Tutorial 3: Editing a Word macro
This tutorial takes you through:

viewing the code produced when a macro is recorded

simple editing of a macro

deleting a macro

copying and renaming a macro.
To be able to complete this tutorial, you need to have completed Tutorial 1
in which you recorded two Microsoft Word macros, MakeBold and
MyName.
Viewing a macro
1
On the Tools menu, select Macro and then click on Macros… which
brings up a dialog box similar to the one below.
Macros dialog box
2
In the Macros in dropdown box seen in the figure above, select the
location to specify which macros will appear in the Macro name box.
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You can choose to display either a list of all the macros available in all
the active templates or a list of all the macros stored in one particular
template.
3
In the Macro name box, click the name of the macro you want to edit.
Then click the Edit button at the mid-right of the figure above. This
will bring up a Visual Basic Editor window similar to the one shown
below.
Visual Basic Editor
4
If the Project Explorer is not visible, use Control + R or the menu
sequence View/Project Explorer to open it. Remember, this allows
you to access Visual Basic code in any module of an open template or
document.
The macro created in Tutorial 1 should look something like this:
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VBA code for the MyName macro
Editing the macro
Interpreting the code
Notice how the sections of the code are indented, which makes it easier to
read:
Look at Selection.ParagraphFormat.SpaceBefore = 6
It’s a good idea to read this backwards. It translates to ‘Set the SpaceBefore
value of Paragraph Formatting for the Selection to 6.
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Removing unnecessary arguments
Remember that unnecessary arguments can be removed, making the macro
easier to understand and in some cases faster to run. The above macro can
be reduced to the code below by simply deleting the unwanted lines.
VBA code for the MyName macro after removing unnecessary code
How do you know which arguments to remove? Generally all the ones that
you did not alter, such as:
.LeftIndent = CentimetersToPoints(0) or
.RightIndent = CentimetersToPoints(0)
Make sure to remove the period before the argument. If you leave in the
punctuation characters by mistake, the macro will not run and an error
message will be displayed.
Deleting statements
If you remove a With, be sure to remove the whole section including the
End With.
Disabling code
If you want to disable part of the code without deleting it, place a ‘ (an
apostrophe or single quote) in front of the statement or argument.
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Deleting a macro
You may find that you record lots of macros that you don’t want.
2
On the Tools menu, select Macro and click on Macro as seen in the
following figure.
Macros dialog box
2
In the Macros in box, click an item to specify which macros will
appear in the Macro name box. You can choose to display either a list
of all the macros available in all the active templates or a list of all the
macros stored in one particular template.
3
In the Macro name box, click the name of the macro you want to
delete.
4
Click on the Delete button.
Copying and renaming a macro
You know that macro code is stored in modules. Here’s the Visual Basic
Editor window again, displaying two macros. (Remember that you can open
this window by selecting Tools/Macro/Visual Basic Editor)
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Visual Basic Editor
In the figure above you can see that all macros are stored in a module called
NewMacros. This module is stored in the normal template.
Individual macros can be copied and pasted within the Visual Basic Editor.
Using the Organizer
The whole module can be copied to another template using the Organizer.
To open the Organizer from within any recent version of Word follow the
menu sequence Tools/Macro/Macros/Organizer. See the figure below
which show the Organizer dialog box.
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Macro Organizer dialog box
Renaming a module
You can delete or rename a module using the Organizer.
If you want to change the name of a macro, you can rename it in the
Organizer dialog box shown above. Then you should open the code by using
the VBA Editor, and replace the text after the Sub
For example, you might want to replace Sub NoBorder() with Sub
NoLine().
You should also change NoBorder in the green comment area of the code;
however, this will have no effect on the operation of the macro.
When you rename a template you will have to reassign the macro to
menus, toolbars and shortcut keys.
You should save the module after making these changes. Remember that
you can also cut and paste code both within and between modules.
Note!

A macro begins with Sub and ends with End Sub. Be careful if you
are copying code to take the entire macro’s code or a complete
code segment.
Never have two Subs with the same name after them.
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Practice activity 1
Edit the MyName macro you created earlier so as to remove all of the
unnecessary code. Test that it still works as expected.
Feedback
Does the macro still work? You need to be extremely careful as to the
punctuation that you keep and delete:

Excess spaces between argument names are easily missed as
in.SpaceBefore and.Space Before.

Spelling must be perfect as this is the only way that Visual Basic
knows what you want done so check your spelling letter by letter if
necessary,.SpaceBefore easily is mistyped as.SpacesBefore.
Practice activity 2
Create a macro that will insert a header and footer to new documents called
HeadFoot. The header should display your name and the footer should
contain the page number and subject name.
1.
Add this macro to a new toolbar.
2.
Assign a shortcut key to this new macro.
3.
Add the macro to the Format menu as the first menu option.
4.
Edit the macro and remove any unnecessary coding.
5.
Test that the macro works from all these places even after the removal
of the code.
6.
Demonstrate the macro to a willing participant. You could ask them to
play the role of a client, then ask them for feedback. Discuss their
feedback and make changes to the macro if you think they would be
useful.
Feedback
This activity gives you revision on all the tasks you have been learning
about. Was it easy to identify the unnecessary code? If you are in doubt
don’t remove it. However you may like to try recording a second macro that
reverses all the changes. By comparing the two macros, you can identify
arguments that are identical in each indicating that these arguments are not
changing and so can be removed.
Hint: You will usually only remove whole lines between the with and end
with lines.
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Practice activity 3
Here you’ll practise using the Organizer.
1
Create a new blank template called Macros.dot. There is no need to put
any text into the template. Its only purpose is to transport macros
between computers.
Tip: The lack of text in the main document can lead to the accidental
deletion or loss of changes so it is good idea to type a note to yourself about
the nature of the file and its purpose.
2
Use the Organizer to copy the module that contains your macros from
the normal template to Macros.dot.
3
Use the Visual Basic Editor to rename some of your macros in the
Macros.dot template. Be careful not to rename those in the normal
template.
4
Copy Macros.dot to a floppy disk and transfer the template to another
computer.
5
Use the Organizer to copy the module that contains your macros from
Macros.dot to the normal template on the new computer.
6
Open a new document and check that the macros are available.
(Tools/Macro/Macros)
Feedback
Did you take the advice from the tip above? Beginners often edit the macros
in a file then when asked to save a document while exiting they don’t realise
it means the macros as well. You are often prompted to save the changes to
the normal template and many people say no because they want to leave the
normal template alone but end up losing all their macros.
The floppy disk version of Macros.dot now is a backup of your macros you
have created. It becomes a very useful resource and many client support
people collect macros from many sources as tools and templates for
solutions to problems they haven’t even encountered yet.
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