Determining if Num Lock is On

by Allen Wyatt (last updated May 11, 2016)

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: Determining if Num Lock is On.

When you are creating a macro for use in Word, you may want to determine if the Num Lock key is enabled. You can figure out this information by using the Information property with the wdNumLock argument. The technique is shown in the following code:

If Selection.Information(wdNumLock) Then
    Print "The Num Lock key is on"
Else
    Print "The Num Lock key is off"
End If

This, obviously, is not a complete macro. You would use this code within your larger macro, and then adapt it to what you need done depending on whether the NumLock key is enabled or not. The Information property returns either True or False depending on the condition of the key. This makes it very handy for using in the If ... End If construct, as shown.

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