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Checking for Matching Parentheses

Summary: There are lots of little "gottchas" that can make the difference between a finished document and a polished document. One such thing is making sure that you have matching parentheses—a closing parenthesis for every opening one. This tip presents a macro that can make quick work of this check and notify you if there is a potential problem. (This tip works with Microsoft Word 97, Word 2000, Word 2002, Word 2003, and Word 2007.)

Unless you are writing very short documents, cleaning up can be one of the hardest parts of writing. The following macro double-checks your document, paragraph by paragraph, to determine if you have a balanced number of parentheses. The macro counts the number of left parentheses in each paragraph of your document and makes sure you have the same number of right parentheses. If you don't, the macro inserts a paragraph before the unbalanced paragraph indicating the error.

Sub CheckParens()
    Dim WorkPara As String
    Dim CheckP() As Boolean
    Dim NumPara As Integer, J As Integer
    Dim LeftParens As Integer, RightParens As Integer
    Dim MsgText As String

    NumPara = ActiveDocument.Paragraphs.Count
    ReDim CheckP(NumPara)

    MsgText = "***Unbalanced parens in the next paragraph"
    For J = 1 To NumPara
        CheckP(J) = False
        WorkPara = ActiveDocument.Paragraphs(J).Range.Text
        If Len(WorkPara) <> 0 Then
            LeftParens = CountChars(WorkPara, "(")
            RightParens = CountChars(WorkPara, ")")
            If LeftParens <> RightParens Then CheckP(J) = True
        End If
    Next J

    For J = NumPara To 1 Step -1
        If CheckP(J) Then
            Selection.HomeKey Unit:=wdStory, Extend:=wdMove
            If J > 1 Then
                Selection.MoveDown Unit:=wdParagraph, _
                  Count:=(J - 1), Extend:=wdMove
            End If
            Selection.InsertParagraphBefore
            Selection.MoveLeft Unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=1
            Selection.Style = "Normal"
            Selection.TypeText Text:=MsgText
        End If
    Next J
End Sub

Private Function CountChars(A As String, C As String) As Integer
    Dim Count As Integer
    Dim Found As Integer

    Count = 0
    Found = InStr(A, C)
    While Found <> 0
        Count = Count + 1
        Found = InStr(Found + 1, A, C)
    Wend
    CountChars = Count
End Function

Note that there are actually two macros here. The CountChars function is called from within the main CheckParens macro. It is this latter macro (CheckParens) that is the one you should actually invoke on your document. When the macro is finished, you can search through the document, looking for the wording "***Unbalanced parens" to see where you may have problems.

Tip #1308 applies to Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Great Idea! Word is a tool to get what you really want—printed output. This means you need to make sure that Word works as well as possible with your printer, whether it is sitting on your desk or in a room down the hall.
 
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