How do I open an Excel macro without the password?

You might also be interested in our Interactive VBA Tutorial for Excel.  While some of the examples / exercises are specific to Excel VBA, much of the content is generic to all VBA and you may find it useful to learn concepts like If Statements, Loops, MessageBoxes, and more.

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Download our free Microsoft Word VBA Tutorial! Or VBA Tutorials for other Office Programs!

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Word VBA Examples “CheatSheet”

Below you will find simple VBA code examples for working with Microsoft Word.

Select / Go To

Description

VBA Code

Backspace

Selection.TypeBackspace

Select Entire Document

Selection.HomeKey Unit:=wdStory
Selection.Extend

Copy

Selection.Copy

Delete

Selection.Delete Unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=1

Insert After

Selection.InsertAfter “text”

Beginning of Line

Selection.HomeKey Unit:=wdLine

End of Line

Selection.EndKey Unit:=wdLine

Paste

Selection.Paste

Select All

Selection.WholeStory

Select Entire Line

Selection.EndKey Unit:=wdLine, Extend:=wdExtend

Move Up Paragraph

Selection.MoveUp Unit:=wdParagraph, Count:=1

Move Right One Character

Selection.MoveRight Unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=1

Move Right One Cell in Table

Selection.MoveRight Unit:=wdCell

Go To Start of Doc

Selection.HomeKey Unit:=wdStory

Go To End of Doc

Selection.EndKey Unit:=wdStory

Go To Page 1

Selection.GoTo What:=wdGoToPage, Which:=wdGoToNext, Name:=”1″

Go To Top of Page

    Selection.GoTo What:=wdGoToBookmark, Name:=”\Page”
Selection.MoveLeft Unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=1

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Bookmarks

Description

VBA Code

Add

With ActiveDocument.Bookmarks
.Add Range:=Selection.Range, Name:=”Name”
.DefaultSorting = wdSortByName
.ShowHidden = False
End With

Count

Dim n as Integer
n = ActiveDocument.Bookmarks.Count

Delete

ActiveDocument.Bookmarks(“BookmarkName”).Delete

Exists?

If ActiveDocument.Bookmarks.Exists(“BookmarkName”) = True then
‘Do something
End If

Go To

Selection.GoTo What:=wdGoToBookmark, Name:=”BookmarkName”

Select

ActiveDocument.Bookmarks(“BookmarkName”).Select

Replace Text

Selection.GoTo What:=wdGoToBookmark, Name:=”BookmarkName”
Selection.Delete Unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=1
Selection.InsertAfter “New Text”
ActiveDocument.Bookmarks.Add Range:=Selection.Range, _
Name:=”BookmarkName”

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Document

Description

VBA Code

Activate

Documents(“Example.doc”).Activate

Add to Variable

Dim doc As Document
Set doc = Documents.Add

Add

Documents.Add

Add (From Another Doc)

Documents.Add Template:=”C:\Forms\FormDoc.doc”, _
NewTemplate:=False

Close

Documents(“Example.doc”).Close

Close – Save Changes

Documents(“Example.doc”).Close SaveChanges:=wdSaveChanges

Close – Do Not Save

Documents(“Example.doc”).Close SaveChanges:=wdDoNotSaveChanges

Close – Prompt to Save

Documents(“Example.doc”).Close SaveChanges:=wdPromptToSaveChanges

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Columns

Description

VBA Code

Save As

Documents(“Example.doc”).SaveAs (“C:\Example\Example.doc”)

Save

Documents(“Example.doc”).Save

Protect

Documents(“Example.doc”).Protect Password:=”password”

Unprotect

Documents(“Example.doc”).UnProtect Password:=”password”

Number of Pages

Dim varNumberPages as Variant
varNumberPages = _
ActiveDocument.Content.Information(wdActiveEndAdjustedPageNumber)

Print

Documents(“Example.doc”).Print

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VBA Coding Made Easy

Font

Description

VBA Code

Size

Selection.Font.Size = 12

Bold

Selection.Font.Bold = True

Italics

Selection.Font.Italic = True

Underline

Selection.Font.Underline = wdUnderlineSingle

All Caps

Selection.Font.AllCaps = True

Color

Selection.Font.TextColor = vbRed

Name

Selection.Font.Name = “Abadi”

Subscript

Selection.Font.Subscript = True

SuperScript

Selection.Font.Superscript = True

Highlight Color

Selection.Range.HighlightColorIndex = wdYellow

Style

Selection.Style = ActiveDocument.Styles(“Normal”)

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Insert

Description

VBA Code

Insert AutoText

Selection.TypeText Text:=”a3″
Selection.Range.InsertAutoText

Insert Date Code

Insert File

Selection.InsertFile (“C:\Docs\Something.doc”)

Insert Page Break

Selection.InsertBreak Type:=wdPageBreak

Insert Paragraph Symbol

Selection.TypeText Text:=Chr$(182)

Insert Tab

Selection.TypeText Text:=vbTab

Insert Text

Selection.TypeText Text:=”Any Text”

Insert Type Paragraph

Selection.TypeParagraph

Insert Paragraph

Selection.InsertParagraph

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Loops

Description

VBA Code

Do Until End of Doc

Do Until ActiveDocument.Bookmarks(“\Sel”) = ActiveDocument.Bookmarks(“\EndOfDoc”)
‘Do Something
Sub

For Each Doc in Docs

Dim doc As Document
ForEach doc In Documents
‘Do Something
Next doc

Loop Through Paragraphs

Sub through Paragraphs
Dim i As Long, iParCount As Long
iParCount = ActiveDocument.Paragraphs.CountFori = 1 To iParCount
ActiveDocument.Paragraphs(i).Alignment = wdAlignParagraphLeft
Next i

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Paragraph

Description

VBA Code

KeepLinesTogether

Selection.ParagraphFormat.KeepTogether = True

KeepWithNext

Selection.ParagraphFormat.KeepWithNext = True

Space After

Selection.ParagraphFormat.SpaceAfter = 12

Space Before

Selection.ParagraphFormat.SpaceBefore = 0

Align Center

Selection.ParagraphFormat.Alignment = wdAlignParagraphCenter

Align Right

Selection.ParagraphFormat.Alignment = wdAlignParagraphRight

Align Left

Selection.ParagraphFormat.Alignment = wdAlignParagraphLeft

Left Indent

Selection.ParagraphFormat.LeftIndent = InchesToPoints(3.75)

Right Indent

Selection.ParagraphFormat.RightIndent = InchesToPoints(1)

Line Spacing

With Selection.ParagraphFormat
.LineSpacingRule = wdLineSpaceExactly
.LineSpacing = 12
End With

Loop Through All Paragraphs

Sub through Paragraphs
Dim i As Long, iParCount As Long
iParCount = ActiveDocument.Paragraphs.CountFori = 1 To iParCount
ActiveDocument.Paragraphs(i).Alignment = wdAlignParagraphLeft
Next i

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Word VBA Macro Tutorial

This is a tutorial for using VBA with Microsoft Word. This tutorial will teach you how to write a simple Macro and interact with Documents, Ranges, Selections, and Paragraphs.

Note: If you’re brand new to Macros / VBA you might also find this article useful: How to write VBA Macros from Scratch.

VBA is the programming language used to automate Microsoft Office programs including Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, and Access.

Macros are blocks of VBA code that perform specific tasks.

When you Record a Macro, Word will write VBA code into a Macro, allowing you to repeat your actions. You can see a list of all available Macros from View > Macros.

After recording a Macro, you will be able to edit the Macro from the Macro List:

When you click Edit, you open the VBA Editor. Using the VBA Editor you can edit recorded Macros or write a Word Macro from scratch. To access the VBA Editor use the shortcut ALT + F11 or click Visual Basic from the Developer Ribbon.

Simple Word Macro Example

This is a simple example of a Word VBA Macro. It performs the following tasks:

• Opens a Word Document
• Writes to Document
• Closes and Saves the Word Document.

Sub WordMacroExample()

    'Open Doc & Assign to Variable
    Dim oDoc As Document
    Set oDoc = Documents.Open("c:\Users\someone\NewDocument.docx")
    
    'Write To Doc
    Selection.TypeText "www.automateexcel.com"
    Selection.TypeParagraph
    
    'Save and Close Doc
    oDoc.Save
    oDoc.Close
    
End Sub

Word Macro Basics

All VBA code must be stored within procedures like this. To create a procedure in VBA type “Sub WordMacroExample” (Where “WordMacroExample” is your desired Macro name) and press ENTER. VBA will automatically add the parenthesis and End Sub.

Word Document Object

When interacting with Microsoft Word in VBA, you will frequently reference Word “Objects”. The most common objects are:

Application Object – Microsoft Word itself

Document Object – A Word document

Range Object – A part of a Word document

Selection Object – A selected range or cursor location.

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Application

Application is the “top-level” object. All other objects in Word can be reached through it.

In addition to accessing other Word objects, there are “application-level” settings that can be applied:

Application.Options.AllowDragAndDrop = True

This is an example of accessing the “Selection” of “Windows(1)” with in the Application:

Application.Windows(1).Selection.Characters.Count

However, the most common Word objects can be accessed directly, without typing the full hierarchy. So instead, you can (and should) just type:

Selection.Characters.Count

Documents

ActiveDocument

Often, you will have two or more documents opened in Word and you will need specify which specific Word Document to interact with. One way to specify which document is to use ActiveDocument. For example:

ActiveDocument.PrintOut

…would print the ActiveDocument. The ActiveDocument is the document in Word which “has focus”

To switch the ActiveDocument, use the Activate command:

Documents("Example.docx").Activate

ThisDocument

Instead of using ActiveDocument to reference the active document, you can use ThisDocument to reference the document where the macro is stored. ThisDocument will never change.

ThisDocument.PrintOut

Document Variables

However, for more complicated macros, it can be hard to keep track of the Active Document. It can also be frustrating to switch back and forth between documents.

Instead, you can use Document variables.

This macro will assign the ActiveDocument to a variable and then  print the document using the variable:

Sub VarExample()
    Dim oDoc As Document
    Set oDoc = ActiveDocument
    oDoc.PrintOut
End Sub

Document Methods

Open Document

To Open a Word Document:

Documents.Open "c:\Users\SomeOne\Desktop\Test PM.docx"

We recommend always assigning a Document to a variable upon opening it:

Dim oDoc as Document
Set oDoc = Documents.Open("c:\Users\SomeOne\Desktop\Test PM.docx")

Create New Document

To create a new Word Document:

Application.Options.AllowDragAndDrop = True

We can instruct Word to create a new doc based on some template:

Application.Options.AllowDragAndDrop = True

As always, it is useful and huge problem saver to assign document to variable upon creating or opening:

Application.Options.AllowDragAndDrop = True

Save Document

To save a document:

Application.Options.AllowDragAndDrop = True

or SaveAs:

Application.Options.AllowDragAndDrop = True

Close Document

To close a Document and save changes:

Application.Options.AllowDragAndDrop = True

or without saving changes:

Application.Options.AllowDragAndDrop = True

Print Document

This will print the active Document:

ActiveDocument.PrintOut

Range, Selection, Paragraphs

Range and Selection are probably the most important objects in Word VBA, certainly the most used.

Range refers to some portion of document, usually, but not necessarily, text.

Selection refers to selected text (or other object like pictures) or, if nothing is selected, an insertion point.

Paragraphs represent paragraphs in document. Its less important than it sounds, because you can’t directly access paragraph text (you need to access particular paragraph range to make modifications).

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Range

Range can be any part of document, including entire document:

Application.Options.AllowDragAndDrop = True

or it can be small as one character.

Another example, this range would refer to first word in document:

Application.Options.AllowDragAndDrop = True

Usually, you would want to get range which refers to specific part of document and then modify it.

In the following example we will make the first word of second paragraph bold:

Application.Windows(1).Selection.Characters.Count

Set Range Text

To set the text value of a Range:

Application.Windows(1).Selection.Characters.Count

(Tip: Note the space after “Hello”. Because word object includes space after word, with just “hello” we would get “Hellonext word”)

There are hundreds of things which you can do with ranges. Just a few examples (these assume you are already made object variable oRange referring to range of interest):

Change font

Application.Windows(1).Selection.Characters.Count

Display in message box number of characters in particular range

Application.Windows(1).Selection.Characters.Count

Insert some text before it

Application.Windows(1).Selection.Characters.Count

Add a footnote to range

Application.Windows(1).Selection.Characters.Count

Copy it to clipboard

Application.Windows(1).Selection.Characters.Count

After above code, oRange would refer to text starting with fifth and ending with 50th character in document.

Selection

Selection is even more widely used than Range, because it is easier to work with Selections than Ranges, IF your macro ONLY interacts with the ActiveDocument.

First select the desired part of your document.  For example select the second paragraph in active document:

Application.Windows(1).Selection.Characters.Count

Then you can use the Selection Object to type some text:

Application.Windows(1).Selection.Characters.Count

We can type some paragraphs bellow “Some text”:

Application.Windows(1).Selection.Characters.Count

Often, it’s necessary to know if some text is selected or we have just a insertion point:

Selection.Characters.Count

When working with Selection object we want to place insertion point to particular place, and issue commands starting from this point.

Beginning of document:

Selection.Characters.Count

Beginning of current line:

Selection.Characters.Count

The Extend parameter wdMove moves the insertion point. Instead, you could use wdExtend which will select all text between the current insertion point.

Selection.Characters.Count

Move Selection

The most useful method for changing position of insertion point is Move. To move Selection two characters forward:

Selection.Characters.Count

to move it backwards, use negative number for Count parameter:

Selection.Characters.Count

Unit parameter can be wdCharacter, wdWord, wdLine, or more (use Word VBA help to see others).

To move words instead:

Selection.Characters.Count

Selection is easier to work with (compared to ranges) because it is like a robot using Word, mimicking human user. Where Insertion point is – some action would take place. But, this means that you must take care where insertion point is! This is not easy after many steps in code. Otherwise, Word would change text in not desired place.

In the case you need some property or method not available in Selection object you can always easily obtain range associated with selection:

Selection.Characters.Count

TIP: Using Selection is often easier than using ranges, but also it’s way slower (important when you deal with big documents)

Paragraphs

You can’t directly use Paragraphs object to change text:

Selection.Characters.Count

Above wouldn’t work (actually it will throw an error). You need to first obtain range associated with particular paragraph:

Selection.Characters.Count

But you can directly change its style:

ActiveDocument.PrintOut

or change its paragraph level formatting:

ActiveDocument.PrintOut

or maybe you want to keep this paragraph on the same line with next paragraph:

ActiveDocument.PrintOut

Make paragraph centered:

ActiveDocument.PrintOut

It is VERY useful to assign a particular paragraph to object variable.  If we assign particular paragraph to variable we don’t have to worry if the first paragraph becomes the second because we inserted one paragraph before it:

ActiveDocument.PrintOut

Here is an example where we insert a paragraph above the first paragraph, but we can still reference the old first paragraph because it was assigned to a variable:

ActiveDocument.PrintOut

Paragraph object is very frequently used in loops:

ActiveDocument.PrintOut

Word VBA Tutorial Conclusion

This tutorial covered the basics of Word VBA. If you’re new to VBA, you should also review our general VBA Tutorial to learn more about Variables, Loops, MessageBoxes, Settings, Conditional Logic and much more.

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Word Macro Examples

Word VBA FAQs

What is a Word Macro?

A Macro is a general term that refers to a set of programming instructions that automates tasks. Word Macros automate tasks in Word using the VBA programming language.

Does word have VBA?

Yes, Microsoft Word has the VBA Editor. It can be accessed with by pressing ALT + F11 or by navigating to Developer > Visual Basic.