Insert text after numbers and before words in a Word hierarchical heading

Question

I am working my way through two books (Roman's Writing Word Macros, Mansfield's Mastering VBA for MS Office). In my work environment, I use both Word 2007 and Word 2010.

My issue is that I want to use VBA to insert a very brief amount of standardized text before the English-language string in my numbered hierarchical headings. For instance, I have:

1.1.1 The Quick Brown Fox.

What I want is:

1.1.1 (XXxx) The Quick Brown Fox.

I guess my most basic issue is that I don't know how to approach the situation. I have hierarchical headings yet I don't know how to say, in effect, "Go to each hierarchical heading regardless of level. Insert yourself in front of the first English language word of the heading. Paste the text "XXxx" in front of the first word in the heading. Go on to the next heading and all remaining headings and do the same. My document is over 700 pages and has hundreds of hierarchical headings.

I see that paragraphs are objects and that hierarchical headings are paragraphs. However, I can't see any way to make VBA recognize what I am talking about. I haven't been able to use Selection approaches successfully. I've tried using the Range approach but just have not been able to phrase the VBA code intelligently. I haven't been able to specify a range that includes all and only the hierarchical headings and, especially, I don't understand how to get the insertion to happen in front of the first English-language word of the heading.

I have just begun to look at using Bookmarks. However, don't bookmarks require me to go to every heading and enter them? I may as well just paste my content if that is the case. I'm stumped. It is interesting that in no way, as might have been expected, does this appear to be a simple matter

Answer 1

Assuming you are using Word's outline levels (I think this is what you mean by hierarchical headings), you can check a paragraph for this state. For example, assuming I have a paragraph in my document that has the Heading 1 style applied to it:

Sub PrintHeadings()
Dim objDoc as Document
Dim objPara as Paragraph
Set objDoc = ActiveDocument
For each objPara in objDoc.Content.Paragraphs
    If objPara.OutlineLevel <> wdOutlineLevelBodyText then
        Debug.Print objPara.Range.Text
    End If
Next objPara
End Sub

This code would print the contents of any paragraph that has an outline level above body text to the VBA Immediate Window. There are other approaches as well; you could use Find and Replace to search for each of the Outline Levels. This gives you a bit less control; you'd want your change to be something that could be encapsulated in a Word Find and Replace. But, it would be faster if you have a long document and not too many heading levels. A basic example:

Sub UnderlineHeadings()
Dim objDoc as Document
Set objDoc = ActiveDocument
With objDoc.Content.Find
    .ClearFormatting
    .ParagraphFormat.OutlineLevel = wdOutlineLevel1
    With .Replacement
        .ClearFormatting
        .Font.Underline = wdUnderlineSingle
    End With
    .Execute Forward:=True, Wrap:=wdFindContinue, Format:=True, Replace:=wdReplaceAll
End With
End Sub

That would underline all of your text of Outline Level 1.

Perhaps that will get you started.

Answer 2

I asked this question some months ago: "My issue is that I want to use VBA to insert a very brief amount of standardized text before the English-language string in my numbered hierarchical headings." By "numbered hierarchical headings" I meant Word multilevel lists. The answers I received were appreciated but did not respond effectively to my question or guide me to a resolution. I pass this along in the hope it may be of use to others.

First, the "number" part of the Word heading is irrelevant. In writing your code, there is NO need to think of a "number" portion and a "text" portion of the heading. I was afraid that any text I was trying to insert would be inserted BEFORE the multilevel numbering rather than BEFORE the English language text. The multilevel numbering is apparently automatically ignored. Below are two solutions that worked.

This first macro succeeded in producing the desired result: 1.1.1 (FOUO). I used this macro to create individual macros for each order of heading. I haven't learned how to combine them all into one macro. But they work individually (but not without the flaw of taking too much time ~5 to 10 minutes for a complex, paragraph-heavy 670 page document).

Public Sub InsertFOUOH1()
Dim doc As Document
Dim para As Paragraph
Dim paraNext As Paragraph
Dim MyText As String
Dim H1 As HeadingStyle

Set doc = ActiveDocument
Set para = doc.Paragraphs.First

Do While Not para Is Nothing
Set paraNext = para.Next
MyText = "(U//FOUO) "
If para.Style = doc.Styles(wdStyleHeading1) Then
para.Range.InsertBefore (MyText)
End If
Set para = paraNext
Loop
End Sub

THIS WORKS ON ALL FIRST ORDER HEADINGS (1, 2, 3 ETC.)

I used the macro below to add my security marking all body paragraphs:

Public Sub InsertFOUObody()
'Inserts U//FOUO before all body paragraphs
Dim doc As Document
Dim para As Paragraph
Dim paraNext As Paragraph
Dim MyText As String
Set doc = ActiveDocument
Set para = doc.Paragraphs.First
Do While Not para Is Nothing
Set paraNext = para.Next
MyText = "(U//FOUO) "
If para.Style = doc.Styles(wdStyleBodyText) Then
para.Range.InsertBefore (MyText)
End If
Set para = paraNext
Loop
End Sub

These macros are running slowly and, at the end, generating Error 28 Out of stack space errors. However the error is displayed at the end of running the macros and after the macros have successfully performed their work.