Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated November 10, 2018)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003
If you have a need to create serial numbers in your documents and they are very simple in nature, you can do so using a macro. This approach to serial numbers is great if your serial numbers are sequential (1, 2, 3, etc.) or regular in their incidence (3, 5, 7, etc.).
To begin, you should enter the macro that will control the change of the serial number and the printing of your document. You can use the following macro:
Sub MySerial() Dim rngSerialLocation As Range Dim intSerialNum As Integer Dim strSerialNum As String Dim docCurrent As Document Dim intNumCopies As Integer Dim intCount As Integer ' set ref to current active doc Set docCurrent = Application.ActiveDocument ' set ref to the bookmarked serial number Set rngSerialLocation = docCurrent.Bookmarks("Serial").Range ' get the starting number intSerialNum = Val(rngSerialLocation.Text) ' get the number of copies required intNumCopies = Val(InputBox$("How many Copies?", _ "Print Serialized", "1")) For intCount = 1 To intNumCopies ' print the document docCurrent.PrintOut Range:=wdPrintAllDocument ' increment the serial number intSerialNum = intSerialNum + 1 ' put into formatted version strSerialNum = Format(intSerialNum, "00000") ' stuff into proper place rngSerialLocation.Text = strSerialNum Next intCount ' reset the bookmark, since the updating procedure ' wipes out the old one docCurrent.Bookmarks.Add Name:="Serial", _ Range:=rngSerialLocation End Sub
There is only one prerequisite to using the macro: you need to make sure that your document contains a bookmark named Serial. This bookmark should reference the serial number in your document, as you want it to appear in the first printed document. (When you are through running the macro, you can save the document and the serial number will be ready for the next time you want to use it.)
The macro also assumes that your serial number consists primarily of some numeric value that changes with each iteration. You can modify the incrementing of the serial number, as well as its formatting, in the For...Next loop within the macro.
Note:
WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (1747) 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: Using Sequential Document Serial Numbers.
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2020-07-18 16:08:09
Philip
Worked great. Just be careful the last thing you printed was only one copy or it will try and print that many of each serial number. All I had to do was close all word docs and open it again and it worked. Also if you are printing a large number of them it will start in the middle of the serial numbers and print a few then start at the beginning and print the rest skipping the ones it already printed. Is it possible to make it print high to low order so lowest is on top at the end?
2020-01-18 04:38:48
ADO
I found this very useful, thank you.
Would like to learn how to modify it if I apply it to multiple bookmarks,
say I want to make a hundred of lucky draw tickets, each ticket would need a pair a serial number to validate.
And there are 3 redundant copies squeezed in a page(to save paper, and ticket usually are smaller than a A4)
On the page it would have
1, 1,
2, 2,
3, 3.
Could I simply apply +3 each print and how should I make the program work?
Thanks.
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