Looping Through a Collection

Word Developer Reference

There are several different ways you can loop on the elements of a collection. However, the recommended method for looping on a collection is to use the For Each...Next loop. In this structure, Microsoft Visual Basic repeats a block of statements for each object in a collection. The following example displays the name of each document in the Documents collection.

  Sub LoopThroughOpenDocuments()
    Dim docOpen As Document
For Each docOpen In Documents
    MsgBox docOpen.Name
Next docOpen

End Sub

Instead of displaying each element name in a message box, you can use an array to store the information. This example uses an array to store the name of each bookmark contained in the active document.

  Sub LoopThroughBookmarks()
    Dim bkMark As Bookmark
    Dim strMarks() As String
    Dim intCount As Integer
If ActiveDocument.Bookmarks.Count > 0 Then
    ReDim strMarks(ActiveDocument.Bookmarks.Count - 1)
    intCount = 0
    For Each bkMark In ActiveDocument.Bookmarks
        strMarks(intCount) = bkMark.Name
        intCount = intCount + 1
    Next bkMark
End If

End Sub

You can loop through a collection to conditionally perform a task on members of the collection. For example, the following code updates the DATE fields in the active document.

  Sub UpdateDateFields()
    Dim fldDate As Field
For Each fldDate In ActiveDocument.Fields
    If InStr(1, fldDate.Code, "Date", 1) Then fldDate.Update
Next fldDate

End Sub

You can loop through a collection to determine if an element exists. For example, the following code displays a message if an AutoText entry named "Filename" is part of the AutoTextEntries collection.

  Sub FindAutoTextEntry()
    Dim atxtEntry As AutoTextEntry
For Each atxtEntry In ActiveDocument.AttachedTemplate.AutoTextEntries
    If atxtEntry.Name = "Filename" Then _
        MsgBox "The Filename AutoText entry exists."
Next atxtEntry

End Sub