Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated January 19, 2019)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003
True to its BASIC roots, VBA allows you fetch input (information) from sequential files. This means you can open and read a sequential text file, loading the information from the file into string variables. The steps are simple. You only have to open the file, get the input, and then close the file. The following code is a common example of reading from a sequential file:
Dim Raw As String Dim NumValues As Integer, J As Integer Dim UserVals() As String Open "MyFile.Dat" For Input As #1 Line Input #1, Raw NumValues = Val(Raw) ReDim UserVals(NumValues) For J = 1 to NumValues Line Input #1, UserVals(J) Next J Close #1
You should note that the first line read from the text file (MyFile.Dat) is assumed to contain a value that indicates how many items are to be read in from the file. The Open statement is used to open the text file (MyFile.Dat) and assign it a file number, in this case the number 1. This file number is then subsequently used by various statements (such as Line Input and Close) to reference the file.
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 (1794) 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: Getting Input from a Text File.
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