finding lines with fewer characters (xp sr2)

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We’re just setting up a book for the press, and we need to check that we do not have lines with spacing that is too wide (we distrust Word’s automatic hyphenation, and want to control it ourselves).

Is there a routine that will enable us to find a line which has less than, say 50 characters?

many thanks

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But wouldn’t it be quite normal for the last line in a paragraph to have less than 50 characters?

Here is a macro you could run on a copy of the document. It will highlight all lines with less than 50 characters (including punctuation)

Sub TestShort()
Const conLength = 50
Dim rng As Range
Dim rngPrev As Range
Application.ScreenUpdating = False
Selection.HomeKey Unit:=wdStory
Set rng = ActiveDocument.Bookmarks(“line”).Range
Do
If rng.Characters.Count > 1 And rng.Characters.Count < conLength Then
rng.HighlightColorIndex = wdYellow
End If
Set rngPrev = rng
Selection.MoveDown Unit:=wdLine
Set rng = ActiveDocument.Bookmarks("line").Range
Loop Until rngPrev = rng
Application.ScreenUpdating = True
Set rng = Nothing
Set rngPrev = Nothing
End Sub

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Dear Hans

many thanks. But three further things:
1. The line
Set rng = ActiveDocument.Bookmarks(“line”).Range
is provoking a 5941 error, and I’m told ‘the requested member of the collection does not exist’

2. When I just shut the de###### down, I find that the job has been done, but only for the first page.

3. If getting it to highlight is difficult, I could cope with its just finding the lines and moving the cursor there (though in that case I’d be glad if we could–as you say–avoid final lines of paragraphs).

many thanks

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The code worked ok for me in the multi-page documents I tried it on. Try single-stepping through the code to find out where it fails.

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Thanks for this.

a) is there a simple technique for single stepping, short of putting an apostrophe before each line and then gradually removing the apostrophes?
I am now having the experience that the macro works for some documents but not for others. I think the reason is that if it comes across a footnote, it gets cross. It works fine on the book if I delete all the footnotes–and actually that will do for our purposes. (but if there were a simple way of a) avoiding the need to delete the footnotes excluding the last line (perhaps lines ending in a paragraph mark), it would of course be wonderful..

best

Philip

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a) Click anywhere in the procedure and press F8. Each F8 will execute one step. You can inspect the value of variables by hovering the mouse over them.

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Too difficult. Sorry.

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many thanks indeed

P

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To skip the last line of each paragraph, replace the line

If rng.Characters.Count > 1 And rng.Characters.Count < conLength Then

with

If rng.Characters.Count > 1 And rng.Characters.Count < conLength And _
rng.Characters(rng.Characters.Count) vbCr Then


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To skip over footnotes, add the following code

Do While Selection.Information(wdInFootnote)
Selection.MoveDown Unit:=wdLine
Loop


After the existing line

Selection.MoveDown Unit:=wdLine


StuartR

Edited by StuartR to add
This code will go into an infinite loop if the final line in the document is a footnote, but I guess you can check for that easily enough.

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Have you tried selecting “do full justification like Word Perfect 6.x for Windows” from the tools/options/compatability tab? Because Word Perfect, like many layout programs, both reduces and expands word spacing, the result is more typographical. Word normally only expands word spaces when doing full justification. Try this out on a copy because your doc may be completely repaginated, particularly if you have widow and orphan control on.

Pam

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Thanks to everyone for these suggestions. I think we’re there!

Pam–how does yours work if I’ve already got a document created? Do I just change the option, and assume it will happen?

best wishes

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Yes, you can change the full justification choice at any time (or change it back). In 2003 it will only apply to the document you selected it in, but it will stick with that document unless you change it.

Pam

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Just in case anyone is interested, here is an updated version of Hans’s original macro, with the two suggestions from Stuart.
I’ve put in some not very subtle refinements:
a) to enable you to specify the maximum number of characters in any line to be marked up
to avoid the problem with it going into an infinite loop if there is a footnote on the last page.

Sub TestShort()
Selection.EndKey Unit:=wdStory
Selection.InsertBreak Type:=wdPageBreak
Selection.InsertBreak Type:=wdPageBreak
Selection.TypeText Text:=”aaa”
Dim CharacterNumber, Prompt1
Prompt1 = “Below what number of characters do linee need to be marked up?”
CharacterNumber = InputBox$(Prompt1)

Dim rng As Range
Dim rngPrev As Range
Application.ScreenUpdating = False
Selection.HomeKey Unit:=wdStory
Set rng = ActiveDocument.Bookmarks(“line”).Range
Do
If rng.Characters.Count > 1 And rng.Characters.Count < CharacterNumber And rng.Characters(rng.Characters.Count) vbCr Then
rng.HighlightColorIndex = wdYellow
End If
Set rngPrev = rng
Selection.MoveDown Unit:=wdLine
Do While Selection.Information(wdInFootnote)
Selection.MoveDown Unit:=wdLine
Loop
Set rng = ActiveDocument.Bookmarks(“line”).Range
Loop Until rngPrev = rng
Application.ScreenUpdating = True
Set rng = Nothing
Set rngPrev = Nothing
Selection.EndKey Unit:=wdStory
Selection.TypeBackspace
Selection.TypeBackspace
Selection.TypeBackspace
Selection.TypeBackspace
Selection.TypeBackspace

End Sub

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