wildcard search and add (not replace) sequential numbers in front

equalizer88 · #1 07-11-2015, 08:17 PM

My data is 1-3 lines unique code that is first element in data segment. May Not be new paragraph. First field is 1-5 digits comma and then 1 digit and comma

Original File
Line 1 123,2,text1, text2,....
Line 2 ....text 10
Line 3 145,3,text1....text 5

Line 4 156, 2, text 1...text5
Line 5 ......................text10
Line 6 ......................text15
...........
Line 7000 4160,3,text1......text4

Desired Output - Search for ([0-9],[0-9]) and insert (001) before search term and (002) before next search term

Output File
Line 1 (001) 123,2,text1, text2,....
Line 2 ....text 10
Line 3 (002) 145,3,text1....text 5
Line 4 (003) 156, 2, text 1...text5
Line 5 ......................text10
Line 6 ......................text15
Line 7 (004) 160,3,text1......text4

Maybe 1000 pages

I used https://www.msofficeforums.com/word-...ight-text.html as template and have just seach working.

Code:

Sub Wildcard_Search_Insert_Nums()
Application.ScreenUpdating = False
Options.DefaultHighlightColorIndex = wdYellow
With ActiveDocument.Content.Find
  .ClearFormatting
  .Text = "([0-9],[0-9])"
  With .Replacement
    .Text = "TEST^&XXX"
    .ClearFormatting
    .Highlight = True
  End With
  .Forward = True
  .Wrap = wdFindContinue
  .Format = True
  .MatchWildcards = True
  .Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll
End With
Application.ScreenUpdating = True
End Sub

Need to an alternate method for search/replace with a loop line by line(?)
with n=n+1 inside loop?

Really frustrated. Would appreciate any help. Obviously can use C program to do this but want functionality for all users, not 3 machines out of hundreds that have compilers.

gmayor · #2 07-11-2015, 09:25 PM

With your example, which is not consistently formatted, e.g. Line 4 format has an extra space compared with Line 3, the following should do the job

Code:

Dim oRng As Range
Dim i As Long
    Set oRng = ActiveDocument.Range
    i = 1
    With oRng.Find
        Do While .Execute(FindText:="[0-9]{1,5},[ 0-9]{1,2},", MatchWildcards:=True)
            oRng.Text = "(" & Format(i, "000") & ") " & oRng.Text
            oRng.Collapse 0
            i = i + 1
        Loop
    End With

equalizer88 · #3 07-13-2015, 06:30 AM

Thanks so much! Can you explain the oRng.Collapse 0 command? The concept of the .Collapse command is not clear to me, I understand the collapsestart and collapseend (don't like the collapse name), but why anything else?

What is the difference between the two search methods above? The first is concurrent find and replace and the second is one find at a time? Is that why first method is the preferred method?

I'll have to get Mastering VBA for Office book to learn the concepts unless you have a better suggestion?

gmayor · #4 07-14-2015, 01:36 AM

oRng.Collapse 0 is the numeric equivalent of oRng.Collapse Direction:=wdCollapseEnd
(1 would be the equivalent of wdCollapseStart).

Collapse is used here to allow the search to restart from the end of the current found text range.

equalizer88 · #5 05-07-2016, 08:04 PM

This is solved!

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