Forum Discussion
Macros in word have died
I am a newbie here; I generally never post anything on message boards. But I am at a complete loss. I don't know anything about coding, and I absolutely hate being forced into learning VBA for anything but alphabet soup.
A couple of weeks ago, one of my macros that I had been using for about a year just stopped working. There was no explanation. It just stopped working. Then another one died, and another. I am finally down to none of the macros I recorded in Word working. I use these about 20 times a day to reformat other people's copies, so it's not like it is convenient to do without them. (remove all hyperlinks, extra returns, tabs, and add an indent). All individual macros using keyboard commands.
Unless someone has an answer, I am going to be forced to copy the original and paste into a new doc with no formatting. Which creates a whole new set of problems — I will have to compare. the two docs to see what the writer had formatted (italics, bullets, bold, etc) and redo their work.
I use Office 365 a Mac with Sonoma OS.
Like I said, I am no program and should not have to learn VBA because the macros were working until recently.
Thank you to anyone who can help!
4 Replies
WR-C_359Let me start by saying that I am not on a Mac.
First you should be using and applying styles for formatting to the extent possible.
What is it you mean when you say "macros have died?"
Let's talk about macros in general.
By default, all recorded macros are stored in your Normal.dotm template in a vba module named NewMacros. That is not necessarily the best place to store them, though. See Beth Melton’s article on organizing your macros linked below.
If you want to be having documents formatted a certain way you should consider having templates that are formatted the way you want and using those to create new documents based on those templates. That is the best way to insure documents set up the same way every time.
If you are talking about certain text or paragraph formatting setups, you should be using Styles, not macros. Macros for this are using a shotgun where you should be using a scalpel. You can be doing damage to your documents. In any case, they will be harder to maintain and edit.
What follows is general advice that may not apply. I've found that people writing here with lots of macros, though, are often using macros when they should be using something else:
If you are using macros for text snippets, you are using the wrong Word feature. This does not apply to your reformatting macros.
You should be using AutoText, which can also have keyboard shortcuts.
Both AutoText and AutoCorrect can be used for text snippets. These are different features and are both valuable. I use both virtually every time I use Word.
AutoText can have keyboard shortcuts and can AutoComplete; AutoCorrect acts on trigger words as you type. Here are some more resources:
- Exploiting AutoCorrect by Suzanne Barnhill, MVP
- Using Autotext to deal with repetitive text - Legal Office Guru
- Create reusable text snippets
- Word for Wordperfect Users
- AutoFormat and AutoCorrect (Tame AutoFormat) by Suzanne Barnhill, MVP
- Automated Boilerplate Using Microsoft Word on my website
For anyone who uses Word more than occasionally, I recommend the series of short tutorials prepared by Shauna Kelly a while back. Basic Concepts of Microsoft Word - from Shauna Kelly The styles article linked above is one of these.
If you want to track down more on your macros, I recommend looking at some of the threads you will find on the Microsoft Answers forum. Here are three searches there:
- https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/search/search?SearchTerm=macros%20stopped%20working&tab=&status=...
- https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/search/search?SearchTerm=can%27t%20record%20macro&tab=&status=al...
- https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/search/search?SearchTerm=macros%20broken&tab=&status=all&advFil=...
Other resources:
Thank you for taking the time to respond. I have been over all the links you provided, and unless I missed it, there is no way except with macros to do quick edits like removing tabs, extra returns or double spaces without a macro find and replace.
If I did miss it, please provide me with the information because, at this point, I'm ready to change programs.
Again, thank you
I am a volunteer fellow-user of Word and have no vested interest in your staying with Word.
The use you describe is a good one for macros.
Did you look at the search links I provided and the threads they revealed?
Did you look at the suggestions for other places to store your macros that can be less vulnerable?
Did you consider making regular backups of your Normal template so that if something weird happened to your macros you had them backed up?
The following may help you in cleaning up the work done by others:
Word is, in my opinion, the most powerful Word Processing program available commercially. I have used a number of others over the years.
It is far from perfect. Thing happen to the normal template. Not often or frequently, but they do.
Recorded macros are imperfect tools but to a limited extent they should do what you have been using them to do. The Editorium has a number of perhaps more sophisticated ones that you could probably use. The ones on the linked page are free.
The most powerful Word program is the one written for Windows. The Mac program is second to that and some macros that work in the Windows version need to be rewritten to use on the Mac. They are slightly different programs.
You may be happier with another commercial program or with a free alternative like LibreOffice.
