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MS Office Forum / Word / Programming / January 2008Another dreaded "loop through the document" question
Using Word 2007. I promise that I have looked through the code here but my programming skills are rusty and VBA is NOT my "thing". I have a long (200+ page) document that begins life as an HTML file generated by a test bank program. I've written a long macro that does a lot of cleanup work using find/replace and it works great. However, I'm not quite satisfied with my results. This test bank doesn't get monkeyed with often so I don't care how slow or clunky the macro is and I don't care to spend hours and hours getting it perfect. The edited document contains between 450 and 500 questions, each in the format shown below. All paragraphs are in the Normal style (with no space above or below) except the question number (e.g, 13 of 465), which is in Normal (Web) (which has space before and after). I'll show returns as <r>. = indicates a horizontal rule that is the full width of the page, - indicates a horizontal rule that is half the width of the page. =========================================== 13 of 465<r> This is the question. It may be one or more paragraphs. Each paragraph ends with two returns.<r> <r> (some questions have a graphic)<r> <r> a. This is the first answer.<r> b. This is the second answer.<r> c. This is the third answer.<r> d. This is the fourth answer.<r> -------------------------------------------<r> This is the feedback shown if the student gives the wrong answer. It may be more than one paragraph.<r> <r> a.<r> ================================================== 14 of 465<r> etc. I want the information below the possible answers to show the correct answer before the feedback, like this: -------------------------------------------<r> a.<r> This is the feedback shown if the student gives the wrong answer. It may be more than one paragraph.<r> ================================================== I have recorded a macro which finds the correct answer, cuts it, then searches for the graphic immediately above it (which is always the short horizontal rule) and pastes it after that graphic, then formats with a style that has space below. I'm not worried about two hard returns in a row right now because I can search and replace those later. I just want to get the answer and the feedback swapped for now. Here's the code that I recorded. I just need to know what to put around it to make it run repeatedly until it gets to the end of the document. I'm sure this is a stupidly simple thing, but I'm having no luck. I understand the concept of loops, I just don't know what variable to check for to do this until the end of the document is reached. If there's a way to search for a horizontal rule (and differentiate between full-width and 50% width), I'm all eyes because I may need to differentiate between graphics that are pictures and those that are lines. Sub SwapAnswer() ' ' SwapAnswer Macro ' ' Selection.Find.ClearFormatting With Selection.Find .Text = "^p^$.^p" .Replacement.Text = "" .Forward = True .Wrap = wdFindAsk .Format = False .MatchCase = False .MatchWholeWord = False .MatchWildcards = False .MatchSoundsLike = False .MatchAllWordForms = False End With Selection.Find.Execute Selection.Cut Selection.Find.ClearFormatting With Selection.Find .Text = "^g^p" .Replacement.Text = "" .Forward = False .Wrap = wdFindAsk .Format = False .MatchCase = False .MatchWholeWord = False .MatchWildcards = False .MatchSoundsLike = False .MatchAllWordForms = False End With Selection.Find.Execute Selection.MoveRight Unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=1 Selection.PasteAndFormat (wdPasteDefault) Selection.MoveUp Unit:=wdLine, Count:=1 Selection.Style = ActiveDocument.Styles("Body Text") Selection.TypeBackspace End Sub Thanks in advance for any and all help. I'm sure I'm missing something very simple. liz There is little doubt that what you want to do is possible, but you facsimile example does not provide sufficient information. Copy and paste several question/answer segments into a message that you post back here so that we can get a better idea of what you are starting with.  SignatureHope this helps. Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my services on a paid consulting basis. Doug Robbins - Word MVP > Using Word 2007. > [quoted text clipped - 123 lines] > > liz Doug, Okay, I've posted several questions. The code I posted works ONCE each time the macro runs. It finds the right answer, moves it above the explanation, and changes the style to one that has space below rather than using Enter Enter. I just need to know how to make the code repeat until it gets to the end of the document. I need a loop, I just don't know what the magic "end of file" condition is. I could fake it by looping 465 times but there aren't always 465 questions and I don't really want to have to remember to change the magic number each time. Thanks, liz ------- 1 of 465 The fastest, most powerful computers often must be fed data by several fast, powerful, multi-user and multitasking computers. In which category are the computers that feed the data? a. super computer b. mainframe c. minicomputer d. microcomputer ________________________________________ Mainframes are used to feed data to the fastest, most powerful computers (supercomputers). b. ________________________________________ 2 of 465 The smallest, least powerful, least expensive computers are in which category? a. super computer b. mainframe c. minicomputer d. microcomputer ________________________________________ Microcomputers are the smallest, least powerful, least expensive computers. d. ________________________________________ 3 of 465 Computers that are usually multi-user and multitasking, but which can sometimes be devoted to performing a single task, are in which category? a. super computer b. mainframe c. minicomputer d. microcomputer ________________________________________ Minicomputers are usually multi-user and multitasking, but can sometimes be devoted to performing a single task. c. ________________________________________ 4 of 465 Which category of computers is the largest, fastest, and most powerful and is both multi-user and multitasking? a. super computer b. mainframe c. minicomputer d. microcomputer ________________________________________ Super computers are the largest, fastest, and most powerful computers and are both multi-user and multitasking. a. ________________________________________ > There is little doubt that what you want to do is possible, but you > facsimile example does not provide sufficient information. > > Copy and paste several question/answer segments into a message that you post > back here so that we can get a better idea of what you are starting with. You do not need to use a macro for this. In the Replace dialog, click on the "More" button and then check the "Use wildcards" box and in the "Find what:" control, enter ([A-z.,\- \(\)]{1,}^13)(^13)([a-d]{1})(.^13) and in the "Replace with:" control, enter \3\4\1 Then click on "Replace All" For an explanation, See the article "Finding and replacing characters using wildcards" at: http://www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/General/UsingWildcards.htm SignatureHope this helps. Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my services on a paid consulting basis. Doug Robbins - Word MVP > Doug, > [quoted text clipped - 85 lines] >> post >> back here so that we can get a better idea of what you are starting with. Doug, Alas, that did not work. I got 0 replacements. When I have time to look at your answer, I will figure out what those long strings mean and I may be able to figure out where the problem is. I'll be tickled if a find/replace will do the trick! I will get back to you later with the results after I've had time to tinker. Thanks for pointing me in the direction that will probably result in a solution! liz > You do not need to use a macro for this. > [quoted text clipped - 103 lines] > >> post > >> back here so that we can get a better idea of what you are starting with. I copied and pasted the text from your message into a Word document, then used Find and Replace to replace the line breaks ^l with ^p, then removed the superfluous carriage returns at the ends of the individual lines to restore the proper paragraph arrangement. Then, using a Wild Card replace with the strings that I gave you, the resulted in 4 replacements with the following being produced: 1 of 465 The fastest, most powerful computers often must be fed data by several fast, powerful, multi-user and multitasking computers. In which category are the computers that feed the data? a. super computer b. mainframe c. minicomputer d. microcomputer ________________________________________ b. Mainframes are used to feed data to the fastest, most powerful computers (supercomputers). ________________________________________ 2 of 465 The smallest, least powerful, least expensive computers are in which category? a. super computer b. mainframe c. minicomputer d. microcomputer ________________________________________ d. Microcomputers are the smallest, least powerful, least expensive computers. ________________________________________ 3 of 465 Computers that are usually multi-user and multitasking, but which can sometimes be devoted to performing a single task, are in which category? a. super computer b. mainframe c. minicomputer d. microcomputer ________________________________________ c. Minicomputers are usually multi-user and multitasking, but can sometimes be devoted to performing a single task. ________________________________________ 4 of 465 Which category of computers is the largest, fastest, and most powerful and is both multi-user and multitasking? a. super computer b. mainframe c. minicomputer d. microcomputer ________________________________________ a. Super computers are the largest, fastest, and most powerful computers and are both multi-user and multitasking. ________________________________________ SignatureHope this helps. Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my services on a paid consulting basis. Doug Robbins - Word MVP > Doug, > [quoted text clipped - 132 lines] >> >> back here so that we can get a better idea of what you are starting >> >> with. Doug, I was in a hurry when I started tinkering with this (school starts Monday and my computer lab wasn't ready and the computer guys weren't around so I was in panic mode), but when I slowed down a bit and went back through it, it worked! I'd not checked Use wildcards, which explains why it didn't work.\ That is really slick! However, there's at least one instance in which it isn't working properly. Haven't had time to try to figure out exactly why. When the text to be flipped is: EXST2000 is a folder. b. The search highlights only " is a folder. <p><p>b.<p>" and not "EXST2000" so the swap doesn't work properly. The result is "EXST2000b.<p> is a folder.<p>" I don't think it's because "EXST2000" is bold because the entry before it (which flips properly) is "Masterfiles is a folder." and "Masterfiles" is bold. I'll have to spend some time playing with this, but this is a good start. I may want to clean up the correct answer (remove the extra return and format as Body Text) before doing the swap, which will require a little bit of tweaking to the string you gave me. Anyway, thanks for taking the time to help! liz Doug, I have made some progress. I changed your recommended search string to the following because the feedback includes all sorts of special characters that were resulting in the only part of the feedback being selected. Rather than adding more exceptions, I just changed the range: ([ -~)]{1,}^13)(^13)([a-d]{1})(.^13) However, even though [ and ] characters are included in that range, when the feedback includes [ (as in "[Shift]"), the feedback is split at the first one of those characters. I tried adding \[\] to the string and even (\[)(\]) but that just gave me error messages. I'm sure I'm doing something obvious, but this is new enough to me that I didn't catch it. I'm going to get away from it for awhile and maybe fresh perspective will help. Second problem: Some feedback paragraphs appear perfectly normal (no unusual characters or formatting) but get split. For example, I get You should never type spaces at the beginning of a parac. graph or line .... instead of c. You should never type spaces at the beginning of a paragraph or line.... (ellipsis not in original text) Third problem: Some of the feedback is more than one paragraph (two or three, there may be some that are more than that but I'm not sure). The "flip" only flips the correct answer and the last feedback paragraph. The pattern is this: d. last answer ---------(horizontal line 50% width) feedback (one or more paragraphs, separated by two hard returns) feedback (example second paragraph) a. =========================(horizontal line, full width) I have also been able to change the style of the correct answer to Body Text so that it has space between it and the feedback, so that's more progress. Make sure that when you perform the Replace, the selection is at the beginning of the document. SignatureHope this helps. Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my services on a paid consulting basis. Doug Robbins - Word MVP > Doug, > [quoted text clipped - 56 lines] > Text > so that it has space between it and the feedback, so that's more progress. Doug, I always start with the cursor at the beginning of the document. I open the document then start the replaces. The problems that I mentioned in my latest message occur when the cursor is at the beginning of the document and nothing is selected. The cursor location isn't the source of my problems. liz > Make sure that when you perform the Replace, the selection is at the > beginning of the document. Looks like a macro method might be required. The following will re-arrange the answers to all of the questions except for the last one in the document. Dim myrange As Range Dim i As Long, j As Long Selection.HomeKey wdStory Selection.Find.ClearFormatting With Selection.Find Do While .Execute(findText:="[0-9]{1,} of [0-9]{1,}", Forward:=True, _ MatchWildcards:=True, MatchCase:=True, Wrap:=wdFindStop) = True Set myrange = Selection.Range With ActiveDocument If Not .Paragraphs(1).Range.start = myrange.start Then For i = 1 To .Paragraphs.Count If .Paragraphs(i).Range.start = myrange.start Then Set myrange = .Paragraphs(i - 2).Range Exit For End If Next i j = 3 Do While Left(.Paragraphs(i - j).Range, 1) <> "d" j = j + 1 Loop .Paragraphs(i - j + 2).Range.InsertBefore myrange.Text ' & vbCr myrange.Delete End If End With Selection.Collapse wdCollapseEnd Loop End With SignatureHope this helps. Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my services on a paid consulting basis. Doug Robbins - Word MVP > Doug, > [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] >> Make sure that when you perform the Replace, the selection is at the >> beginning of the document. Doug, Just wanted to acknowledge your response. Tomorrow is my first day of class for the semester and it's five hours of talking to the students so I may not have a chance to try the macro until Tuesday. I'll let you know how it works and I promise I'll try to translate what the macro is doing into English so I can understand it. Thanks, liz > Looks like a macro method might be required. > [quoted text clipped - 30 lines] > Loop > End With Doug, I'm up early this morning and decided I'd try the macro. The following lines are in red, which I assume means there's some sort of error. Unfortunately, I'm not familiar with VB so can't diagnose the problem, although I'll dig out some books and see if I can figure it out. Do While .Execute(findText:="[0-9]{1,} of [0-9]{1,}", Forward:=True, _ MatchWildcards:=True, MatchCase:=True, Wrap:=wdFindStop) = True and & vbCr Thanks, liz > Looks like a macro method might be required. > [quoted text clipped - 45 lines] > >> Make sure that when you perform the Replace, the selection is at the > >> beginning of the document. Doug, I realized that the red text might indicate lines that were wrapped that shouldn't be and that fixed the red problem. However, the following line produces the error "Run-time error '5941': The requested member of the collection does not exist." Do While Left(.Paragraphs(i - j).Range, 1) <> "d" I will try to do some reasearch and see if I can at least understand the keywords and what the macro is trying to do. Thanks, liz > Looks like a macro method might be required. > [quoted text clipped - 45 lines] > >> Make sure that when you perform the Replace, the selection is at the > >> beginning of the document. That problem is probably caused by the first paragraph in the document not being the one that contains 1 of 465 If you were to temporarily cut any paragraphs before that one and copy them to a new document, then run the macro on the document containing the questions, it should work OK. After running it, then you could copy the information back into the document. What is happening is that the macro is finding the # of ### string and then stepping back through the paragraphs in the document, skipping the previous couple until it comes to the d. of the fourth choice item. It then copies the a. b. c. or d. of the correct answer into the position ahead of the explanation, before deleting that a. b. c. or d. from its original location. SignatureHope this helps. Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my services on a paid consulting basis. Doug Robbins - Word MVP > Doug, > [quoted text clipped - 66 lines] >> >> Make sure that when you perform the Replace, the selection is at the >> >> beginning of the document. Doug, Cutting the text at the top of the document resolved the problem and I don't mind editing the last question myself. However (and please don't take this as criticism because it's not; I'm just reporting what's happening and I may be expecting too much)... the macro bebops along fairly quickly for the first few questions. Then it slows to a crawl. I finally had to shut the computer down after an hour and it was about 1/3 of the way through. At this rate, it's going to take 3-4 hours (maybe more since it seems slower on each subsequent questions) to process the entire file, which is 212 pages long. I'm just reporting the behavior on the off chance there's some little tweak that can be made. I had to turn off Word's autosave and the computer's screen saver to keep things from locking up. Anyway, it appears that the macro functions exactly as it needs to and I think I can make the other formatting changes (mainly style assignments and changes to try to "glue" the entire question together and get the spacing the way I want it) myself. I'm going to take some time to study the macro within the next day or two. I understand in theory what it's doing but need to absorb the details. Thanks again for all your help. You've definitely earned your MVP title! liz The reason that it slows down is because each time it finds a question number, this block of code is going back to the start of the document and working through each paragraph if turn to see if it is the one containing the found question number so that it knows what paragraph number (i) it is in the document. I'll have a look at changing the code so that perhaps it only has to go back to the last question for which it found (i) and then count forward from that spot. SignatureHope this helps. Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my services on a paid consulting basis. Doug Robbins - Word MVP > Doug, > [quoted text clipped - 32 lines] > > liz Doug, Any additional help you can give will be much appreciated, but I feel like I've taken way more of your time than I should. If you can come up with a change that works without spending too much time on it, I'm happy to use it. However, this is something that I don't do that often and I can live with the file in the out-of-order order if I have to so please don't feel obligated. I'm going to look at the macro tomorrow and try to digest it and I'm going to play with what David posted, too. I don't know if it helps that the "x of y" text is in a different style from all other text in the document... liz > The reason that it slows down is because each time it finds a question > number, this block of code is going back to the start of the document and [quoted text clipped - 40 lines] > > > > liz The following might be quicker: Dim myrange As Range Dim i As Long, j As Long, k As Long Dim Flag As Boolean Flag = False Selection.HomeKey wdStory Selection.Find.ClearFormatting With Selection.Find Do While .Execute(findText:="[0-9]{1,} of [0-9]{1,}", Forward:=True, _ MatchWildcards:=True, MatchCase:=True, Wrap:=wdFindStop) = True Set myrange = Selection.Range With ActiveDocument If Not .Paragraphs(1).Range.start = myrange.start Then If Flag = False Then For i = 1 To .Paragraphs.Count If .Paragraphs(i).Range.start = myrange.start Then Set myrange = .Paragraphs(i - 2).Range k = i Flag = True Exit For End If Next i Else For i = k To .Paragraphs.Count If .Paragraphs(i).Range.start = myrange.start Then Set myrange = .Paragraphs(i - 2).Range k = i Exit For End If Next i End If j = 3 Do While Left(.Paragraphs(k - j).Range, 1) <> "d" j = j + 1 Loop .Paragraphs(k - j + 2).Range.InsertBefore myrange.Text ' & vbCr myrange.Delete End If End With Selection.Collapse wdCollapseEnd Loop End With SignatureHope this helps. Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my services on a paid consulting basis. Doug Robbins - Word MVP > Doug, > [quoted text clipped - 32 lines] > > liz Doug, The macro is still running on the file, but the execution speed is obviously MUCH faster. It's running 1-2 seconds per question so it's still doing to take 8-10 minutes minimum to run, but that beats the heck out of the earlier version. I don't modify the test bank all that often, so that sort of execution time isn't a problem, and well worth it for getting the information in the order I want it. There are some questions that aren't in the format I showed you and I can't tell how the macro is going to work on them until after the macro is done and I have a chance to look at the file so I can't be sure just yet that everything is perfect, but if I have to deal with those questions manually (if the macro didn't work on them or made a hash of them), that's doable. I'm too tired to do a thorough job of looking at my file so I'll get back to you tomorrow with a full report after I've had a chance to look over the results. I think I can manage some of the other things I want to do with simple find and replace. I also want to understand what the code is doing and that's going to take some thought. You have no idea how much I appreciate all your work. liz > The following might be quicker: > [quoted text clipped - 80 lines] > > > > liz Doug, Here's an update. I have looked through the whole humongous edited file and the only fly in the ointment is that if the first character of the feedback has an attribute like bold, italic, or a color, the correct answer takes on that attribute. I can probably fix that with a simple find/replace, I just haven't had time to try it. There are several (four or five? not many, for sure) blocks of non-standard questions (some where the student has to type a number and some that are a multi-part question with multiple answers) that the macro doesn't handle well. However, I think the solution for those is to move them to another document temporarily (just as I have to move the first couple or three lines of the document) and handle them separately. They need relatively little editing, and I think all of that can be done with a simple find/replace macro. It's not worth the effort to modify your macro to handle them. After your macro is run on the standard questions, I can just put the maverick questions back in the file where they belong. I'm off to do some macro studying and tinkering now, but I wanted you to know that your macro works beautifully. Thanks, liz Here's my shot at it. The range collapses as it goes, so hopefully it will run steadly. You may have to cut and paste a couple of places in the code since I'm looking for text in the find. The translation from text to web and back again may have distorted the actual values of the underscore in your document. Sub MoveAnsBeforeInfo() Dim Rng3 As Range Dim Rng2 As Range Dim Rng As Range Set Rng3 = ActiveDocument.Range Set Rng = Rng3.Duplicate Do With Rng.Find .ClearFormatting .Wrap = wdFindStop 'Looking for last three characters of line. 'You may have to copy and paste to get this to work. .Execute findText:="__ ", Forward:=True If .Found Then Rng3.SetRange Rng.Start, Rng3.End InsertPt = Rng.End 'Move Rng down one sentence. Part of loop mechanism. Rng.Move wdSentence Do 'Expand down one sentence Rng.Expand wdSentence ' Rng.Select Select Case Left(Rng, 2) Case "a.", "b.", "c.", "d." MyText$ = Left(Rng, 2) Set Rng2 = ActiveDocument.Range(InsertPt + 1, InsertPt + 1) Rng2.InsertAfter Rng Rng.MoveEnd wdCharacter, 2 Rng.Cut Exit Do End Select 'Next Question check. If question unanswered, this should catch it. 'Looking for first three characters of line. 'You may have to copy and paste to get this to work. If Left(Rng, 3) = "___" Then Exit Do 'End of document check If Rng.Move(wdSentence) = 0 Then Exit Do Loop End If End With Rng.MoveStart wdWord Rng.End = Rng3.End Loop Until Not Rng.Find.Found End Sub Sub Meth2() 'Define and set ranges Dim RngToSrch As Range Dim RngResult As Range Set RngToSrch = ActiveDocument.Range Set RngResult = RngToSrch.Duplicate Do With RngResult.Find .ClearFormatting .Text = Chr(49) & Chr(32) & Chr(111) .Forward = True .Wrap = wdFindStop .Execute End With If Not RngResult.Find.Found Then Exit Do RngResult.MoveStart wdSentence, 1 RngResult.Collapse wdCollapseStart Loop Until Not RngResult.Find.Found End Sub Most of this technique is from Steven Roman's book, Writing Word Macros 1999 O'Reilly. Disregard the Meth2 Sub, it was a working area and was unintentionally copied Definitely quicker, but it gives me: 1 of 465 The fastest, most powerful computers often must be fed data by several fast, powerful, multi-user and multitasking computers. In which category are the computers that feed the data? a. super computer b. mainframe c. minicomputer d. microcomputer ____b. ____________________________________ Mainframes are used to feed data to the fastest, most powerful computers (supercomputers). ______________________________________ SignatureHope this helps. Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my services on a paid consulting basis. Doug Robbins - Word MVP > Disregard the Meth2 Sub, it was a working area and was unintentionally > copied David, Thanks for the code. I will try it tomorrow and see if I can make any sense of it. I will be able to concentrate on the macros all day tomorrow so maybe I can make some progress on understanding what is being done and perhaps be able to make simple adjustments myself if necessary. VB is so unlike any other programming language I've used and I get sensory overload just looking at the code. I greatly admire those of you who are fluent. I'm sure if I had good teachers and devoted myself to learning it, I could do so (I've learned several other programming languages reasonably well) but it's not something I have any desire to do. liz > Here's my shot at it. > [quoted text clipped - 86 lines] > Most of this technique is from Steven Roman's book, Writing Word > Macros 1999 O'Reilly. |
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