Moving Through a Table in a Macro

by Allen Wyatt (last updated December 7, 2013)

Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. If you are using a later version (Word 2007 or later), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for later versions of Word, click here: Moving Through a Table in a Macro.

There may be times when you want to move the insertion point from cell to cell in a table. (Under the control of your macro, of course). If you are developing a VBA macro, this is done with the Move method, in the following manner:

Selection.Move Unit:=wdCell, Count:=1

In this case, the insertion point moves forward by one cell. If you want to instead move backward, just change the value used for Count:

Selection.Move Unit:=wdCell, Count:=-1

In either case, the insertion point moves to the beginning of the next or previous cell. When moving forward, the insertion point moves left to right, top to bottom through a table. If moving backward, the movement is from right to left, bottom to top. When the beginning or end of the table is reached, the command has no further effect.

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