Greeting all-

I wrote the following VBA code for a graduate student who is using Word to
collect research data. I just heard from her that manually invoking
spellcheck interrupts/stops the macro, resulting in lost data. I haven't
programmed a lot in Word, so I wasn't aware of this problem- are there any
common workarounds to keep the macro "alive" and collecting data in the
background during and after a spellcheck? I've included all of the code
below, in case there is anything in the existing code that should be tweaked
to support a solution.

The code captures the cursor position, current time, and 20s interval tag to
a text file, number of chars in the file, and the number of spelling errors
so far. Apparently, it is when the subjects invoke the spellchecker directly
that the macro stops.

Many thanks,
Keith

Sub Document_Open()

   'can't check if SSID file exists- error would warn the subject

   'Open SubjectID Text File
   Const ForReading = 1, ForWriting = 2, ForAppending = 3
   Dim fs, f
   Set fs = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
   Set f = fs.OpenTextFile("c:\SubjectID.txt", ForReading, TristateFalse)
   SSID = f.readline
   f.Close

   'Will move this later, maybe to an add-in
   'Identify subject ID for this session and use in filename
'    SID = InputBox("This will eventually be done before the subject enters
the room and the file is opened" & Chr(13) & Chr(13) & _
'    "Please enter the subjectID:", "Pre-Session Subject Information")
'    'Verify that SID was given
'    If Len(SID) = 0 Then
'        MsgBox ("Subject ID not entered- session code will now terminate."
& Chr(13) & Chr(13) & _
'        "To run a real session, close this file, start a new file, and
enter a Subject ID")
'    Else

       'Let Word know that we will be using the FileSystemObject in our
code
       'Set fs = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

       'Determine file name for this session
       TimeExtension = CheckTime()
       MyFileName = SSID & TimeExtension
       'Create the file (or at least the name)
       Set a = fs.CreateTextFile("c:\" & MyFileName & ".txt")
       a.Close

       'capture the actual session start time, for future reference
       SessionStartTime = Now()

       'set the first interval as 20 seconds from session start time
       NextInterval = SessionStartTime + TimeValue("00:00:20")

       'set the code to run at the Next Interval
       Every20Seconds

   'End If
End Sub

'*** In Module 1***

Public NextInterval
Public a 'for filesystem object
Public MyFileName
Public SessionStartTime

Sub Every20Seconds()
   Application.OnTime When:=NextInterval, Name:="AngiesData"
End Sub

Sub AngiesData()
   'Let Word know that we will be using the FileSystemObject in our code
   Set fs = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

   'create lMyCharCount variable to hold the character count
   Dim lMyCharCount As Long
   'create a range variable to hold the document minus last word
   Dim rgeDoc As Range
   'create a range variable to find current cursor location
   Dim rgeLoc As Range

   'create lmyErr to hold the spelling error count
   'has to be a variant to hold the actual errors as well as error count
   Dim lmyErr As Variant

   'Calculate elapsed time for current interval
   ElapsedTime = Format(NextInterval - SessionStartTime, "hh:mm:ss")

   'reset the timer for the next interval
   NextInterval = NextInterval + TimeValue("00:00:20")

   'retrieve the number of characters in the document
   'this also may include paragraph formatting and hard returns
   lMyCharCount = ActiveDocument.Characters.Count

   Set rgeLoc = ActiveDocument.Range
   rgeLoc.End = Selection.Range.End
   CurrLoc = (ActiveDocument.Characters.Count - 1) -
rgeLoc.Characters.Count

   'check to see how many spelling errors are in the active document minus
the last word

   'set the range to be checked to the whole document minus the last word
   Set rgeDoc = ActiveDocument.Range
   rgeDoc.MoveEnd wdWord, -2    '2 because last pp mark counts as a word
   lmyErr = rgeDoc.SpellingErrors.Count

   'create an array of the spelling errors in the active document
   Set myErrors = rgeDoc.SpellingErrors

   'Send data to text data file
   Set a = fs.OpenTextFile("c:\" & MyFileName & ".txt", 8, TristateFalse)
   a.WriteLine ((Now) & "," & ElapsedTime & "," & lmyErr & "," &
lMyCharCount & "," & CurrLoc)
   a.Close

'        For Each lmyErr In myErrors
'            MsgBox lmyErr.Text
'        Next

   'set the macro to run at the next interval
   Every20Seconds

End Sub

Function CheckTime()

   hrs = Hour(Now)
   If Len(hrs) = 1 Then hrs = "0" & hrs

   mins = Minute(Now)
   If Len(mins) = 1 Then mins = "0" & hrs

   secs = Second(Now)
   If Len(secs) = 1 Then secs = "0" & hrs

   CheckTime = hrs & mins & secs

End Function