Sub disabled after saving

Question

I have this code in ThisDocument in a word .docm:

Private Sub selConcept_Click()
    'enable the content field, delete the other two fields,
    'and delete the buttons including itself

    ActiveDocument.ContentControls(3).LockContents = False
    ActiveDocument.ContentControls(4).Delete
    ActiveDocument.ContentControls(4).Delete
    ActiveDocument.InlineShapes(3).Delete
    ActiveDocument.InlineShapes(3).Delete
    ActiveDocument.InlineShapes(3).Delete


    End Sub

    Private Sub selTask_Click()

    ActiveDocument.ContentControls(4).LockContents = False
    ActiveDocument.ContentControls(3).Delete
    ActiveDocument.ContentControls(4).Delete

    ActiveDocument.InlineShapes(3).Delete
    ActiveDocument.InlineShapes(3).Delete
    ActiveDocument.InlineShapes(3).Delete


    End Sub

    Private Sub selRef_Click()

    ActiveDocument.ContentControls(5).LockContents = False
    ActiveDocument.ContentControls(3).Delete
    ActiveDocument.ContentControls(3).Delete
    ActiveDocument.InlineShapes(3).Delete
    ActiveDocument.InlineShapes(3).Delete
    ActiveDocument.InlineShapes(3).Delete
    End Sub



    Private Sub formatSaveB_Click()
     With Dialogs(wdDialogFileSaveAs)
            .Format = wdFormatFilteredHTML
            .Show
        End With
End Sub

selConcept, selTask, and selRef are command buttons, and there are three rich text content controls on the page also. Clicking one of those three command buttons deletes itself and the two other buttons, and deletes two of the rich text controls.

Put another way: clicking any of the sel buttons leaves you with one rich text control, and zero sel buttons.

formatSaveB is another command button at the end, and the code associated with it opens a dialog to save as an .htm document.

Everything works if a user goes through the process and uses the formatSaveB button to save; it gets saved as an HTM file.

I want users to be able to save Word drafts however, if possible, but if I've clicked one of the three sel buttons, then I save the doc as a renamed .docm file, like draft.docm, then when I open it again, the formatSaveB button does nothing. It seems to be completely disabled after the save as .docm. Even if I take everything else out of the draft.docm ThisDocument page, it still doesn't work.

I notice that if I just save as draft.docm and don't close it, the formatSaveB button still works.

When I try debugging I see "Runtime error 430: Word vba class does not support automation"

UPDATE:

Thanks Peter, actually I think the right ones are being targeted, it's tricky because when it deletes (3), then the next one becomes (3), as you say. I think I've got that worked out though, in any case the correct fields get deleted when I click. The Format button that stops working doesn't get deleted, it simply stops working, and it's being selected by name. It's not selecting or deleting any other controls, it's just supposed to save as .htm (which it does, until I save the .docm as a draft.)

On the other other hand I do find selecting by index a pain, but I haven't found a way to select ContentControls by name, can you advise about that? I can select the buttons by name, but the same method doesn't seem to work on the ContentControls.

For example I've got a Rich Text content control, created using Design Mode in Word, and if I right click on it, I can give it a name ( Concept) and tag (ConceptTag). Named and tagged that way, neither of these work:

ActiveDocument.ConceptControls("Concept").Delete

ActiveDocument.ConceptControls("Concept").Select
    Selection.Delete

Any advice on how to select and delete those by name? I tried a suggestion to select by tag, and it didn't work either.

Answer 1

The trick is to mark your controls and shapes. My suggestion (and shown in my solution below) is to use the .Tag field in each control you want to keep. Set this field to a known and unique string (set to "KeepThisControl" in my example).

Then in your code, as you loop through all the controls, check the tag and only delete the controls that are untagged -- and pay attention to your control list index.

(I included lots of debugging statements below to check your work, so be sure to delete those.)

Option Explicit

Const KEEPER_TAG = "KeepThisControl"

Public Sub DeleteControlsAndShapes()
    Dim thisDoc As Document
    Dim totalNotDeleted As Integer
    Dim total As Integer
    Dim i As Integer

    Set thisDoc = ActiveDocument

    '----- delete this after fully debugged -------
    total = thisDoc.ContentControls.Count
    Debug.Print "initial count of ALL    controls = " & thisDoc.ContentControls.Count
    totalNotDeleted = 0
    For i = 1 To total
        If thisDoc.ContentControls(i).Tag = KEEPER_TAG Then
            totalNotDeleted = totalNotDeleted + 1
        End If
    Next i
    Debug.Print "initial count of KEEPER controls = " & totalNotDeleted
    '----- delete this after fully debugged -------

    '--- work up one index at a time and check the tag...
    '      -- advance the index if the tag is a keeper
    '      -- delete the item and keep the index if not
    i = 1
    Do
        If thisDoc.ContentControls(i).Tag = KEEPER_TAG Then
            i = i + 1
        Else
            thisDoc.ContentControls(i).Delete
        End If
    Loop Until (i = thisDoc.ContentControls.Count)

    '----- delete this after fully debugged -------
    Debug.Print "All non-keeper controls deleted!"
    total = thisDoc.ContentControls.Count
    Debug.Print "initial count of ALL    controls = " & thisDoc.ContentControls.Count
    totalNotDeleted = 0
    For i = 1 To total
        If thisDoc.ContentControls(i).Tag = KEEPER_TAG Then
            totalNotDeleted = totalNotDeleted + 1
        End If
    Next i
    Debug.Print "initial count of KEEPER controls = " & totalNotDeleted
    Debug.Print "Finished."
    '----- delete this after fully debugged -------
End Sub