How can I delete pages with no highlighted text?

[harpsichord]

Hello all,




I am using the following module to highlight specific words in my word documents:

Sub HiLightList()
Application.ScreenUpdating = False
Dim StrFnd As String, Rng As Range, i As Long
StrFnd = "cat,pig,dog,whatever"
For i = 0 To UBound(Split(StrFnd, ","))
  Set Rng = ActiveDocument.Range
  With Rng.Find
    .ClearFormatting
    .Text = Split(StrFnd, ",")(i)
    .Replacement.ClearFormatting
    .Replacement.Highlight = True
    .Replacement.Text = "^&"
    .Forward = True
    .Wrap = wdFindContinue
    .Format = True
    .MatchCase = False
    .MatchWholeWord = True
    .MatchWildcards = False
    .MatchSoundsLike = False
    .MatchAllWordForms = True
    .Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll
  End With
Next
Set Rng = Nothing
Application.ScreenUpdating = True
End Sub

It's working quite well but since I am working with thousands of Word pages of text a majority of which are irrelevant for me and contain zero information I need, I would like to know if there is a way i could somehow insert a code that would delete all pages that contain zero highlighted words? I don't need to extract only highlighted words, I need to preserve the whole text (specifically, it's 1-page-long newspaper articles) in which the highlighted words were found. Is there a simple way to do this and what would it be?


I am quite illiterate when it comes to coding or VBA or pretty much anything so I am relying on the kindness and skills of others willing to help me and write this down so I can simply insert it


Thank you!

[gmayor]

There are no 'pages' in a word document. The appearance of pages is an artifice of text flow. If you delete what word considers to be a displayed page, then the page flow is disrupted and the new 'page' structure changes. What you propose doesn't seem at all practical using VBA.

[macropod]

You should be able to do it with something like:

Sub DeletePages()
Application.ScreenUpdating = False
Dim p As Long, Rng As Range
With ActiveDocument
  For p = .ComputeStatistics(wdStatisticPages) To 1 Step -1
    Set Rng = .Range.GoTo(What:=wdGoToPage, Count:=p).GoTo(What:=wdGoToBookmark, Name:="\Page")
    If Rng.HighlightColorIndex = wdNoHighlight Then Rng.Delete
  Next
End With
Application.ScreenUpdating = True
End Sub

On my system, though, Word isn't implementing the .Goto correctly - seems an MS Update has broken it.

[gmayor]

Paul - that too was my first thought, but it didn't work for me either. However looking at it again, it seems to work if you add a line to the code

Set Rng = Rng.GoTo(What:=wdGoToBookmark, Name:="\Page")
Rng.Select
If Rng.HighlightColorIndex = wdNoHighlight Then Rng.Delete

Why that should be needed I am not sure, but it certainly changes the outcome.

[macropod]

Thanks Graham

Curious that adding Rng.Select changes things for you - I'm not seeing any such behaviour. Clearly Microsoft has broken something!

[macropod]

Here's another way to skin that cat:

Sub DeletePages()
Dim p As Long
With ActiveDocument
  For p = .ComputeStatistics(wdStatisticPages) To 1 Step -1
    With .ActiveWindow.Panes(1).Pages(p).Rectangles(1).Range
      If .HighlightColorIndex = wdNoHighlight Then .Delete
    End With
  Next
End With
End Sub

[harpsichord]

The one with Rng.Select worked like a charm! Thank you so much, both of you, this will save me and my colleagues at work lot of time

One little thing - it removed all of the text from the headers in the document, is this preventable? It's not that relevant though...

[harpsichord]

Another thing - there will be documents with newspaper articles longer than one page in which case this won't work because it will not preserve the whole article if a highlighted word is found only in one of the pages of the article, if I understand correctly how you set the range.

In that case, I'm guessing that it could be possible to set ranges between two article titles because they are the only size 14 bold text in these documents?

[macropod]

Originally Posted by harpsichord

One little thing - it removed all of the text from the headers in the document, is this preventable? It's not that relevant though...

If headers are being removed, that indicates there are Section breaks on the pages being deleted. Since you hadn't mentioned that as a possibility, it wasn't coded for.

Originally Posted by harpsichord

Another thing - there will be documents with newspaper articles longer than one page in which case this won't work because it will not preserve the whole article if a highlighted word is found only in one of the pages of the article, if I understand correctly how you set the range.

In other words, your reference to page deletion was nothing more than misdirection. It really would be helpful if you could actually specify what you want done up front, rather than waiting till something's been developed on the basis of entirely wrong specifications.

Originally Posted by harpsichord

In that case, I'm guessing that it could be possible to set ranges between two article titles because they are the only size 14 bold text in these documents?

If your articles use one of Word's Heading Styles for the articles, that would be quite easy.

[harpsichord]

Originally Posted by macropod

If headers are being removed, that indicates there are Section breaks on the pages being deleted. Since you hadn't mentioned that as a possibility, it wasn't coded for.
In other words, your reference to page deletion was nothing more than misdirection. It really would be helpful if you could actually specify what you want done up front, rather than waiting till something's been developed on the basis of entirely wrong specifications.

If your articles use one of Word's Heading Styles for the articles, that would be quite easy.

The specifications I wrote were not wrong, I am dealing with one page articles right now exclusively and I was looking for a solution for that specific problem. Now that I solved that thanks to you, I am trying to predict problems in the next phase with a different set of data, that's all.

If I knew all the relevant things I need to mention I would probably be able to do the thing myself.

The articles don't use Word's Heading Styles.

Thank you.