Determining if a Text Selection Exists

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated November 29, 2025)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003

There are numerous times when you are writing macros when you will need to determine if the user has made a selection. The following VBA code will let you know if a selection has been made. The variable designated to be a flag (InSelection) is first set to False, and then the Type property of the Selection object is used to determine if there is a selection. If so, then InSelection is set to True.

InSelection = False
If Selection.Type = wdSelectionIP Then InSelection = True

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WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (127) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen...

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What is nine more than 1?

2025-12-01 05:20:05

Steve Wells

I often write tools that process the selected chunk of text, but if nothing is selected, I process the whole document.
The relevant portion of my code usually looks something like this:

' Just an insertion point or a text selection?
With Application.Selection
If .Type = wdSelectionIP Then ' Just an insertion point
.WholeStory ' Include the whole document
.HomeKey wdStory ' Move start to the beginning
.EndKey Unit:=wdStory, Extend:=wdExtend ' End at the story end
End If
' [Process the selected chunk of text or the (formerly no) text around the selection point expanded to include the whole document]
End With

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