Word replace all text boxes

Tim wonders if Find and Replace can be used to search for and locate text boxes. He would like to search for text boxes and replace each of them with a graphic, as he finds this almost impossible to do manually when some text boxes are essentially invisible in his document.

If your text boxes are inline with your text, then you can use Find and Replace to locate and replace them. All you need to do is to display the Replace tab of the Find and Replace dialog box and, in the Find What box, enter ^g. This is the code for find graphics, but Word treats text boxes as of they are graphics when they are inline.

The problem is, of course, that most text boxes are not inline—text wraps around them and they reside on their own layer. For these types of text boxes you must use a macro to do the searching and replacing. The following is an example of one you could use:

Sub ReplaceTextBox()
    Dim shp As Shape

    For Each shp In ActiveDocument.Shapes
        If shp.Type = msoTextBox Then
            shp.Select
            shp.Delete
            Selection.PasteAndFormat (wdPasteDefault)
        End If
    Next
End Sub

To use the macro, select the graphic you want to use in your replacement and then press Ctrl+C. This places the graphic in the Clipboard. When you run the macro, it is this graphic—the one in the Clipboard—that is pasted into the document in place of each text box.

You should be aware that the macro replaces all of the text boxes in a document with the graphics. If you wanted to selectively replace text boxes, the coding would be a good deal more complex.

Author Bio

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen…

In this article bellow, we want to show you 3 ways to batch change text format in all text boxes in your Word document.

Text boxes are often seen in out documents. While format document texts, we cannot forget those in text boxes. However, text boxes scattering in a document can make you hard to select all texts inside once and for all. Therefore, out of formatting purposes, it’s urgent to learn some trick to do the batch processing.

Method 1: Utilize “Advanced Find” Feature

1. First of all, click “Home” tab and go to click the arrow button behind “Find” command in “Editing” group.
2. Next on the drop-down list, choose “Advanced Find” to open the “Find and Replace” dialog box.
3. Put cursor at “Find what” text box and enter “^?” there.
4. Then click “Find In” button and choose “Text Boxes in Main Document”.
5. Now you can see all texts in text boxes are in selection. In case you may forget the string to be put in “Find what” box, you can click “More” button to open more options in the box and then click “Special”. Next choose “Any Character”.
6. With all texts in selection, just format them as required.

Method 2: Batch Change Text Format in All Text Boxes in One Document

1. To start off, press “Alt+ F11” in Word to trigger VBA editor.
2. Next click “Normal”.
3. Then click “Insert” tab and choose “Module”.
4. And double click the new module and paste the bellowing macro there:

Sub FormatTextsInTextBoxes()
  Dim objShape As Shape
  Dim objDoc As Document
 
  Set objDoc = ActiveDocument
 
  With objDoc
    For Each objShape In .Shapes
      If objShape.Type = msoTextBox Then
        objShape.TextFrame.TextRange.Font.Name = "Arial"
        objShape.TextFrame.TextRange.Font.Size = "16"
      End If
    Next
  End With
End Sub

1. Finally, click “Run”.

This macro sets all text box texts in “Arial” font at 16 pt. You may alter these setting as need.

Method 3: Batch Change Text Format in All Text Boxes in Multiple Documents

Now that we are talking about batch processing, we cannot eliminate the need to do it among multiple files.

1. Firstly, arrange all target documents under the same directory.
2. Next install and run macro as you do in method 2. This time replace those codes with the following ones:

Sub FormatTextsInTextBoxesInMultiDoc()
  Dim strFile As String
  Dim strFolder As String
  Dim objDoc As Document
 
  '  Initialization
  strFolder = InputBox("Enter folder path here: ")
  strFile = Dir(strFolder & "*.docx", vbNormal)
 
  '  Process each file in the folder.
  While strFile <> ""
    Set objDoc = Documents.Open(FileName:=strFolder & strFile)
    Set objDoc = ActiveDocument
 
    With objDoc
      For Each objShape In .Shapes
        If objShape.Type = msoTextBox Then
          objShape.TextFrame.TextRange.Font.Name = "Arial"
          objShape.TextFrame.TextRange.Font.Size = "16"
        End If
      Next
    End With
    objDoc.Save
    objDoc.Close
    strFile = Dir()
  Wend
End Sub

1. While running the macro, there will be an input box prompting up, such as bellow:
2. Enter the folder address at the text box and click “OK”. Don’t forget to add a “” at the end of your path string. Then just wait Word to do its job.

Make Full Preparation while You Can

We understand it’s hard to even think about your file getting corrupt. However, we can never overlook this possibility which, to be honest, is relative high. Anyway, it’s less troublesome to take preventive measures than hopping around for a doc fix tool.

Author Introduction:

Vera Chen is a data recovery expert in DataNumen, Inc., which is the world leader in data recovery technologies, including fix Excel and pdf repair software products. For more information visit www.datanumen.com

Thanks Harry Spier, even though I had to modify your code a little — finally it works great!

Sub FindReplaceAnywhere()

Dim pOldFontName As String
Dim pNewFontName As String
Dim rngStory As Word.Range
Dim lngJunk As Long
Dim oShp As Shape

pOldFontName = "FontDoe"  'replace with the font you want to replace
pNewFontName = "Font Dolores"  'replace with the font you really need to have in your doc

'Fix the skipped blank Header/Footer problem
lngJunk = ActiveDocument.Sections(1).Headers(1).Range.StoryType
'Iterate through all story types in the current document
For Each rngStory In ActiveDocument.StoryRanges
'Iterate through all linked stories
  Do
  SearchAndReplaceInStory rngStory, pOldFontName, pNewFontName, pFindTxt, pReplaceTxt
  On Error Resume Next
  Select Case rngStory.StoryType
  Case 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11
    If rngStory.ShapeRange.Count > 0 Then
      For Each oShp In rngStory.ShapeRange
        If oShp.TextFrame.HasText Then
          SearchAndReplaceInStory oShp.TextFrame.TextRange, pOldFontName, pNewFontName, pFindTxt, pReplaceTxt
        End If
      Next
    End If
  Case Else
    'Do Nothing
  End Select
  On Error GoTo 0
  'Get next linked story (if any)
  Set rngStory = rngStory.NextStoryRange
Loop Until rngStory Is Nothing
Next
End Sub

Sub SearchAndReplaceInStory( _
    ByVal rngStory As Word.Range, _
    ByVal FindFontName As String, _
    ByVal ReplaceFontName As String, _
    ByVal strSearch As String, _
    ByVal strReplace As String)
With rngStory.Find
  .ClearFormatting
  .Replacement.ClearFormatting
  .Forward = True
  .Wrap = wdFindContinue
  .Font.Name = FindFontName
  .Replacement.Font.Name = ReplaceFontName
  .Text = strSearch
  .Replacement.Text = strReplace
  .Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll
 End With
End Sub