Highlight keywords in the pasted text

alex100 · #1 05-26-2020, 06:51 AM

The script below is supposed to highlight certain keywords in the text that was just pasted. The problem is that it's only highlighting the first keyword in the array, without any results for the rest of the keywords.

What could be the problem, please?

Alex

Code:

Dim pasted_content As Word.range
Dim r As Long
Dim Keywords
    
Keywords = Array("keyword1", "keyword2", "keyword3")

Set pasted_content = Selection.range
pasted_content.Paste

For r = 0 To UBound(Keywords)
    With pasted_content.Find
        .Text = Keywords(r)
        .Format = True
        Do While .Execute(Forward:=True) = True
            pasted_content.HighlightColorIndex = wdYellow
        Loop
    End With
Next

macropod · #2 05-26-2020, 07:43 AM

What's wrong with a simple Find/Replace loop, rather than a nested one? Far quicker:

Code:

Sub Demo()
Application.ScreenUpdating = False
Dim Rng As Range, arrWords, i As Long
arrWords = Array("keyword1", "keyword2", "keyword3")
Options.DefaultHighlightColorIndex = wdYellow
Set Rng = Selection.Range
With Rng
  .Paste
  With .Find
    .ClearFormatting
    .Replacement.ClearFormatting
    .Forward = True
    .Wrap = wdFindStop
    .Replacement.Text = "^&"
    .Replacement.Highlight = True
    For i = 0 To UBound(arrWords)
      .Text = arrWords(i)
      .Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll
    Next
  End With
End With
Application.ScreenUpdating = True
End Sub

alex100 · #3 05-26-2020, 08:46 AM

Very nice, thank you! I have two questions, please...

1. how can I use RGB colors for highlighting? I tried using "Options.DefaultHighlightColorIndex = RGB(190, 190, 190)" but without any success;

2. how can I add an extra condition to the find function so that it will only find (and highlight) those keywords that have not already been highlighted? I tried using ".Font.HighlightColorIndex = wdNoHighlight", but once again, without any results. I am trying to avoid double-highlighting, as for example when I want to highlight keyword "great music" in green and keyword "music" in red. Without a stop in place, you would get "great" highlighted in green, and "music" in red. I'd like both words ("great music") to be shown in green, as a single keyword.

Alex

macropod · #4 05-26-2020, 02:13 PM

1. You can't - only the 16 indexed highlights can be used.
2. Insert:

Code:

    .Highlight = False

before:

Code:

    .Replacement.Highlight = True

For the situation where you're highlighting both 'music' and 'great music', process 'great music' before you process 'music'.

And, to vary the highlighting, for each expression, use something like:

Code:

Sub Demo()
Application.ScreenUpdating = False
Dim Rng As Range, arrWords, i As Long, h As Long
arrWords = Array("keyword1 & keyword2", "keyword1", "keyword3")
Set Rng = Selection.Range
With Rng
  .Paste
  With .Find
    .ClearFormatting
    .Replacement.ClearFormatting
    .Forward = True
    .Wrap = wdFindStop
    .Replacement.Text = "^&"
    .Highlight = False
    .Replacement.Highlight = True
    For i = 0 To UBound(arrWords)
      h = i Mod 14
      If h < 6 Then
        h = h + 2
      Else
        h = h + 3
      End If
      Options.DefaultHighlightColorIndex = h
      .Text = arrWords(i)
      .Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll
    Next
  End With
End With
Application.ScreenUpdating = True
End Sub

This gives 14 highlights, omitting black & white.

alex100 · #5 05-27-2020, 03:49 AM

It's really important to be able to select the highlighting colors from a large color gamut. I will only use three colors (depending on the importance of the highlighted keyword), and these colors need to be very shallow/light, almost unnoticeable. The colors in the WdColorIndex are very strong. For red, there are only two options, with no light option at all.

While searching Google, I found Greg Maxey's highlighter script, which is based on changing the text shading (Shading.BackgroundPatternColor), giving you endless options in terms of color gamut:

gregmaxey.com/word_tip_pages/highlighter.html

Paul, is there a way to make your initial version of the script work with 'Shading.BackgroundPatternColor' instead of 'HighlightColorIndex'? I tried to do that myself, but nothing seemed to work - i'm simply lost here.

This would be very helpful!

Thank you,
Alex

macropod · #6 05-27-2020, 05:01 AM

Since you can't us a BackgroundPatternColor property as a Find parameter, you'll need to revert to a nested loop. Try:

Code:

Sub Demo()
Application.ScreenUpdating = False
Dim Rng As Range, arrWords, i As Long, RGB As Long
arrWords = Array("keyword1 & keyword2", "keyword1", "keyword2", "keyword3")
Set Rng = Selection.Range
Rng.Paste
For i = 0 To UBound(arrWords)
  Select Case i
    Case 0: RGB = wdColorGray05
    Case 1: RGB = wdColorPaleBlue
    Case 2: RGB = wdColorLightOrange
    Case 3: RGB = wdColorPink
  End Select
  With Selection
    With .Find
      .ClearFormatting
      .Text = arrWords(i)
      .Replacement.Text = ""
      .Format = False
      .Forward = True
      .Wrap = wdFindStop
    End With
    Do While .Find.Execute
      If .InRange(Rng) = False Then Exit Do
      If .Shading.BackgroundPatternColor = wdColorAutomatic Then .Shading.BackgroundPatternColor = RGB
      .Collapse wdCollapseEnd
    Loop
  End With
  Rng.Select
Next
Application.ScreenUpdating = True
End Sub

Insert your preferred RGB colour values in place of the named constants in the Select Case statement.

alex100 · #7 05-27-2020, 06:05 AM

Brilliant, thank you!

One more thing, and I'd like to point out that I'm asking this mostly because I know there will be other people that will find this thread and may use your code for themselves. Today I spend about half an hour searching Google for Word highlighters, and while I found quite many, almost no one had the ability to use RGB colors. Except for Greg's Highlighter, they all used the 'HighlightColorIndex' property.

As you wrote it, I understand that each keyword in the 'arrWords' array has a corresponding color in the 'Case 0,1,2,etc' RGB list. So there's a keyword/color pair, and I hope I'm not mistaken. Please let me know if I am.

Like me, I think most people who use such highlighters need to assign a single color to an entire list of keywords. Basically, you want ten keywords to be highlighted in red, 15 keywords in blue, and so on.

With this in mind, I think the best approach would be to have multiple arrays, each one with a corresponding color.

Something like this:

arrWords1 = Array("keyword1", "keyword2")
arrWords2 = Array("keyword1", "keyword2", "keyword3")
arrWords3 = Array("keyword1", "keyword2", "keyword3", "keyword4", "keyword5", "keyword6")

Then, the RGB list should basically assign one color to each array:

arrWords1: RGB (10, 175, 150)
arrWords2: RGB (74, 18, 188)
arrWords3: RGB (150, 175, 190)

What do you think? This is what I am looking for, and I'm sure this solution would be the closest one to most user's needs.

Most probably, this is just a minor change to your code, but with lots of added value.

Alex

macropod · #8 05-27-2020, 04:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by alex100

Today I spend about half an hour searching Google for Word highlighters, and while I found quite many, almost no one had the ability to use RGB colors. Except for Greg's Highlighter, they all used the 'HighlightColorIndex' property.

Hardly surprising, since few need anything more than the available highlight options.

Quote:

Originally Posted by alex100

Like me, I think most people who use such highlighters need to assign a single color to an entire list of keywords. Basically, you want ten keywords to be highlighted in red, 15 keywords in blue, and so on.

With this in mind, I think the best approach would be to have multiple arrays, each one with a corresponding color.

Something like this:

arrWords1 = Array("keyword1", "keyword2")
arrWords2 = Array("keyword1", "keyword2", "keyword3")
arrWords3 = Array("keyword1", "keyword2", "keyword3", "keyword4", "keyword5", "keyword6")

Then, the RGB list should basically assign one color to each array:

arrWords1: RGB (10, 175, 150)
arrWords2: RGB (74, 18, 188)
arrWords3: RGB (150, 175, 190)

What do you think?

I really can't see any benefit in that. And, contrary to what you suppose, implementation would require substantially more code. As it is, the Select Case statement can already be expanded to cover as many shading options as you want and, with only a trivial coding change, could be made to loop through those options multiple times if you have more array entries than shading options. Furthermore, if you want to have:

Quote:

ten keywords to be highlighted in red, 15 keywords in blue, and so on

all that would entail is building the Select Case statement with either:
• 15 blue, 15 red, and so on, then padding out the arrWords array with empty elements for keyword groups that have less than 15 items; or
• only the required number of colour definitions to match what's in the arrWords array,
either of which could be used in conjunction with specifying a range of values for 'i' in the Select Case statement. For example:

Code:

  Select Case i
    Case 0 - 14: RGB = wdColorRed
    Case 15 - 29: RGB = wdColorOrange
    Case 30 - 44: RGB = wdColorYellow
    Case 44 - 59: RGB = wdColorGreen
    Case 60 - 74: RGB = wdColorBlue
  End Select

Note: There's no need for the 'i' values to span equal size ranges in the Select Case statement; they're only used that way here to show how they might work in conjunction with the first bullet point.

alex100 · #9 05-28-2020, 09:19 AM

I'm sorry, I was under the impression the changes would be minimal in terms of coding.

Anyhow, I did manage to adapt it precisely to my needs, so this has been very helpful!

Thank you!

Alex

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