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 the Horizontal Position of the Insertion Point.

Determining the Horizontal Position of the Insertion Point

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated June 28, 2025)

Danny is writing a macro and he need to discover the horizontal position of the insertion point, relative to the left margin, in inches. This can be done by using a rather simple macro, such as the following:

Sub HorPos()
    Location = Selection.Information( _
      wdHorizontalPositionRelativeToTextBoundary)
    MsgBox PointsToInches(Location)
End Sub

The macro uses the Information property to determine the distance from the text boundary, in points. This is then converted to inches and displayed. The text boundary is, most often, the left margin in a normally formatted document. In some circumstances it could also be something else, such as the cell boundary in a table or column boundary in a multi-column format.

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 (3497) 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 the Horizontal Position of the Insertion Point.

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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