How to modify tables in Microsoft Word using VBA – Guide

In a word document, changing individual tables would be a time-consuming task. Instead, use VBA!

Can you change the tables so they’re all in one place?

If you have a lot of tables and someone requests a lot of formatting changes, it’s best to panic. You can cycle through all tables in a document using VBA’s Table collection and perform the same adjustment(s). However, I’m going to show you two basic VBA functions that loop through the Tables collection in this article. Each table is converted to text in the first step. The second option is to make the border blue.

I’m running Microsoft 365 on a Windows 10 PC. Although earlier versions are also supported, Word Online does not support VBA procedures. You can download demonstration.docm, .doc and .cls files for your convenience.

converting to text

A Word table is like any other table; it displays rows and columns of related data. Creating and formatting one is simple, but it’s just as easy to finish. Up with table-to-table inconsistencies when there are many tables in a complex document. It takes a lot longer to reign in all these inconsistencies than it does to create them in the first place.

The code in Listing A is a simple For Each loop that loops through all the tables in the current document. To do this, the code references the Tables collection and the wdSeparateByTabs constant of the Separator table property. It’s extremely simple and does just one thing: converts all tables to text. You are converting all tables – this is important to note because you can convert a table that you don’t want to convert. This procedure will not allow you to select and choose.

The conversion process can be a little daunting, but with a little bit of effort, it can be done in a few simple steps. First, identify the table’s data type. This is usually something like an integer or string. Next, identify the column that the data is located in. This will be something like name or id. Finally, identify the field that the data is located in. This will be something like name or value. Now, use the appropriate function to convert each field to text. For example, to convert an integer to text, use the Integer() function. To convert a string to text, use the String() function. To convert a value to text, use the Value() function."

tbl.Employees

Select e from Employees Dim tbl as table tbl.Employees = Select e from Employees The Dim statement creates a new table called “tbl”. The “Employees” table will have the same data as the “Employees” table in the original query, but it will be in a new table. The Select statement selects all of the data in the “Employees” table and puts it into the new table called “tbl”. ..

ActiveDocument.tables.Count = 1 End If

There are no tables in this document.

ActiveDocument.tables[tbl] contains the data for that table.

The text field is divided into tabs, which makes it easier to read.

The first delimiter is the table’s header. This is the text that appears before the table’s content. The second delimiter is the table’s body. This is the text that appears after the table’s header and before any data. The third delimiter is the column headings. These are used to group data by topic or other criteria. The fourth delimiter is the data itself. This can be any type of information, including text, numbers, or tables.

The code in this article uses the Tables collection to store data. This collection has a few properties that can be changed to affect the way the data is stored. The first property is the name of the table, which can be changed to any desired name. The second property is the type of table, which can be changed to any desired type. The third property is whether or not to format the data according to a specific style. This property can be changed to any desired value, but I chose convert because it requires so little code. The fourth and final property in the Tables collection is an accessor for each table in the collection. This accessor allows you to change one or more properties of a table within a loop, without having to change all of the tables in the collection.

To enter the procedure, press Alt + F11 to open the Visual Basic Editor. In the Project Explorer on the left, select ThisDocument. You can either enter the code manually or import the .cls file for download. Also, the procedure is in the .docm and .doc files for download. If you enter the code manually, please do not paste from this web page. Instead, copy the code into a text editor and paste it into the ThisDocument module. This will remove all ghost characters from the web that would otherwise cause errors.

  1. Open the workbook in a new window or tab.
  2. On the ribbon, click on the Macros tab.
  3. In the Macro dialog box, click on the Save As button to save your workbook as a macro-enabled file. If you are working on the menu version, you can skip this step.
  4. Now let’s perform this procedure on the demo file as follows:

After performing this procedure, all three tables are now plain text strings, separated by tabs. Remember, if your delimiter isn’t tab characters, be sure to update this property in your code. Also, if the document does not have tables, the code will display an informational message box and then stop. You will likely want to add a more descriptive message to your inbox.

If you want to continue using the demo file, please press Ctrl+Z three times to undo table conversions. Or close the file without saving and reopen it. We are about to change the properties of the table, expanding the procedure a bit. ..

Changing a format

Listing B walks through the Tables collection, but you can do much more than convert the tables to text. You can apply a new table style, change the border color, and so on. We’ll keep this next procedure, Listing C, as simple as the first, changing only one property, the outer border color. Listing C walks through the Tables collection, but you can do much more than convert the tables to text. You can also apply a new table style, change the border color, and so on. We’ll keep this next procedure, Listing D, as simple as the first, changing only one property: The outer border color.

This change will make the text more legible in direct sunlight.’ To improve readability in direct sunlight, change the outer edge color of the text to blue. ..

tbl.name tbl.value

ActiveDocument.tables.Count = 1 End If

There are no tables in this document. ..

There is a unique ID for each tbl. This ID is used to identify the tbl in ActiveDocument. ..

This procedure also cycles through the Tables collection, stopping at each table in the document and changing its outer border color to blue. I chose this property because there are so many possibilities (and color constants). But when you know how to Scrolling through the collection of tables, it’s easy to make changes that are made automatically using VBA.

Final note

This guide will show you how to modify tables in Microsoft Word using VBA. If you have any query about this article, you may ask us. Additionally, please share your love by sharing this article with your friends.