Anything that automatically adds a reference to the VBE would require giving trusted access to the VBA project model. IMHO, making that your default configuration would be most unwise from a security standpoint. Might I suggest a better approach would be to: (a) keep a backup of your Normal Template; and (b) not use your Normal Template for development work.

In any event, Word's own wildcard Find/Replace routines can do much of what RegEx does, without the need for the Regular Expressions reference.

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Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]