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 a Paragraph's Style in VBA.

Determining a Paragraph's Style in VBA

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated September 23, 2023)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003


Word allows you to use styles to format both paragraphs and individual characters in your document. These styles can greatly simply the consistent application of formatting across an entire document. If you are writing a VBA macro, you may have a need to determine the name of the style applied to a particular paragraph. You can do that by using the Style property with a Paragraph object, as follows:

sParStyle = ActiveDocument.Paragraphs(J).Style

When this line is executed, sParStyle (a string variable) will contain the name of the style used on the specified paragraph.

Note:

If you would like to know how to use the macros described on this page (or on any other page on the WordTips sites), I've prepared a special page that includes helpful information. Click here to open that special page in a new browser tab.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (824) 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: Determining a Paragraph's Style in VBA.

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. ...

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