WD98: Documents Collection Fails When Document Is Closed

ID: Q182180

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Word 98 Macintosh Edition

SYMPTOMS

When you use the Visual Basic for Applications Documents collection to return all currently open documents, the document names returned to your procedure may produce duplicate names and the collection returned is incorrect.

For example, if the following three documents are currently open in Word,

   Doc1.doc
   Doc2.doc
   Doc3.doc

and you close Doc1.doc and then run your procedure to return the collection, the following series of files is returned, even though Doc3.doc is still open.

   Doc2.doc
   Doc2.doc

WORKAROUND

Microsoft provides programming examples for illustration only, without warranty either expressed or implied, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and/or fitness for a particular purpose. This article assumes that you are familiar with the programming language being demonstrated and the tools used to create and debug procedures. Microsoft support professionals can help explain the functionality of a particular procedure, but they will not modify these examples to provide added functionality or construct procedures to meet your specific needs. If you have limited programming experience, you may want to contact the Microsoft fee-based consulting line at (800) 936-5200. For more information about the support options available from Microsoft, please see the following page on the World Wide Web:

   http://www.microsoft.com/support/supportnet/refguide/

Use the Windows collection in a Visual Basic for Applications macro to work around this problem, as in the following example:

   Sub DocCollection()
      Dim wDoc As Window
      ' Loop through all Windows currently open.
      For Each wDoc In Windows
         ' Display name of document open in the current window.
         MsgBox wDoc.Document.name
      Next
   End Sub

If you have several windows that contain the same document, and if these windows are open at the same time, modify the code to check for duplicate window names, as in the following example:

   Sub DocCollection()
      Dim wDoc As Window
      Dim sCap As String
      ' Loop through all Windows currently open.
      For Each wDoc In Windows
         ' Get the Window caption.
         sCap = wDoc.Caption
         ' If the document open in the current window
         ' is a duplicate window (signified by the
         ' document name followed by a colon and
         ' the window number in the Caption property).
         If InStr(1, sCap, ":") > 0 Then
            ' and if the number equals 1 (first copy of document).
            If Mid$(sCap, InStr(1, sCap, ":") + 1, 1) = "1" Then
               ' Return the document name.
               MsgBox wDoc.Document.Name
            End If
         ' If the window caption does not contain a colon,
         ' return the window's document name.
         Else
            MsgBox wDoc.Document.Name
         End If
      Next
   End Sub

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in the Microsoft products listed at the beginning of this article.

MORE INFORMATION

For additional information, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

   ARTICLE-ID: Q181058
   TITLE     : OFF98: How to Run Sample Code from Knowledge Base Articles

REFERENCES

For more information about getting help with Visual Basic for Applications, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

   ARTICLE-ID: Q163435
   TITLE     : VBA: Programming Resources for Visual Basic for
               Applications

Additional query words: wordcon vb vba vbe

Keywords          : kbdta OffVBA kbmacroexample macword98 
Version           : MACINTOSH:98
Platform          : MACINTOSH
Issue type        : kbbug
Solution Type     : kbpending

Last Reviewed: April 7, 1999