Using Macros to Control Word Through Excel (or other program)

[OffTopic]

I'm working on a macro that copies text from CorelDraw and puts it into text boxes in Word. I realize this is an Excel forum but I'm thinking that since it's all Visual Basic, a lot of the code would be the same as an Excel macro to control Word.

Right now I can get the following code to work from CorelDraw:

Sub WordPlay()


Dim i As Integer
Set wrdApp = CreateObject("Word.Application")
wrdApp.Visible = True
Set wrdDoc = wrdApp.Documents.Add ' create a new document


With wrdDoc
Dim Box As Shape
For i = 1 To 2
.Content.InsertAfter "Here is a example test line #" & i
.Content.InsertParagraphAfter
Next i
End With

End Sub

Does anyone know how I can get the sample text into text boxes?

Thanks in advance, I've been searching and experimented but haven't gotten very far.

 

[Norie]

Do you have a Word document with textboxes?

If you do/did then you could try recording a macro when you manually insert text in a textbox.

Then you should be able to adapt the code generated by the recording.

 

[OffTopic]

Ideally the Macro would generate the boxes and insert the text.

I can find code to create text boxes and insert text but I can't get them to work through CorelDraw.

<code style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-family: Consolas, Menlo, Monaco, 'Lucida Console', 'Liberation Mono', 'DejaVu Sans Mono', 'Bitstream Vera Sans Mono', 'Courier New', monospace, serif; white-space: inherit; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">    Dim Box As Shape    Set Box = ActiveDocument.Shapes.AddTextbox( _        Orientation:=msoTextOrientationHorizontal, _        Left:=50, Top:=50, Width:=100, Height:=100)                Box.TextFrame.TextRange.Text = "text"
</code></pre>

I've tried placing this in various ways under the "With wrdDoc" line I keep getting errors like "object doesn't support property or method."

 

[Norie]

Pretty sure you can't just stick that code into what you already have.

Use it as a guide/template and adapt it as needed.

By the way, will the number of textboxes be fixed or can it vary?

 

[OffTopic]

Yeah, it didn't work at all but it's the closest thing to a macro for creating a text box that I could find.

I'm having trouble finding the basic information for the syntax. I don't understand how to use a dot "." at the beginning of a line.

The boxes will vary. The first part of the Macro finds text boxes within Corel that have a certain word in them. This information must be deleted from the Corel file and inputted into a word document. I would hope to also copy over the text formatting but it's not crucial at this point. I really just need to figure out how to create text boxes first.

 

[Norie]

You have the code to create a textbox, using it outwith Word VBA might look something like this.

Dim Box As Object

    ' code to create new instance of Word, add new document etc 
    With wrdDoc
        Set Box = .Shapes.AddTextbox(Orientation:=msoTextOrientationHorizontal, Left:=50, Top:=50, Width:=100, Height:=100) 
    End With
                 
    Box.TextFrame.TextRange.Text = "text"

 

[OffTopic]

First off, thank you.

Second, I get a "specified value is out of range -2147024809 (80070057)" on the "Set Box = .Shapes...." line.

I thought it may have been the specifics of the properties, like Left = 50 might have put the box outside of the margins, so I changed the values to a bunch of things and couldn't shake the error. Just to make sure I tried the original textbox macro in Word and it works fine.

I can't find much on the error code, at least not related to this specific context, but I feel a little closer to the answer.

 

[OffTopic]

I used Tools>References and linked the Word library. This didn't immediately fix the problem but as I was rewriting "Set Box = .Shapes.AddTextbox(Orientation:=msoTextOrientationHorizontal" VB prompted me with:

"The library which contains this symbol is not referenced by the current project, so the symbol is undefined. Would you like to add a reference to the containing library now?"

Once I clicked OK everything started working. If I unlink the library in Tools>References it reverts to the previous "specified value" error. Even after relinking the library the macro will not work until I rewrite the "Set Box = .Shapes.AddTextbox(Orientation:=msoTextOrientationHorizontal" and get the prompt.

This concerns me that I will have trouble sharing the macro with coworkers if the only way to link the library is the equivalent of casting a spell and hoping for a prompt. I believe I came across a post from you (Norie) about early and late binding but didn't have any luck with the shared code.

Thank you very much for the help. This was a large hurdle.

 

[Norie]

Unless you are using early binding a constant like msoTextOrientationHorizontal means nothing in the application you are automating from and will most likely be treated as n undeclared variable with the value 0, vbNullString, Empty, Nothing.

Normally you would replace the constant with it's actual value, have you tried that?

 

[OffTopic]

No, I'm not sure what the constant of msoTextOrientationHorizontal is. I brought the macro to a different computer and it works fine. Thanks again for the help.