Macro to read custom style settings

**Stylus** · 2012-06-28 05:48

I’m writing a macro to list various settings for my custom styles in Word 2010. I’m having trouble reading some of these settings – in this case, left and right margin.

For example, if I put the code below (from a Microsoft website) in a “for every style in activedocument.styles” loop then it returns “0 cm” for a style which has a margin set to 0.5 cm.

Sub ShowRightIndent()
Dim dlgParagraph As Dialog
Set dlgParagraph = Dialogs(wdDialogFormatParagraph)
MsgBox "Right indent = " & dlgParagraph.RightIndent
End Sub

It looks to me like the setting in the paragraph dialog can only be read for a selected paragraph, even though one can manually look up the settings for a style. This makes no sense to me, so I figure that I’m missing some vba here.

Can anyone help?

**BigMac56** · 2012-06-28 09:06

Hi Stylus,

I got the same results when running your macro, but the macro is checking the indent, not the margins. If I indent the right margin by .5, the macro indicates .5 correctly.

**BigMac56** · 2012-06-28 09:29

Try this for checking your margins.

Sub ShowRightMargin()

Dim sngMargin As Single

sngMargin = Selection.Sections(1).PageSetup.RightMargin
MsgBox PointsToInches(sngMargin) & " inches"

End Sub

**Stylus** · 2012-06-28 10:17

Thanks for checking...

About margin vs indent: I MEANT indent. D'oh! Must eat more d'ohnuts...

Your result means that my surrounding code is off, because I've just run another test and I absolutely get a 0 for both left and right indent even when they are set otherwise.

**macropod** · 2012-06-28 18:32

Try:

Code:

Sub Test()
Dim StrFormat As String
With Selection.Paragraphs(1).Range.ParagraphFormat
  StrFormat = "First Line Indent: " & PointsToInches(.FirstLineIndent) & vbCr
  StrFormat = StrFormat & "Right Indent: " & PointsToInches(.RightIndent) & vbCr
  StrFormat = StrFormat & "Left Indent: " & PointsToInches(.LeftIndent) & vbCr
  StrFormat = StrFormat & "Space After: " & PointsToInches(.SpaceAfter) & vbCr
  StrFormat = StrFormat & "SpaceBefore: " & PointsToInches(.SpaceBefore) & vbCr
  StrFormat = StrFormat & "Alignment: " & .Alignment & vbCr
  StrFormat = StrFormat & "Style: " & .Style
End With
MsgBox StrFormat
End Sub

**Stylus** · 2012-06-29 06:22

Thanks macropod,

I tested your code by placing it in a loop with "For Each stlTestStyle In ActiveDocument.Styles".

Your code only reads the formatting that applies to the paragraph where the cursor is located. The code displays that single paragraph's formatting, over and over again, for as many times as my test structure performed the loop. In other words, I am receiving the SELECTION'S formatting.

My experience, so far, is that I can get the formatting of a selection, but can't figure out how to get it for a style. (And I still can't replicate BigMac56's results - when I run that code I get "0" regardless of the settings.)

What I want all this for is to print out certain formatting settings for each custom style, regardless of whether that style is in use or not. I am checking styles, not a document.

I suspect that reading the dialog box will be the way to find the settings for styles per se, as opposed to styles in a selected paragraph. Now if I can just figure out how to get it to work...

**macropod** · 2012-06-29 07:11

Without seeing your code, I can't comment on why you're not getting the right results, but you definitely should not have any Selection references in there.

**Stylus** · 2012-06-29 09:35

Macropod, your code has "With Selection.Paragraphs(1).Range.ParagraphFormat". My understanding is that selection returns info about a selected part of text or the cursor location.

My test code is:

Sub Test()
Dim StrFormat As String
Dim stlTestStyle As Style
Dim i As Integer

i = 0
For Each stlTestStyle In ActiveDocument.Styles

i = i + 1
If i > 10 Then 'I add this in the test to prevent the macro from going through all 350+ styles

Exit Sub

End If

With Selection.Paragraphs(1).Range.ParagraphFormat

StrFormat = "First Line Indent: " & PointsToCentimeters(.FirstLineIndent) & vbCr
StrFormat = StrFormat & "Right Indent: " & PointsToCentimeters(.RightIndent) & vbCr
StrFormat = StrFormat & "Left Indent: " & PointsToCentimeters(.LeftIndent) & vbCr
StrFormat = StrFormat & "Space After: " & PointsToCentimeters(.SpaceAfter) & vbCr
StrFormat = StrFormat & "SpaceBefore: " & PointsToCentimeters(.SpaceBefore) & vbCr
StrFormat = StrFormat & "Alignment: " & .Alignment & vbCr
StrFormat = StrFormat & "Style: " & .Style

End With

MsgBox StrFormat

Next stlTestStyle
End Sub

**macropod** · 2012-06-29 17:56

hi Stylus,

looping through the Styles collection will return the info about every Style, not just your custom Styles. Still, if that's what you want, try:

Code:

Sub Demo()
Dim oSty As Style, StrSty As String
With ActiveDocument
  For Each oSty In .Styles
    With oSty
      StrSty = ""
      If .Type = wdStyleTypeParagraph Then
        With .ParagraphFormat
          StrSty = "Style: " & ActiveDocument.Styles(oSty).NameLocal & vbTab
          StrSty = StrSty & StrSty & "Alignment: " & .Alignment & Chr(11)
          StrSty = StrSty & "First Line Indent: " & PointsToCentimeters(.FirstLineIndent) & Chr(11)
          StrSty = StrSty & "Right Indent: " & PointsToCentimeters(.RightIndent) & Chr(11)
          StrSty = StrSty & "Left Indent: " & PointsToCentimeters(.LeftIndent) & Chr(11)
          StrSty = StrSty & "Space After: " & PointsToCentimeters(.SpaceAfter) & Chr(11)
          StrSty = StrSty & "SpaceBefore: " & PointsToCentimeters(.SpaceBefore) & vbCr
        End With
      End If
    End With
    .Range.InsertAfter StrSty
  Next
End With
End Sub

**Stylus** · 2012-07-01 14:03

I just noticed that your name is Paul, so henceforth

Paul:

Thanks for the code. That cracked it! I have things working nicely now. The loop I posted was just to show the principle. In actual fact i include all manner of tests to give me the choice of printing out all styles, custom styles only, my custom styles only, styles in use only, etc.

**EricFletcher** · 2012-07-05 09:22

Great example of how to use a collection macropod! You menioned that it will process every style, but is there a way to detect custom (or "in use") styles within the collection? I like to have a record of style settings for templates, but the "print styles" includes unused styles. Your code would be a great start on having a tool to do just that.

**macropod** · 2012-07-05 21:13

Hi Eric,

You can test the 'in use' state of a Style, but Word tends to over-report. An alternative approach would be to do a 'Find' for a paragraph using the Style. As for 'custom' Styles, you can also test against the BuiltIn property, so that only user-created Styles are reported. There is no way of detecting whether a BuiltIn Style has been modified, though.

**Stylus** · 2012-07-09 05:31

Eric,

Filtering for BuiltIn will limit the scope of the macro to your custom styles. On the net I found a good example of determining an "actual" in-use status on Greg Maxey's site: http://gregmaxey.mvps.org/word_tip_p...ort_addin.html. There are other examples out there...

Paul,

Now I'm chewing on the tab settings for the styles... It looks like they have to be enumerated to be read. Is there a clever way of returning the total number of tabs set in a given style? Knowing that would save me testing my way through the tab(s).

**macropod** · 2012-07-09 06:34

Simply getting the total number of tabs isn't going to achieve much. For meaningful results you could use something like:

Code:

Sub Demo()
Dim oSty As Style, StrSty As String, TbStp As TabStop, SngTab As Single
With ActiveDocument
  For Each oSty In .Styles
    With oSty
      StrSty = ""
      If .BuiltIn = False Then
        If .Type = wdStyleTypeParagraph Then
          With .ParagraphFormat
            StrSty = "Style: " & ActiveDocument.Styles(oSty).NameLocal & vbTab
            StrSty = StrSty & StrSty & "Alignment: " & .Alignment
            StrSty = StrSty & Chr(11) & "First Line Indent: " & PointsToCentimeters(.FirstLineIndent)
            StrSty = StrSty & Chr(11) & "Right Indent: " & PointsToCentimeters(.RightIndent)
            StrSty = StrSty & Chr(11) & "Left Indent: " & PointsToCentimeters(.LeftIndent)
            StrSty = StrSty & Chr(11) & "Space After: " & PointsToCentimeters(.SpaceAfter)
            StrSty = StrSty & Chr(11) & "Space Before: " & PointsToCentimeters(.SpaceBefore)
            For Each TbStp In .TabStops
              StrSty = StrSty & Chr(11) & "TabStop Alignment: "
              Select Case TbStp.Alignment
                Case 0: StrSty = StrSty & "Left"
                Case 1: StrSty = StrSty & "Center"
                Case 2: StrSty = StrSty & "Right"
                Case 3: StrSty = StrSty & "Decimal"
                Case 4: StrSty = StrSty & "Bar"
                Case 6: StrSty = StrSty & "List"
              End Select
              StrSty = StrSty & " @ " & PointsToCentimeters(TbStp.Position)
            Next
            StrSty = StrSty & vbCr
          End With
        End If
      End If
    End With
    .Range.InsertAfter StrSty
  Next
End With
End Sub

**Stylus** · 2012-09-07 03:10

Paul

I was occupied with another project, and neglected to thank you for this code!

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