Hi Geoff,

this one highlights red pieces of text
if the preceding paragraph is empty:

Sub Macro2a()
Dim oRng As Word.Range
Set oRng = ActiveDocument.Range
With oRng.Find
   .Font.Color = wdColorRed
   While .Execute
      If Len(oRng.Paragraphs(1).Previous.Range) = 1 Then
         oRng.HighlightColorIndex = wdYellow
      End If
   Wend
End With
End Sub

Hi Geoff

The following will find all paragraphs containing red text that are preceded
*and* followed by an empty paragraph, apply style Heading 1 and delete the
offending empty paragraphs.

Note that this will:
- not find the very first paragraph in the document (because it has no
previous paragraph)
- not find the very last paragraph in the document (no next paragraph)
- not find two consecutive paragraphs containing red text (no empy
paragraphs)
- not find workds outside the main body of the document; it does not work in
headers, footers, comments, footnotes, endnotes etc.

If this is for real production code, you'll need to add suitable error
checking.

If the lines break up in transmission, you might have to glue them back
together.

Public Sub MakeHeadingsFromRedText()

Dim oRng As Word.Range
Dim paraPrevious As Word.Paragraph
Dim paraNext As Word.Paragraph

Set oRng = ActiveDocument.Range
With oRng.Find
   .Font.Color = wdColorRed

   Do While .Execute

       'Get the next and previous paragraphs
       On Error Resume Next
       Set paraPrevious = oRng.Paragraphs.First.Previous
       Set paraNext = oRng.Paragraphs.Last.Next
       On Error GoTo 0

       'If *both* the next and previous paragraphs exists
       'and are empty then apply style Heading 1 to the
       'paragraph containing the red text
       If Not paraPrevious Is Nothing And Not paraNext Is Nothing Then

           If Len(paraPrevious.Range) = 1 And Len(paraNext.Range) = 1 Then
               'The paragraphs before and after the para
               'containing the red text are empty.
               'Make this a heading.
               oRng.Paragraphs(1).Style = wdStyleHeading1

               'And delete the extraneous paragraphs
               paraPrevious.Range.Delete
               paraNext.Range.Delete

           End If

       End If

       'Clean up for next time
       Set paraPrevious = Nothing
       Set paraNext = Nothing

   Loop
End With
End Sub

Hope this helps.

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