Removing Duplicates in Word

Steve keeps e-mail addresses in a Word document. To find and remove duplicate addresses, he has to transfer the addresses to an Excel workbook. Steve wonders if there is a way to remove duplicates within Word.

For the purposes of this tip, I'm going to assume that each e-mail address is in its own paragraph, meaning that there is a hard return at the end of individual addresses. Also, the addresses are in regular text, not within a table.

With that in mind, the following macro can be a big help. It uses two For...Next loops to step through the individual paragraphs in a document backwards. When a duplicate paragraph is located, the duplicate is deleted. The macro does not require that the e-mail addresses be sorted.

Sub DelDupesFull()
    Dim J As Long
    Dim K As Long

    Application.ScreenUpdating = False
    With ActiveDocument
        For J = .Paragraphs.Count - 1 To 1 Step -1
            For K = .Paragraphs.Count To J + 1 Step -1
                If .Paragraphs(J).Range.Text = _
                  .Paragraphs(K).Range.Text Then _
                  .Paragraphs(K).Range.Delete
            Next K
        Next J
    End With
    Application.ScreenUpdating = True
End Sub

Note that the two paragraphs must be exactly the same. If, for instance, one paragraph has an extra space at the beginning or end or one has different capitalization, then they won't be considered the same and one won't be deleted. The macro also works on all paragraphs in a document, not just on a portion of them.

If you prefer a variation that works just on selected text, then the following will work for you:

Sub DelDupesSec()
    Dim J As Long
    Dim K As Long

    Application.ScreenUpdating = False
    With Selection
        For J = .Paragraphs.Count - 1 To 1 Step -1
            For K = .Paragraphs.Count To J + 1 Step -1
                If .Paragraphs(J).Range.Text = _
                  .Paragraphs(K).Range.Text Then _
                  .Paragraphs(K).Range.Delete
            Next K
        Next J
    End With
    Application.ScreenUpdating = True
End Sub

To use the macro, just select the paragraphs you want to affect and then run it. Nothing outside of your selected paragraphs will be modified.

I provided the possible macro-based solutions first on the assumption that removing the duplicates is something that needs to be done regularly or on multiple files. Truth be told, though, you don't need to actually use a macro. There is an approach you can use that relies on the wildcard capabilities of Word's Find and Replace capabilities. Follow these steps:

1. Sort the paragraphs containing the e-mail addresses.
2. Press Ctrl+H to display the Replace tab of the Find and Replace dialog box.
3. Click the More button, if it is available.
4. Make sure the Use Wildcards check box is selected.
5. In the Find What box, enter "(*^13)@" (without the quote marks).
6. In the Replace With box, enter "\1" (again, without the quote marks).
7. Click on Replace All.
8. Close the Find and Replace dialog box.

This works because of the way that the pattern in the Find What box (step 5) is set up. The first part, within the parentheses, finds anything (the asterisk) ending in a hard return (the ^13). The second part is the @ sign, which means "find one or more occurrences of the forgoing." Thus, it finds duplicate paragraphs that are one after the other. (This is why the first step, sorting the e-mail addresses, is necessary.) These are then replaced with whatever was in the parentheses in step 5.

This might help explain what is going on a bit better. Let's say that after sorting, your list of e-mail addresses looks like this:

1 allen@abcd.com
2 bill@efgh.com
3 bill@efgh.com
4 bill@efgh.com
5 cari@ijkl.com

Note that I added the leading numbers here to help with the explanation only; they are not a part of the list of e-mail addresses.

The Find What pattern, (*^13)@, would match paragraphs 2-4 because paragraph 2, which matches the portion of the pattern within parentheses, is repeated two more times on lines 3 and 4. (Remember that the @ symbol matches "one or more occurrences of the foregoing.") This match of three paragraphs is then replaced with what was originally matched by the *^13 portion of the Find What pattern, which means the contents of line 2. Thus, the effect is that paragraphs 2-4 are replaced with paragraph 2, and duplicates are removed.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (13842) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Word in Microsoft 365.