Hi Russ,

Thanks very much once again for your help. Your solution didn't work
as is on my document but it pointed me in the right direction for *a*
solution.

Apparently, searching for and replacing break characters around tables
is asking for trouble. The first problem (of today) was that your
method of searching "([!\^m])^m([!\^m])" and replacing it by "\1^m\2"
works, provided "\2" is some character. If "\2" is a paragraph then
the search string is found but it isn't replaced. So I chose to insert
text in the paragraph above each table and that solves this problem.

But inserting a paragraph with text creates headaches of its own. The
first solution I tried was to replace "\\Delete this text!\\^p" with
"", deleting the paragraph. But that doesn't work, the find string is
found but it is not replaced. So I modified your
macro to extract the text of the paragraph above each table and to
delete it if the contents were right. This was complicated by the fact
that if the text was preceeded by a pagebreak then the pagebreak was
included in the text found (at least using the method I used).

In any case, here's your macro with the modifications I made. It seems
to work for me but I'll have to check it carefully before I can be
totally sure. Thanks once again for the help!

' This macro replaces single section breaks by a page break
' and double section breaks by a single section break
'
' This is complicated by the fact a section break (^b) will not be
found by
' search/replace if it is preceeded by or followed by a Word table.
' The macro therefore inserts a paragraph with text above and an empty
paragraph
' below each Word table in the document.
'
' The next step is to replace single section breaks by a page break.
This is done
' using a search/replace with wildcards. Search/replace with wildcards
does not
' allow the section break character ^b to be specified in the find
string. A
' workaround is to use ^m in both the find and replace strings. The
find string
' consists of any non-break character, followed by a break character,
followed
' by a non-break character. The break character will find either a
section break
' or a page break. The find string is replaced by the first non-break
character
' followed by a page break followed by the second non-break character.
'
' However, this workaround will *not* work if the paragraph following
the section
' break is empty. In that case, the section break is found but is not
replaced
' by a page break. This is the reason a paragraph with text was
inserted above
' each table.
'
' Once the single section breaks have been replaced by page breaks,
the double
' section breaks can be replaced by single section breaks.
'
' The last step is to cleanup. The paragraph with text and the empty
paragraph
' must be deleted. Here again there is a complication. If the
paragraph above a
' table is preceeded by a section break then its text is returned as
"text" plus
' a paragraph mark. If the paragraph is preceeded by a page break,
then its
' text included that page break as a form feed character (chr(12)).
'
' The workaround is therefore to test for both conditions. The empty
paragraph
' below each table can be deleted without any further trouble.
'
' Note that a search/replace for "\/\\This text is to be deleted!!\/\
\^p" with
' an empty replacement string will not work. The text will be found
but it will
' not be deleted.
Public Sub Sects()
   Dim aRange As Word.Range
   Dim oTable As Word.Table

   Application.ScreenUpdating = False

   'Insert a paragraph with text above and an empty paragraph below
   'each table in the document
   For Each oTable In ActiveDocument.Tables
       oTable.Range.InsertBreak Type:=wdColumnBreak
       oTable.Range.Previous.InsertBefore "\\Delete this text!\\"
       oTable.Range.Next.InsertBefore vbCr
   Next oTable

   Set aRange = ActiveDocument.Range(0, 0)
   With aRange.find
       .MatchWildcards = True
       .Text = "([!\^m])^m([!\^m])" 'character1 -- page/section break
-- character2
       .Replacement.Text = "\1^m\2" 'character1 -- page break --
character2
       .Execute replace:=wdReplaceAll
       .MatchWildcards = False
       .Text = "^b^b"               'two consecutive section breaks
       While .Execute
           aRange.Characters(2).Delete
           aRange.SetRange Start:=aRange.End, _
           End:=ActiveDocument.Content.End
       Wend
   End With

   'Delete the paragraph with text and the empty paragraph inserted
above
   For Each oTable In ActiveDocument.Tables
       If oTable.Range.Paragraphs(1).Previous.Range.Text = "\\Delete
this text!\\" & vbCr Then
           oTable.Range.Previous.Paragraphs(1).Range.Delete
       ElseIf oTable.Range.Paragraphs(1).Previous.Range.Text =
vbFormFeed & "\\Delete this text!\\" & vbCr Then
           oTable.Range.Previous.Paragraphs(1).Range.Delete
           oTable.Range.InsertBreak Type:=wdPageBreak
       End If
       oTable.Range.Next.Delete
   Next oTable
   Application.ScreenUpdating = True
End Sub

John Hendrickx