Determining if a File Exists

Summary: Your macro may need to know if a particular file exists. This is easy to figure out using the Dir command, and even easier if you use it in the function provided in this tip. (This tip works with Microsoft Word 97, Word 2000, Word 2002, Word 2003, and Word 2007.)

As you are programming your macros, you may have a need to determine if a particular file exists on disk. For instance, the purpose of your macro may be to open and read from a text file. Before doing so, you will want to check to see if the file exists, in order to avoid an error.

The following function can be used to check for the existence of a file. All you need to do is pass it the full filename as a string, and the macro returns either True (if the file exists) or False (if it doesn't).

Function FileThere(FileName As String) As Boolean
    FileThere = (Dir(FileName) > "")
End Function

You can use the function similar to the following:

If FileThere("c:\myfile.txt") Then
    '
    ' Do stuff here
    '
Else
    MsgBox "File Not There!"
End If

Tip #819 applies to Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

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Determining if a File Exists