Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated March 14, 2020)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Word in Microsoft 365
Grace is creating a Word macro that performs a mail merge. She wants to start Word from the command line, and have it run this macro, which she knows how to do. What she is trying to figure out is how, on the same command line, to pass a data file name that can be accessed by the macro for subsequent use.
A command entered on the operating system's command line can include parameters; this happens all the time. Those parameters can then be accessed by the coding of the command being executed. The problem is that when you start Word on the command line, any parameters are used (or attempted to be used) by Word itself. You need a way for Word to recognize that those parameters are for a macro and then pass them on to the macro. This "recognize and pass on" behavior is not one that is built into Word.
That being said, there are some things you can do to get around this limitation, but they all involve working outside of Word, at a Windows API level. This is pretty advanced stuff, and some suggestions for how to go about it can be found at these sites:
http://vb.mvps.org/samples/CmdLine/ http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms178843.aspx
A simpler approach might be to simply make some changes to the macro that runs when Word is started. The macro could, for instance, display an InputBox to request the user to enter a file name. Similarly, the macro could display an Open dialog box and allow the user to select the file to be processed. Finally, if the file name is standardized (meaning it is always the same and doesn't change), you could directly code the file name into the macro.
Note:
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2014-04-23 19:03:19
CMatz
Question: How to handle embedded spaces in the passed filename
Answer: Enclose it with double quotes and then strip them off in the macro
Question: How to handle passing more than one variable
Answer: Same technique, enclose each in double quotes, write them as multiple lines in the temporary text file.
An example for passing two variables is as follows:
---------------------------------SNIP------------------------------------------
@echo off
:Batch File SaveName2.bat
:Example to pass two parameters on command line
:CA Matz - Author
:Call from a command line as: SaveName2 "var1" "var2"
:Where var1 and var2 are variables to be passed to macro and can have embedded spaces
:Writes the variables passed to a temp file "---TMP---.txt" in the Users TEMP directory
ECHO %1 > %temp%---TMP---.txt
ECHO %2 >> %temp%---TMP---.txt
:Start Word with Macro ReadTemp
"C:Program Files (x86)Microsoft OfficeOffice14winword.exe" /MReadTemp2
---------------------------------SNIP------------------------------------------
Sub ReadTemp2()
'CA Matz - Author
Dim hNum As Integer
Dim strFile As String
Dim strLine1 As String
Dim strLine2 As String
Dim DQ As String
DQ = Chr(34)
hNum = FreeFile()
strFile = Environ("temp") & "---TMP---.txt"
Open strFile For Input As #hNum
Line Input #hNum, strLine1
' Strip the Double Quotes is they were passed for the pathfilename
strLine1 = Replace(strLine1, DQ, "")
MsgBox strLine1
Line Input #hNum, strLine2
' Strip the Double Quotes is they were passed for the pathfilename
strLine2 = Replace(strLine2, DQ, "")
MsgBox strLine2
' Your processing using variables strLine1 and strLine2 starts here instead of the message boxes
End Sub
2014-04-22 05:24:19
Emperorbilius
I use a macro to read information from a text file to populate fields in my Word document (version of document, owner, date of issue etc.). The text file is dynamically created by another program which writes the information to my text file.
I use the " GetPrivateProfileString" command to read the information into my Word document and the macro formats it.
2014-04-19 22:00:19
CMatz
Also sent the following as an email due to the text wrapping mess
Write the filename to a temp file with a batch file and then read the temp file within the Word macro to pass the variable
Batch file to save the filename to a temp file
---------------------------------SNIP------------------------------------------
@echo off
:Batch File SaveName.bat
:CA Matz - Author
:Call from a command line as: SaveName argument
:Where argument is the "pathfilename" to be passed to macro
:Writes the argument passed to a temp file "---TMP---.txt" in the Users TEMP directory
ECHO %1 > %temp%---TMP---.txt
: Note! for the drag and drop graphical batch processor FileViking use the following line instead
: ECHO %FV_FILE% > %temp%---TMP---.txt
: FileViking is found at FileViking.com
:Start Word with Macro ReadTemp
"C:Program Files (x86)Microsoft OfficeOffice14winword.exe" /MReadTemp
---------------------------------SNIP------------------------------------------
Word Subroutine to read the temp file into a variable called strLine
---------------------------------SNIP------------------------------------------
Sub ReadTemp()
'CA Matz - Author
Dim hNum As Integer
Dim strFile As String
Dim strLine As String
hNum = FreeFile()
strFile = Environ("temp") & "---TMP---.txt"
Open strFile For Input As #hNum
Line Input #hNum, strLine
MsgBox strLine
' Your processing starts here instead of the message box
End Sub
---------------------------------SNIP------------------------------------------
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