Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated April 6, 2024)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Word in Microsoft 365
Gary would like to process the information stored in footnotes using a macro. However, he cannot figure out how to do so. He wonders how to step through each footnote and access just the text of the footnote, not the footnote's number.
The key to accessing footnotes in VBA is to use the Footnotes collection, which contains all of the footnotes in the document. This means you can use a For...Each loop to step through each of your footnotes, in this manner:
Sub DoFootnotes()
Dim fn As Footnote
Dim sTemp As String
For Each fn In ActiveDocument.Footnotes
sTemp = fn.Range.Text
'
' Do something here based on contents of sTemp
'
Next fn
End Sub
Note that the value in the .Text property is the text of your footnote, and this macro code assigns that to the sTemp variable. You can then slice and dice sTemp in any way you want to do your processing. You can also, if desired, stuff information back into the .Text property to change the contents of the footnote.
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