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: Finding Text Boxes.
Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated February 9, 2019)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003
Word has a powerful search and replace capability that lets you search for virtually anything in your document. Word even includes codes you can use to search for special items. (Click the Special button in the Find and Replace dialog to see what codes are available.) One thing you cannot search for, however, is text boxes. There is no special code that allows you find text boxes, and you can't search for them using the Object Browser.
You can, however, use a macro to look through a document and stop when it finds a text box. The following macro stops on each text box it finds and asks the user if that is the text box wanted.
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:
Sub SearchTextBox()
Dim shp As Shape
Dim sTemp As String
Dim iAnswer As Integer
For Each shp In ActiveDocument.Shapes
If shp.Type = msoTextBox Then
shp.Select
Selection.ShapeRange.TextFrame.TextRange.Select
sTemp = Selection.Text
sTemp = Left(sTemp,20)
iAnswer = MsgBox("Box contains text beginning with:" & vbCrLf _
& sTemp & vbCrLf & "Stop here?", vbYesNo, "Located Text Box")
If iAnswer = vbYes Then Exit For
End If
Next
End Sub
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 (3520) 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: Finding Text Boxes.
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2020-02-06 04:34:28
Ken Endacott
Text can be added to any enclosed shape, whereas a textbox is a special rectangle containing text. Just to be confusing a rectangle that has text added later is not classified as a textbox even though it looks exactly like a textbox. To add to the confusion,textboxes are a subset of shapes.
The macro SearchTextBox only finds Textboxes in the body of the document but not in other areas such as headers and footers. The following macro SearchTextInShapes will find text in any shape including textboxes - but only in the body of the document.
Sub SearchTextInShapes()
Dim shp As Shape
Dim sTemp As String
Dim iAnswer As Long
For Each shp In ActiveDocument.Range.ShapeRange
If shp.TextFrame.HasText Then
shp.Select
sTemp = shp.TextFrame.TextRange.Text
sTemp = Left(sTemp, 20)
iAnswer = MsgBox("Box contains text beginning with:" & vbCrLf _
& sTemp & vbCrLf & "Stop here?", vbYesNo, "Located Text Box")
If iAnswer = vbYes Then Exit For
End If
Next shp
End Sub
2020-02-05 04:56:55
Bob
Hello,
thank you for the tip,
I have a question - is there any reason why some textboxes were not accessed in this loop?
For Each shp In ActiveDocument.Shapes
If shp.Type = msoTextBox Then
......
2019-02-24 04:48:10
Chrispy
Hi Allen,
I'm using VBA in Excel to open Word documents and search for text.
I tried to use your code and changed the ActiveDocument.Shapes to oDoc.Shapes (oDoc is defined as Word.Document)
Gave me a type mismatch on the For statement
Any ideas?
Thanks
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