Extracting INCLUDEPICTURE File Names

When working with long documents that contain graphics, it is not unusual to use the INCLUDEPICTURE field to actually insert the graphics into the document. If you have a large number of these fields in your document, you may want a way to create an "art list" that includes the names of the graphic files used in the document.

By using a relatively simple macro, you can step through each instance of the INCLUDEPICTURE field in your document and extract just the names of the files referenced. These can then be added to a new document, so that when the macro is done, the new document contains just a list of the files referenced in the INCLUDEPICTURE fields. Here is a macro that will do just this:

Sub GetIncludePictures()
    Dim oField As Field
    Dim oCurrentDoc As Document
    Dim oNewDoc As Document
    Dim sFileName As String

    Set oCurrentDoc = ActiveDocument
    Set oNewDoc = Application.Documents.Add

    For Each oField In oCurrentDoc.Fields
        If oField.Type = wdFieldIncludePicture Then
            sFileName = Replace(oField.Code, "INCLUDEPICTURE", "")
            sFileName = Replace(sFileName, "MERGEFORMAT", "")
            sFileName = Replace(sFileName, "\*", "")
            sFileName = Replace(sFileName, "\d", "")
            sFileName = Replace(sFileName, Chr(34), "")
            sFileName = Replace(sFileName, "\\", "\")
            sFileName = Trim(sFileName)
            oNewDoc.Range.InsertAfter sFileName & vbCrLf
        End If
    Next oField

    oNewDoc.Activate

    Set oField = Nothing
    Set oCurrentDoc = Nothing
    Set oNewDoc = Nothing
End Sub

Notice the use of the Replace function several times in the macro. This function replaces occurrences of one string within another string with other text. That may sound confusing, but it is very handy. As an example, imagine that you have a string (sMyString) that contains the characters "This is my string", and that you use the following:

SMyString = Replace(sMyString, "s", "X")

This results in every lowercase "s" in sMyString being replaced with an uppercase "X". The result is that sMyString will now contain "ThiX iX my Xtring".

In the case of the GetIncludePictures macro, the several lines that contain Replace functions work to remove all the extraneous characters from the field code, except for the actual file name of the picture. If you want something else removed, as well, you can add more lines to remove those elements. (For instance, if you wanted to remove a standard path name to where your pictures are stored.)

When the macro is done running, the only thing in the new document should be the name of pictures, as in the following examples:

C:\mypics\picture1.tif
..\graphics\chap01\fig03.gif

If you wanted just the file names, and not the full path names, you could modify the GetIncludePictures macro a bit to include code that parsed out the path. You could do this by adding the following to the macro, just after the line sFileName = Trim(sFileName):

            While Instr(sFileName, "\") > 0
                sFileName = Mid(sFileName, Instr(sFileName, "\") + 1)
            Wend

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (1296) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Word (Word 2007 and later) here: Extracting INCLUDEPICTURE File Names.