Hi Stacey,

I suspect that the problem is not with Document.Open or with having the
filename in a variable. More likely it's that the value of the variable
MyFile isn't a valid filename. Try running the macro one statement at a time
by pressing F8 in the VBA editor. When the highlight passes from the "MyFile
=" statement to the TypeBackspace statement, hover the mouse over the MyFile
variable to see what its value is.

If it contains a square, that represents the paragraph mark at the end of
the line. Note that the Trim function removes leading and trailing spaces,
but not paragraph marks. A quick way to eliminate paragraph marks would be
to change the "MyFile =" statement to

  MyFile = Trim(Replace(Selection.Text, vbCr, ""))

Once you get past that error, you'll find that the macro as written gets a
similar error after the last listed file has been processed. That's because
Word won't let you delete the final paragraph mark, so the Selection.Text is
never just an empty string, and the condition in the While statement is
always true. When the Selection is down to the final paragraph mark, MyFile
will be an empty string, and the Open statement will error again. The
solution here is to change the While statement to

  While Selection.Text <> vbCr

I have a couple more comments, a bit off the topic of your post. One is that
if you don't want to lose your list of 400+ files, you must be very careful
to run this destructive macro only on a copy of the list, never on the
original. In general, it's a bad idea to delete information as you process
it -- there are better methods that are nondestructive.

A second comment is that, with all that opening and closing of documents
going on, you may find that Word becomes confused about which document the
Selection is in. You should define one Document object for the document that
contains the list of filenames and another Document object for the result of
the Open statement, and then use only Range objects inside those documents
to do your manipulations instead of using the Selection.

For example, to get the filenames, a loop like this won't destroy the list
and won't lose track of its location:

  Dim MyRange As Range
  Dim MyFile As String
  Dim ListDoc As Document, ProcessDoc As Document
  Dim MyPara As Paragraph

  Set ListDoc = ActiveDocument

  For Each MyPara In ListDoc.Paragraphs
     Set MyRange = MyPara.Range
     MyRange.MoveEnd wdCharacter, -1 ' exclude para mark
     MyFile = Trim(MyRange.Text)

     If MyFile <> "" Then
        Set ProcessDoc = Documents.Open(FileName:=MyFile, _
           ConfirmConversions:=False, ReadOnly:=False, _
           AddToRecentFiles:=False, Format:=wdOpenFormatAuto)

       ' Execute search and replace macro
       ' on ProcessDoc.Range

       'Save and close ProcessDoc
     End If
  Next MyPara

I don't see anything wrong with your code so long as "MyFile" is a valid
filename. You may also want to look at
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/MacrosVBA/BatchFR.htm. To use it, you would copy
all the files you want to change into a single folder, run the macro, and
then move them back to their original folders. It might be easier than what
you are attempting.

Hi Stacey,

above all, what error?

What do you mean with "row", are the filenames in a table?

What is "Trim" in this context good for?

Quote:
Returns a Variant (String) containing a copy of a specified string
without leading spaces (LTrim), trailing spaces (RTrim), or both
leading and trailing spaces (Trim).

Are all files in the same directory?

Greetings from Bavaria, Germany

Helmut Weber, MVP WordVBA

Win XP, Office 2003
"red.sys" & Chr$(64) & "t-online.de"

Never mind. I got it.  It was including the paragraph mark at the end of my
selection text.  Here's my revised code that works.

Sub Replace_All_in_Set_of_Files()
'
' Replace_All_in_Set_of_Files Macro
' Macro created 08/24/2005 by Stacey Bailey
'
Dim MyFile As String

'Request input path - no slash at end
   MsgBox ("Please include END as the last line in the input file with a
carriage return after it")
   Path = InputBox("Path for files (no trailing slash, please):", "Path")
'Go to the beginning of the file
   Selection.HomeKey Unit:=wdStory, Extend:=wdExtend
   Selection.MoveLeft Unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=1
'Read first element
   Selection.MoveEnd Unit:=wdLine, Count:=1
   Selection.MoveRight Unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=1
   Selection.TypeBackspace
   Selection.HomeKey Unit:=wdLine, Extend:=wdExtend
'Loop through files
   While Selection.Text <> "END"
       MyFile = Chr(34) & Path & "\" & Trim(Selection.Text) & Chr(34)
   'Remove entry now that it has been read
       Selection.TypeBackspace
   'Open the file
       Documents.Open FileName:=MyFile, ConfirmConversions _
       :=False, ReadOnly:=False, AddToRecentFiles:=False,
PasswordDocument:="", _
       PasswordTemplate:="", Revert:=False, WritePasswordDocument:="", _
       WritePasswordTemplate:="", Format:=wdOpenFormatAuto,
XMLTransform:=""
   'Execute Replacement Macro
       Application.Run MacroName:="SDF_ReplaceTerms"
   'Save and Close file
       ActiveDocument.Save
       ActiveDocument.Close
   ' Read next file to process
       Selection.MoveEnd Unit:=wdLine, Count:=1
       Selection.MoveRight Unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=1
       Selection.TypeBackspace
       Selection.HomeKey Unit:=wdLine, Extend:=wdExtend
   Wend
MsgBox ("All done.")
End Sub