Turning Off Screen Updating

Summary: When working with macros, you can often speed up processing by turning off the updating of the screen. Best news is that it takes only a line or two added to your macro. (This tip works with Microsoft Word 97, Word 2000, Word 2002, Word 2003, and Word 2007.)

Many people write their own macros to manipulate their documents. Many times the macro may do quite a bit with the document, such as jumping to different places, replacing text, and taking other types of actions. This means that the Word screen can look like it has "gone crazy" while the macro is running.

One thing you may want to do with your macro to make it run faster and to prevent distracting flashes on the screen is to turn off screen updating while the macro is running. The following macro lines will, respectively, turn off screen updating and then turn it back on in a VBA macro.

Application.ScreenUpdating = False
Application.ScreenUpdating = True

The idea is to use the first line near the beginning of your macro, and then use the second line near the end. Thus, the main body of your macro can do its work behind the scenes without the necessity of stopping to update the screen.

Tip #749 applies to Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

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Turning Off Screen Updating