Documents open excel vba

Using Excel VBA to read and write Microsoft Word documents

These examples are written and tested in Excel 2003.

Create, Write and Close Word Document
Read and Append

Create, Write and Close Word Document

The following code illustrates the use of Excel VBA to create a Microsoft Word Document and save it to disk.
This script will create a document in your My Documents folder.

'In Tools > References, add reference to "Microsoft Word XX.X Object Library" before running.
Option Explicit

Sub CreateNewWordDoc()
    
    Dim wdApp As Word.Application
    Dim wdDoc As Word.Document
    Set wdApp = CreateObject("Word.Application")
    Dim myFile As String
    
    'Alternatively, we can use Late Binding
    'Dim wdApp As Object
    'Dim wdDoc As Object
    'Set wdApp = CreateObject("word.Application")
        
    wdApp.Visible = True
    Set wdDoc = wdApp.Documents.Add
    
    ' define a place to put file
    myFile = Environ("UserProfile") & "My Documents" & "MyWordDoc.docx"
    
    ' or like this
    myFile = Environ("UserProfile") & "Documents" & "MyWordDoc.docx"

    ' have to wrap name in quotes here because directory contains a space
    If Dir("""&myFile&""") <> "" Then
        ' kill = delete existing file
        Kill """&myFile&"""
    End If

    With wdDoc
        .Content.InsertAfter "Hello World"
        .Content.InsertParagraphAfter
        .SaveAs myFile
        .Close
    End With
    
    wdApp.Quit
    Set wdDoc = Nothing
    Set wdApp = Nothing

End Sub

Some VBA Vocabulary

Option Explicit
When Option Explicit On or Option Explicit appears in a file, you must explicitly declare all variables by using the Dim or ReDim statements. If you try to use an undeclared variable name, an error occurs at compile time. The Option Explicit Off statement allows implicit declaration of variables. This statement
reduces risk of error by mis-typing variable names.

Word.Application
Represents the Microsoft Word application. The Application object includes properties and methods that return top-level objects.
To use Automation to control Word from another application, use the Microsoft Visual Basic CreateObject or GetObject function to return a Word Application object.

Word.Document
Represents a Word document. The Document object is a member of the Documents collection. The Documents collection contains all the Document objects that are currently open in Word.

InsertAfter
Inserts the specified text at the end of a range or selection. After this method is applied, the range or selection expands to include the new text.

Kill Deletes files from a disk.

DirThe Microsoft Excel DIR function returns the first filename that matches the pathname and attributes specified. To retrieve additional filenames that match pathname and attributes, call DIR again with no arguments.

Early and Late Binding

An object is early bound when it is assigned to a variable declared to be of a specific object type. By contrast, an object is late bound when it is assigned to a variable declared to be of type Object. Objects of this type can hold references to any object, but lack many of the advantages of early-bound objects

Early binding: The first step in using early binding is to ensure that the compiler «knows» about the object to which you want to bind. If you are working with a Excel or Word, then the controls in the toolbox are all known, or intrinsic, objects, and you can create references to them without any concern.

Late Binding: With late binding, the code does not make an explicit reference to the type of object when the variable is declared. Instead, it will simply use the «Object» type.

Read and Append to a Microsoft Word Document

The following code illustrates the use of Excel VBA to read and appaend to a Microsoft Word Document.
This script will trad a document in your My Documents folder.

'In Tools > References, add reference to "Microsoft Word XX.X Object Library" before running.
Option Explicit

Sub CreateNewWordDoc()
    
    Dim wdApp As Word.Application
    Dim wdDoc As Word.Document
    Set wdApp = CreateObject("Word.Application")
    Dim myFile As String
    
    'Alternatively, we can use Late Binding
    'Dim wdApp As Object
    'Dim wdDoc As Object
    'Set wdApp = CreateObject("word.Application")
    
    myFile = Environ("UserProfile") & "/My Documents/" & "MyWordDoc.docx"
    Set wdDoc = wdApp.Documents.Open(myFile)
    wdApp.Visible = True
    
    With wdDoc
        
        .Content.InsertAfter "Hello World"
        .Content.InsertParagraphAfter

    End With
    
End Sub

This post will show you how to open a word document from Excel using VBA. This is a great technique for Excel developers building dashboards or reports when you want to open a specific word document containing additional notes.

Introduction

Excel VBA can help you automate the creation of Excel dashboards and reports but it can do almost anything you want, including opening up documents from other software sources like Microsoft Word.

A great example of why you might want to use Excel VBA to open up a Word document is when you are creating Excel dashboards that have additional commentary or notes contained in Word, or perhaps more detailed guidance to match your dashboard.

To begin with you need to be in the Excel VBA editor, this can be done either by selecting Developer > Visual Basic on the Excel ribbon or just press ALT and F11 (pressed together) to use a shortcut command.

With the Visual Basic Editor window now insert a new module by clicking Insert then Module from the drop down menu bar at the top of the window.

This enables a new code window where we can include the VBA code required to open a word document from Excel.

In the code window insert the following script, remember to change the INSERT FILE NAME section to the full path and document name of your word document. You must include the file type at the end so for word this will either be .doc or .docx depending on what version of word you use.

For example if your word document is stored in C:MyDocuments and called MyWordDocument then you would replace INSERT FILE NAME with “C:MyDocumentsMyWordDocument.docx”

Sub OpnWord()

Dim oAPP As Object

Set oAPP = CreateObject(Class:="Word.Application")

oAPP.Visible = True

oAPP.Documents.Open Filename:="INSERT FILE NAME"

End Sub

Next save the Excel file (remember to save as a Macro-Enabled file) and you now have a script that will open up the specified word document when it is run.

Understanding the VBA code

Each line of the VBA performs a specific task, understanding what each line does will help you to edit the VBA if needed.

• Sub OpnWord()

This line starts and name the procedure, if you don’t like the name “OpnWord” you can change it.

• Dim oAPP as Object

This tells Excel that the name “oAPP” will be an object when we define it.  It is common practice in VBA scripts to take longer pieces of code and shorten them to a smaller name, in this case oAPP is my way of shortening Office Application.

• Set oAPP = CreateObject(Class:=”Word.Application”)

Now we have defined the object oAPP this line tells Excel what oAPP is.  oAPP refers to the line of script CreateObject(Class:=”Word.Application”) and that is telling Excel that oAPP is the application Microsoft Word.

• oAPP.Visible = True

Once Excel knows that oAPP is the application Microsoft Word this line tells Excel to open Word and make it visible to the user.

• oAPP.Documents.Open Filename:=”INSERT FILE NAME”

This line specifies the Microsoft Word filename to open, remember to change the INSERT FILE NAME section to include the full path, file name and document type of the Word file to open.

• End Sub

This tells Excel the VBA script ends.

Practical uses for this script

When you have created the macro using the script above it can be assigned to buttons or other objects in your Excel dashboard, that way a word document of your choosing will automatically open for the user when they click on the button.

This code also acts as a base to take things further. Now that you can open a word document from Excel VBA it is possible to populate that Word document with charts, tables and data from Excel. This is a very useful technique to learn as it helps you automate management reports from an Excel dashboard. The possibilities are endless!

Keep Excelling,

Please check out the other posts on this site to learn even more amazing things you can do with Excel. For those of you who would love a good book covering all these techniques and more then I highly recommend VBA and Macros for Excel. You can check out a copy on Amazon by clicking the image below.