Writing Word Macros [Paperback]

Steven Roman PhD (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1565927257 | ISBN-13: 978-1565927254 | Publication Date: October 22, 1999 | Edition: Second Edition

Many Microsoft Word users and VBA programmers don't realize the extensive opportunities that exist when Word's Object Model is accessed using Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), which replaced WordBasic in conjunction with the release of Word 97. By creating what is commonly called a "Word Macro" you can automate many features available in Word. Writing Word Macros (previously titled Learning Word Programming is the introduction to Word VBA that allows you to do these things and more, including:

• Create custom pop-up menus
• Automatically create tables from lists
• Append one document to the end (or beginning) of another
• Create a toggle switch to change a document from draft to final copy by adding or removing a watermark in the header
• Generate reports using data from other applications

Not intended to be an encyclopedia of Word programming, Writing Word Macros provides Word users, as well as programmers who are not familiar with the Word object model with a solid introduction to writing VBA macros and programs. In particular, the book focuses on:

• The Visual Basic Editor and the Word VBA programming environment. Word features a complete and very powerful integrated development environment for writing, running, testing, and debugging VBA macros.
• The VBA programming language (which is the same programming language used by Microsoft Excel, Access, and PowerPoint, as well as the retail editions of Visual Basic).
• The Word object model. Word exposes nearly all of its functionality through its object model, which allows Word to be controlled programmatically using VBA. While the Word object model, with almost 200 objects, is the largest among the Office applications, readers need be familiar with only a handful of objects. Writing Word Macros focuses on these essential objects, but includes a discussion of a great many more objects as well.

Writing Word Macros is written in a terse, no-nonsense manner that is characteristic of Steven Roman's straightforward, practical approach. Instead of a slow-paced tutorial with a lot of hand-holding, Roman offers the essential information about Word VBA that you must master to program effectively. This tutorial is reinforced by interesting and useful examples that solve practical programming problems, like generating tables of a particular format, managing shortcut keys, creating fax cover sheets, and reformatting documents. Writing Word Macros is the book you need to dive into the basics of Word VBA programming, enabling you to increase your power and productivity when using Microsoft Word.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Steven Roman, Ph.D., is a professor emeritus of mathematics at the California State University, Fullerton. His previous books with O'Reilly include "Access Database Design and Programming", "Writing Excel Macros with VBA", and "Win32 API Programming with Visual Basic".

Product Details

• Paperback: 410 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media; Second Edition edition (October 22, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565927257
• ISBN-13: 978-1565927254
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #754,015 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

40 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Too little detail, too much padding, August 30, 2000

By 

PJY "pjsailor" (Cumming, Ga USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Writing Word Macros (Paperback)

I am a programmer and have been looking for a source to give me a heads up on VBA and Word macros. This book misses the mark. While I knew VBA was a subset of VB, I didn't realize that VBA was much closer to VB than a simple scripting language. While this isn't a bad thing, the first half of the book attempts to cram all the VB skills needed into small paragraphs. There is just enough detail to make a novice dangerous and frustrated. When I finally got to the meat of the book, the Word object, Roman states that he won't be going into it in detail, but only briefly. I bought the book just so I could find out about the Word object!

Another item that becomes readily apparent is that Roman felt the need to bulk up the book by restating meaningless statistics at every opportunity. I easily read 5-6 times that there are 188 Word objects compared to Access' 51 (like it matters) or Excel's 184 (so what?). After stating it in paragraphs numerous times, he even shows a graph comparing the different applications objects. He also spends a good amount of time plugging other books he has written or software he has for sale. The book does contain enough detail to learn the basics of Word Macros, but if you're already a programmer, you probably wont get enough detail to satisfy you. If you are new to programming, you may get frustrated by the scant detail on the VBA language itself.

35 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb book for those with some programming background, November 16, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Writing Word Macros (Paperback)

I must admit that I'm a bit baffled by some of the other reviews I have read of this title. This is, quite frankly, a superb book -- although perhaps not suitable for absolute beginners.

I have programmed in several other languages, but have only lately had the need to attack VBA for some projects at work, and found Word's online help frustratingly incomplete. This book's strength is that it complement's the online help and provides a deeper insight into how VBA "thinks." Other readers apparently were looking for more of a cookbook, with lots of full-figured, prewritten code, but I found that the code examples in the book, though short, provided *immediate* solutions to some problems I was facing in the code I was writing, and were sufficiently modular to be easily played-with and adapted to what I was doing. I also found another reviewer's accusation of bloat and padding in the book to be very much off the mark -- the density of useful information on a typical page of this book is much higher than in many computing titles I've read.

Bottom line: anyone with some background coding in other languages, who finds themself in the position of having to solve problems in the Word macro environment, should snap this book up at the bargain price. [An added kudo for Amazon.com: I ordered this book (admittedly with second-day shipping) from Amazon.com on Thursday afternoon, and had it in my office the next morning. That excellent order-fulfillment performance proved particularly valuable for me on this go-round!]

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Review of Writing Word Macros, June 6, 2000

By 

David Sisson (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Writing Word Macros (Paperback)

I needed a book to carry me over from WordBasic to VBA. While the book was helpful, I found the examples woefully inadaquate.

I, nor anyone else in my office, is writing a book, so the examples relating to writing 'this' book, seemed foreign. More examples of data selection and range manipulating would be more useful. However, the chapter covering tables was useful, and I refer to it often.

I thought the book struggled with keeping elementary and advanced concepts seperate.

I would not recommend this book for a first time macro user, but rather someone who has had some experience with Visual Basic or WordBasic.