Debugging a Macro

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated March 9, 2019)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003

In Word, macros are written in a language called Visual Basic for Applications, or VBA. When you write a macro, you need to test it and correct any errors in the macro. This process is called debugging. The process of debugging a macro is the same as debugging in any other programming language. All you need to do is step through the macro, one command at a time, and make sure it works as you think it should. You do this by viewing both the windows for your macro and a test document. As you step through the macro (using the commands available in the Debug menu of the VBA Editor), you can correct any errors you locate.

As you are debugging macros, you need to make sure you think through every possible way the macro could be used and all the possible conditions that could exist at the time the macro is invoked. Try the macro out in all these ways and under all these conditions. In this way, you will make your macro much more useful.

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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 (751) 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 two more than 7?

2021-12-16 20:07:04

Allan

Hi,

I have come across this macro in youtube which you separate the mail merge in individual custom file. However, every time I run the macro it pop-up an
Run-time error '4198': Command failed (debug message) but it would generate the letters and save it individually as it suppose to be.

I can't seem to find the problem with the string. Hope you can help me with this...

singleDoc.SaveAs2 _
FileName:=masterDoc.MailMerge.DataSource.DataFields("DocFolderPath").Value & "\" & _
masterDoc.MailMerge.DataSource.DataFields("DocFileName").Value & ".docx", _
FileFormat:=wdFormatXMLDocument

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