microsoft word iterating over all documents selected for generation, numbering the documents, and doing the user interface stuff (like handling errors, displaying the folder to the user, etc.)
' Purpose: Iterates over and generates all documents in the list of forms to generate
' Improves speed by creating a persistant Word application used for all generated documents
Public Sub GeneratePolicy()
Dim oWrd As New Word.Application
Dim srcPath As String
Dim cel As Range
If ERROR_HANDLING Then On Error GoTo errmsg
If Forms.Cells(2, FormsToGenerateCol) = vbNullString Then _
Err.Raise 1, , "There are no forms selected for document generation."
'Get the path of the document repository where the forms will be found.
srcPath = FindConstant("Document Repository")
'Each form generated will be numbered sequentially by calling a static counter function. This resets it.
GetNextEndorsementNumber reset:=True
'Iterate over each form, calling a function to replace the keywords and save a copy to the output folder
For Each cel In Forms.Range(Forms.Cells(2, FormsToGenerateCol), Forms.Cells(1, FormsToGenerateCol).End(xlDown))
RunReplacements cel.value, CreateDocGenPath(cel.Offset(0, 1).value), oWrd
Next cel
oWrd.Quit
On Error Resume Next
'Display the folder containing the generated documents
Call Shell("explorer.exe " & CreateDocGenPath, vbNormalFocus)
oWrd.Quit False
Application.StatusBar = False
If MsgBox("Policy generation complete. The reserving information will now be recorded.", vbOKCancel, _
"Policy Generated. OK to store reserving info?") = vbOK Then Push_Reserving_Requirements
Exit Sub
errmsg:
MsgBox Err.Description, , "Error generating Policy Documents"
End Sub
That routine calls RunReplacements which takes care of opening the document, prepping the environment for a fast replacement, updating links once done, handling errors, etc:
' Purpose: Opens up a document and replaces all instances of special keywords with their respective values.
' Creates an instance of Word if an existing one is not passed as a parameter.
' Saves a document to the target path once the template has been filled in.
'
' Replacements are done using two helper functions, one for doing simple keyword replacements,
' and one for the more complex replacements like conditional statements and schedules.
Private Sub RunReplacements(ByVal DocumentPath As String, ByVal SaveAsPath As String, _
Optional ByRef oWrd As Word.Application = Nothing)
Dim oDoc As Word.Document
Dim oWrdGiven As Boolean
If oWrd Is Nothing Then Set oWrd = New Word.Application Else oWrdGiven = True
If ERROR_HANDLING Then On Error GoTo docGenError
oWrd.Visible = False
oWrd.DisplayAlerts = wdAlertsNone
Application.StatusBar = "Opening " & Mid(DocumentPath, InStrRev(DocumentPath, "\") + 1)
Set oDoc = oWrd.Documents.Open(Filename:=DocumentPath, Visible:=False)
RunAdvancedReplacements oDoc
RunSimpleReplacements oDoc
UpdateLinks oDoc 'Routine which will update calculated statements in Word (like current date)
Application.StatusBar = "Saving " & Mid(DocumentPath, InStrRev(DocumentPath, "\") + 1)
oDoc.SaveAs SaveAsPath
GoTo Finally
docGenError:
MsgBox "Un unknown error occurred while generating document: " & DocumentPath & vbNewLine _
& vbNewLine & Err.Description, vbCritical, "Document Generation"
Finally:
If Not oDoc Is Nothing Then oDoc.Close False: Set oDoc = Nothing
If Not oWrdGiven Then oWrd.Quit False
End Sub
That routine then invokes RunSimpleReplacements. and RunAdvancedReplacements. In the former, we iterate over the set of Document Generation Keywords and call WordDocReplace if the document contains our keyword. Note that it's much faster to try and Find a bunch of words to figure out that they don't exist, then to call replace indiscriminately, so we always check if a keyword exists before attempting to replace it.
' Purpose: While short, this short module does most of the work with the help of the generation keywords
' range on the lists sheet. It loops through every simple keyword that might appear in a document
' and calls a function to have it replaced with the corresponding data from pricing.
Private Sub RunSimpleReplacements(ByRef oDoc As Word.Document)
Dim DocGenKeys As Range, valueSrc As Range
Dim value As String
Dim i As Integer
Set DocGenKeys = Lists.Range("DocumentGenerationKeywords")
For i = 1 To DocGenKeys.Rows.Count
If WordDocContains(oDoc, "#" & DocGenKeys.Cells(i, 1).Text & "#") Then
'Find the text that we will be replacing the placeholder keyword with
Set valueSrc = Range(Mid(DocGenKeys.Cells(i, 2).Formula, 2))
If valueSrc.MergeCells Then value = valueSrc.MergeArea.Cells(1, 1).Text Else value = valueSrc.Text
'Perform the replacement
WordDocReplace oDoc, "#" & DocGenKeys.Cells(i, 1).Text & "#", value
End If
Next i
End Sub
This is the function used to detect whether a keyword exists in the document:
' Purpose: Function called for each replacement to first determine as quickly as possible whether
' the document contains the keyword, and thus whether replacement actions must be taken.
Public Function WordDocContains(ByRef oDoc As Word.Document, ByVal searchFor As String) As Boolean
Application.StatusBar = "Checking for keyword: " & searchFor
WordDocContains = False
Dim storyRange As Word.Range
For Each storyRange In oDoc.StoryRanges
With storyRange.Find
.Text = searchFor
WordDocContains = WordDocContains Or .Execute
End With
If WordDocContains Then Exit For
Next
End Function
And this is where the rubber meets the road - the code that executes the replacement. This routine got more complicated as I encountered difficulties. Here are the lessons you will only learn from experience:
You can set the replacement text directly, or you can use the clipboard. I found out the hard way that if you are doing a VBA replace in word using a string longer than 255 characters, the text will get truncated if you try to place it in the Find.Replacement.Text, but you can use "^c" as your replacement text, and it will get it directly from the clipboard. This was the workaround I got to use.
Simply calling replace will miss keywords in some text areas like headers and footers. Because of this, you actually need to iterate over the document.StoryRanges and run the search and replace on each one to ensure that you catch all instances of the word you want to replace.
If you're setting the Replacement.Text directly, you need to convert Excel line breaks (vbNewLine and Chr(10)) with a simple vbCr for them to appear properly in word. Otherwise, anywhere your replacement text has line breaks coming from an excel cell will end up inserting strange symbols into word. If you use the clipboard method however, you do not need to do this, as the line breaks get converted automatically when put in the clipboard.
That explains everything. Comments should be pretty clear too. Here's the golden routine that executes the magic:
' Purpose: This function actually performs replacements using the Microsoft Word API
Public Sub WordDocReplace(ByRef oDoc As Word.Document, ByVal replaceMe As String, ByVal replaceWith As String)
Dim clipBoard As New MSForms.DataObject
Dim storyRange As Word.Range
Dim tooLong As Boolean
Application.StatusBar = "Replacing instances of keyword: " & replaceMe
'We want to use regular search and replace if we can. It's faster and preserves the formatting that
'the keyword being replaced held (like bold). If the string is longer than 255 chars though, the
'standard replace method doesn't work, and so we must use the clipboard method (^c special character),
'which does not preserve formatting. This is alright for schedules though, which are always plain text.
If Len(replaceWith) > 255 Then tooLong = True
If tooLong Then
clipBoard.SetText IIf(replaceWith = vbNullString, "", replaceWith)
clipBoard.PutInClipboard
Else
'Convert excel in-cell line breaks to word line breaks. (Not necessary if using clipboard)
replaceWith = Replace(replaceWith, vbNewLine, vbCr)
replaceWith = Replace(replaceWith, Chr(10), vbCr)
End If
'Replacement must be done on multiple 'StoryRanges'. Unfortunately, simply calling replace will miss
'keywords in some text areas like headers and footers.
For Each storyRange In oDoc.StoryRanges
Do
With storyRange.Find
.MatchWildcards = True
.Text = replaceMe
.Replacement.Text = IIf(tooLong, "^c", replaceWith)
.Wrap = wdFindContinue
.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll
End With
On Error Resume Next
Set storyRange = storyRange.NextStoryRange
On Error GoTo 0
Loop While Not storyRange Is Nothing
Next
If tooLong Then clipBoard.SetText ""
If tooLong Then clipBoard.PutInClipboard
End Sub
When the dust settles, we're left with a beautiful version of the initial document with production values in place of those hash marked keywords. I'd love to show an example, but of course every filled in document contain all-proprietary information.
The only think left to mention I guess would be that RunAdvancedReplacements section. It does something extremely similar - it ends up calling the same WordDocReplace function, but what's special about the keywords used here is that they don't link to a single cell in the original workbook, they get generated in the code-behind from lists in the workbook. So for instance, one of the advanced replacements would look like this:
'Generate the schedule of vessels
If WordDocContains(oDoc, "#VESSELSCHEDULE#") Then _
WordDocReplace oDoc, "#VESSELSCHEDULE#", GenerateVesselSchedule()
And then there will be a corresponding routine which puts together a string containing all the vessel information as configured by the user:
' Purpose: Generates the list of vessels from the "Vessels" sheet based on the user's configuration
' in the booking tab. The user has the option to generate one or both of Owned Vessels
' and Chartered Vessels, as well as what fields to display. Uses a helper function.
Public Function GenerateVesselSchedule() As String
Dim value As String
Application.StatusBar = "Generating Schedule of Vessels."
If Booking.Range("ListVessels").value = "Yes" Then
Dim VesselCount As Long
If Booking.Range("ListVessels").Offset(1).value = "Yes" Then _
value = value & GenerateVesselScheduleHelper("Vessels", VesselCount)
If Booking.Range("ListVessels").Offset(1).value = "Yes" And _
Booking.Range("ListVessels").Offset(2).value = "Yes" Then _
value = value & "(Chartered Vessels)" & vbNewLine
If Booking.Range("ListVessels").Offset(2).value = "Yes" Then _
value = value & GenerateVesselScheduleHelper("CharteredVessels", VesselCount)
If Len(value) > 2 Then value = Left(value, Len(value) - 2) 'Remove the trailing line break
Else
GenerateVesselSchedule = Booking.Range("VesselSchedAlternateText").Text
End If
GenerateVesselSchedule = value
End Function
' Purpose: Helper function for the Vessel Schedule generation routine. Generates either the Owned or
' Chartered vessels based on the schedule parameter passed. The list is numbered and contains
' the information selected by the user on the Booking sheet.
' SENSITIVE: Note that this routine is sensitive to the layout of the Vessel Schedule tab and the
' parameters on the Configure Quotes tab. If either changes, it should be revisited.
Public Function GenerateVesselScheduleHelper(ByVal schedule As String, ByRef VesselCount As Long) As String
Dim value As String, nextline As String
Dim numInfo As Long, iRow As Long, iCol As Long
Dim Inclusions() As Boolean, Columns() As Long
'Gather info about vessel info to display in the schedule
With Booking.Range("VesselInfoToInclude")
numInfo = Booking.Range(.Cells(1, 1), .End(xlToRight)).Columns.Count - 1
ReDim Inclusions(1 To numInfo)
ReDim Columns(1 To numInfo)
On Error Resume Next 'Some columns won't be identified
For iCol = 1 To numInfo
Inclusions(iCol) = .Offset(0, iCol) = "Yes"
Columns(iCol) = sumSchedVessels.Range(schedule).Cells(1).EntireRow.Find(.Offset(-1, iCol)).Column
Next iCol
On Error GoTo 0
End With
'Build the schedule
With sumSchedVessels.Range(schedule)
For iRow = .row + 1 To .row + .Rows.Count - 1
If Len(sumSchedVessels.Cells(iRow, Columns(1)).value) > 0 Then
VesselCount = VesselCount + 1
value = value & VesselCount & "." & vbTab
nextline = vbNullString
'Add each property that was included to the description string
If Inclusions(1) Then nextline = nextline & sumSchedVessels.Cells(iRow, Columns(1)) & vbTab
If Inclusions(2) Then nextline = nextline & "Built: " & sumSchedVessels.Cells(iRow, Columns(2)) & vbTab
If Inclusions(3) Then nextline = nextline & "Length: " & _
Format(sumSchedVessels.Cells(iRow, Columns(3)), "#'") & vbTab
If Inclusions(4) Then nextline = nextline & "" & sumSchedVessels.Cells(iRow, Columns(4)) & vbTab
If Inclusions(5) Then nextline = nextline & "Hull Value: " & _
Format(sumSchedVessels.Cells(iRow, Columns(5)), "$#,##0") & vbTab
If Inclusions(6) Then nextline = nextline & "IV: " & _
Format(sumSchedVessels.Cells(iRow, Columns(6)), "$#,##0") & vbTab
If Inclusions(7) Then nextline = nextline & "TIV: " & _
Format(sumSchedVessels.Cells(iRow, Columns(7)), "$#,##0") & vbTab
If Inclusions(8) And schedule = "CharteredVessels" Then _
nextline = nextline & "Deductible: " & Format(bmCharterers.Range(schedule).Cells( _
iRow - .row, 9), "$#,##0") & vbTab
nextline = Left(nextline, Len(nextline) - 1) 'Remove the trailing tab
'If more than 4 properties were included insert a new line after the 4th one
Dim tabloc As Long: tabloc = 0
Dim counter As Long: counter = 0
Do
tabloc = tabloc + 1
tabloc = InStr(tabloc, nextline, vbTab)
If tabloc > 0 Then counter = counter + 1
Loop While tabloc > 0 And counter < 4
If counter = 4 Then nextline = Left(nextline, tabloc - 1) & vbNewLine & Mid(nextline, tabloc)
value = value & nextline & vbNewLine
End If
Next iRow
End With
GenerateVesselScheduleHelper = value
End Function
the resulting string can be used just like the contents of any excel cell, and passed to the replacement function, which will appropriately use the clipboard method if it exceeds 255 characters.
So this template:
Plus this spreadsheet data:
Becomes this document:
I sincerely hope that this helps someone out some day. It was definitely a huge undertaking and a complex wheel to have to re-invent. The application is huge, with over 50,000 lines of VBA code, so if I've referenced a crucial method in my code somewhere that someone needs, please leave a comment and I'll add it in here.
http://www.computorcompanion.com/LPMArticle.asp?ID=224 Describes the use of Word bookmarks
A section of text in a document can be bookmarked, and given a variable name. Using VBA, this variable can be accessed and the content in the document can be replaced with alternate content. This is a solution to having placeholders such as Name and Address in the document.
Furthermore, using bookmarks, documents can be modified to reference bookmarked text. If a name appears several times throughout a document, the first instance can be bookmarked, and additional instances can reference the bookmark. Now when the first instance is programatically changed, all other instances of the variable throughout the document are also automatically changed.
Now all that's needed is to update all the documents by bookmarking the placeholder text and using a consistent naming convention throughout the documents, then iterate through each documents replacing the bookmark if it exists:
document.Bookmarks("myBookmark").Range.Text = "Inserted Text"
I can probably solve the problem of variables that don't appear in a given document using the on error resume next clause before attempting each replacement.
Thanks to Doug Glancy for mentioning the existance of bookmarks in his comment. I had no knowledge of their existence beforehand. I will keep this topic posted on whether this solution suffices.
You might consider an XML based approach.
Word has a feature called Custom XML data-binding, or data-bound content controls. A content control is essentially a point in the document which can contain content. A "data-bound" content control gets its content from an XML document you include in the docx zip file. An XPath expression is used to say which bit of XML. So all you need to do is include your XML file, and Word will do the rest.
Excel has ways to get data out of it as XML, so the whole solution should work nicely.
There is plenty of information on content control data-binding on MSDN (some of which has been referenced in earlier SO questions) so I won't bother including them here.
But you do need a way of setting up the bindings. You can either use the Content Control Toolkit, or if you want to do it from within Word, my OpenDoPE add-in.
Having done a similar task I found that inserting values into tables was much quicker than searching for named tags - the data can then be inserted like this:
With oDoc.Tables(5)
For i = 0 To Data.InvoiceDictionary.Count - 1
If i > 0 Then
oDoc.Tables(5).rows.Add
End If
Set invoice = Data.InvoiceDictionary.Items(i)
.Cell(i + 2, 1).Range.Text = invoice.InvoiceCCNumber
.Cell(i + 2, 2).Range.Text = invoice.InvoiceDate
.Cell(i + 2, 3).Range.Text = invoice.TransactionType
.Cell(i + 2, 4).Range.Text = invoice.Description
.Cell(i + 2, 5).Range.Text = invoice.SumOfValue
Next i
.Cell(i + 1, 4).Range.Text = "Total:"
End With
in this case row 1 of the table was the headers; row 2 was empty and there were no further rows - thus the rows.add applies once more than one row was attached. The tables can be very detailed documents and by hiding the borders and cell borders can be made to look like ordinary text. Tables are numbered sequentially following the document flow. (i.e. Doc.Tables(1) is the first table...

Excel macro to change location of .cub files used by pivot tables? (to allow .xls files that depend on .cub files to be moved)

I often use Excel with pivot tables based on .cub files for OLAP-type analysis. This is great except when you want to move the xls and you realise internally it's got a non-relative reference to the location of the .cub file. How can we cope with this - ie make it convenient to move around xls files that depend on .cub files?
The best answer I could come up with is writing a macro that updates the pivot tables' reference to the .cub file location....so I'll pop that in an answer.
Here's the macro I ended up with. Clearly this makes some assumptions that might not be right for you, e.g. it updates all pivot tables in the workbook to use the same .cub file.
It loops through the workbook's Pivot Table connections to use a .cub file with
the same name as this .xls file, in the same directory. This assumes that the PivotCaches are not using LocalConnections - check that ActiveWorkbook.PivotCaches(1).UseLocalConnection = False.
Sub UpdatePivotTableConnections()
Dim sNewCubeFile As String
sNewCubeFile = ActiveWorkbook.Path & Replace(ActiveWorkbook.Name, ".xls", ".cub", , , vbTextCompare)
Dim iPivotCount As Integer
Dim i As Integer
iPivotCount = ActiveWorkbook.PivotCaches.Count
' Loop through all the pivot caches in this workbook. Use some
' nasty string manipulation to update the connection.
For i = 1 To iPivotCount
With ActiveWorkbook.PivotCaches(i)
' Determine which cub file the PivotCache is currently using
Dim sCurrentCubeFile As String
Dim iDataSourceStartPos As Integer
Dim iDataSourceEndPos As Integer
iDataSourceStartPos = InStr(1, .Connection, ";Data Source=", vbTextCompare)
If iDataSourceStartPos > 0 Then
iDataSourceStartPos = iDataSourceStartPos + Len(";Data Source=")
iDataSourceEndPos = InStr(iDataSourceStartPos, .Connection, ";", vbTextCompare)
sCurrentCubeFile = Mid(.Connection, iDataSourceStartPos, iDataSourceEndPos - iDataSourceStartPos)
' If the PivotCache is using a different cub file then update the connection to use the new one.
If sCurrentCubeFile <> sNewCubeFile Then
.Connection = Left(.Connection, iDataSourceStartPos - 1) & sNewCubeFile & Right(.Connection, Len(.Connection) - iDataSourceEndPos + 1)
End If
End If
End With
Next i
End Sub

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