Working with Tables

  • Article

This topic includes Microsoft Visual Basic examples related to the following tasks:

  • Creating a table, inserting text, and applying formatting

  • Inserting text into a table cell

  • Returning text from a table cell without returning the end of cell marker

  • Converting text to a table

  • Returning the contents of each table cell

  • Copying all tables in the active document into a new document

Creating a table, inserting text, and applying formatting

The following example inserts a four-column, three-row table at the beginning of the active document. The For Each...Next structure is used to step through each cell in the table. Within the For Each...Next structure, the InsertAfter method of the Range object is used to add text to the table cells (Cell 1, Cell 2, and so on).

Sub CreateNewTable() 
 Dim docActive As Document 
 Dim tblNew As Table 
 Dim celTable As Cell 
 Dim intCount As Integer 
 
 Set docActive = ActiveDocument 
 Set tblNew = docActive.Tables.Add( _ 
 Range:=docActive.Range(Start:=0, End:=0), NumRows:=3, _ 
 NumColumns:=4) 
 intCount = 1 
 
 For Each celTable In tblNew.Range.Cells 
 celTable.Range.InsertAfter "Cell " & intCount 
 intCount = intCount + 1 
 Next celTable 
 
 tblNew.AutoFormat Format:=wdTableFormatColorful2, _ 
 ApplyBorders:=True, ApplyFont:=True, ApplyColor:=True 
End Sub

Inserting text into a table cell

The following example inserts text into the first cell of the first table in the active document. The Cell method returns a single Cell object. The Range property returns a Range object. The Delete method is used to delete the existing text and the InsertAfter method inserts the "Cell 1,1" text.

Sub InsertTextInCell() 
 If ActiveDocument.Tables.Count >= 1 Then 
 With ActiveDocument.Tables(1).Cell(Row:=1, Column:=1).Range 
 .Delete 
 .InsertAfter Text:="Cell 1,1" 
 End With 
 End If 
End Sub

Returning text from a table cell without returning the end of cell marker

The following example returns and displays the contents of each cell in the first row of the first document table.

Sub ReturnTableText() 
 Dim tblOne As Table 
 Dim celTable As Cell 
 Dim rngTable As Range 
 
 Set tblOne = ActiveDocument.Tables(1) 
 For Each celTable In tblOne.Rows(1).Cells 
 Set rngTable = ActiveDocument.Range(Start:=celTable.Range.Start, _ 
 End:=celTable.Range.End - 1) 
 MsgBox rngTable.Text 
 Next celTable 
End Sub

Sub ReturnCellText() 
 Dim tblOne As Table 
 Dim celTable As Cell 
 Dim rngTable As Range 
 
 Set tblOne = ActiveDocument.Tables(1) 
 For Each celTable In tblOne.Rows(1).Cells 
 Set rngTable = celTable.Range 
 rngTable.MoveEnd Unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=-1 
 MsgBox rngTable.Text 
 Next celTable 
End Sub

Converting existing text to a table

The following example inserts tab-delimited text at the beginning of the active document and then converts the text to a table.

Sub ConvertExistingText() 
 With Documents.Add.Content 
 .InsertBefore "one" & vbTab & "two" & vbTab & "three" & vbCr 
 .ConvertToTable Separator:=Chr(9), NumRows:=1, NumColumns:=3 
 End With 
End Sub

Returning the contents of each table cell

The following example defines an array equal to the number of cells in the first document table (assuming Option Base 1). The For Each...Next structure is used to return the contents of each table cell and assign the text to the corresponding array element.

Sub ReturnCellContentsToArray() 
 Dim intCells As Integer 
 Dim celTable As Cell 
 Dim strCells() As String 
 Dim intCount As Integer 
 Dim rngText As Range 
 
 If ActiveDocument.Tables.Count >= 1 Then 
 With ActiveDocument.Tables(1).Range 
 intCells = .Cells.Count 
 ReDim strCells(intCells) 
 intCount = 1 
 For Each celTable In .Cells 
 Set rngText = celTable.Range 
 rngText.MoveEnd Unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=-1 
 strCells(intCount) = rngText 
 intCount = intCount + 1 
 Next celTable 
 End With 
 End If 
End Sub

Copying all tables in the active document into a new document

This example copies the tables from the current document into a new document.

Sub CopyTablesToNewDoc() 
 Dim docOld As Document 
 Dim rngDoc As Range 
 Dim tblDoc As Table 
 
 If ActiveDocument.Tables.Count >= 1 Then 
 Set docOld = ActiveDocument 
 Set rngDoc = Documents.Add.Range(Start:=0, End:=0) 
 For Each tblDoc In docOld.Tables 
 tblDoc.Range.Copy 
 With rngDoc 
 .Paste 
 .Collapse Direction:=wdCollapseEnd 
 .InsertParagraphAfter 
 .Collapse Direction:=wdCollapseEnd 
 End With 
 Next 
 End If 
End Sub