Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. 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: Finding Text Boxes.

Finding Text Boxes

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated August 12, 2022)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021

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 to 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.

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:

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 (12249) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Finding Text Boxes.

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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What is 5 - 3?

2018-12-26 06:54:49

Ken Endacott

The macro finds textboxes in the order that they were inserted which is not necessarily the order that they appear in the document. To correct this:

replace the line:
For Each shp In ActiveDocument.Shapes

with:
For Each shp In ActiveDocument.Range.ShapeRange

2018-12-25 11:48:42

Phil Reinemann

It might be worth adding a variable before the For Each loop that stores the last found text box, so you can continue the search from the last one found instead of starting from the beginning of the document again.

A question to ask continue from last found or from the beginning is of course needed too.

I rarely use text boxes so I won't attempt the code, but it's just a thought.

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