Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016. If you are using an earlier version (Word 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Word, click here: Quickly Clearing Array Contents.
If you have done any programming in VBA, you know the value of using variable arrays to store information. It is not uncommon to start working with large arrays in your macros. For instance, you might declare a 100-element string array, as follows:
Dim MyText(99) As String
As your macro executes, information can be stored and restored in the elements of the array. At some time, you may want to erase all the information in the array. One classic way of doing this is using a For ... Next loop to step through each array element, as follows:
Please Note:
This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016. If you are using an earlier version (Word 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Word, click here: 
For J = 0 To 99
MyText(J) = ""
Next J
When the looping is complete, everything has been erased from the array. A quicker way of accomplishing the same task is to use the ERASE function, as follows:
Erase MyText
Once executed, this single line sets each element of the MyText array back to an empty string. If the array is numeric, then each element of the array is set to zero.
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 (676) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Quickly Clearing Array Contents.
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2013-07-15 07:30:46
Bryan
Whoa, never knew of the Erase statement! I usually use ReDim:
ReDim MyText(99)
From my 2 minutes of internet/help docs searching, Erase is cleaner than ReDim, but you have to watch out for variable-dimensioned arrays, because Erase clears out the dimensions as well. You will still have to ReDim before using the variable again.
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