On Wed, 28 Dec 2005 16:01:02 -0500, Jay Freedman
wrote:

On Tue, 27 Dec 2005 20:23:26 -0800, LurfysMa
wrote:
Excellent! Thanks.

Here's my latest version. I have some questions at the end.

You're really getting into this! Good stuff... I'll just throw in a
couple of suggestions about your code before I get to the questions.

....snip...

'Define the colors to be used
vaColors = Array(wdRed, wdGreen, wdBlack)

'Find out if the user wants random or repeating colors
Const sPrompt As String = "Click on:" & vbCrLf & _
"Yes = random colors" & vbCrLf & _
"No = repeating colors"
Const sTitle As String = "Random Character Colors Macro"
sOption = MsgBox(sPrompt, vbYesNoCancel, sTitle)
If sOption vbYes And sOption vbNo Then 'If neither yes or no,
exit

It would be simpler here to write
If sOption = vbCancel Then

I wasn't sure if Yes, No, and Cancel were the only possibilities. I
just tried the Esc key and the little "X" icon and they both return a
"2" just like Cancel. I just felt safer testing for the values I knew
could be returned and allowing anything else (that I may not have
known about) to cause an exit.

So, unless there's so reason to change it, I think I'll leave it as
is.

2. I am testing for certain characters, such as space, CR and LF, so I
can skip them. Otherwise, the repeating pattern gets off. I should
probably add others such as tab. Is there a good way to test the
current character against a list (without doing separate compares) or
is there a way to test if it is a printable character (a-z, 0-9, or
certain specials (!#$%...)?

You can test against a list by replacing

If oChar.Text = " " Or oChar.Text = vbCr Or oChar.Text = vbLf Then

with

For Each oChar In Selection.Characters
If oChar.Text Like "[A-Za-z0-9!#$%*]" Then

Perfect. That was just what I was looking for.

I was able to get the letters and numbers to work, but ran into
trouble with a few of the special characters:

For single quote, I tried "[A-Za-z0-9']" and "[A-Za-z0-9]'". Neither
worked. With the quote ouside the brackets, no characters were
selected. The help mentions special provisions for []?#*, but not for
the quotes.

For double quote, similar results. I tried "[A-Za-z0-9""]" and
"[A-Za-z0-9]""".

The help warns about "*?#" and the brackets, but this string worked
just fine: "[A-Za-z0-9[*?#]". I could not find a way to make "]" work,
however. I tried "[A-Za-z0-9]]".



Thanks for all the help. Now I am off to read up on user forms to get
that MsgBox impersonator working.

--
Running Word 2000 SP-3 on Windows 2000

On Mon, 02 Jan 2006 14:54:11 -0800, LurfysMa
wrote:
On Wed, 28 Dec 2005 16:01:02 -0500, Jay Freedman
wrote:

On Tue, 27 Dec 2005 20:23:26 -0800, LurfysMa
wrote:

....snip...

You can test against a list by replacing

If oChar.Text = " " Or oChar.Text = vbCr Or oChar.Text = vbLf Then

with

For Each oChar In Selection.Characters
If oChar.Text Like "[A-Za-z0-9!#$%*]" Then

Perfect. That was just what I was looking for.

I was able to get the letters and numbers to work, but ran into
trouble with a few of the special characters:

For single quote, I tried "[A-Za-z0-9']" and "[A-Za-z0-9]'". Neither
worked. With the quote ouside the brackets, no characters were
selected. The help mentions special provisions for []?#*, but not for
the quotes.

For double quote, similar results. I tried "[A-Za-z0-9""]" and
"[A-Za-z0-9]""".

The help warns about "*?#" and the brackets, but this string worked
just fine: "[A-Za-z0-9[*?#]". I could not find a way to make "]" work,
however. I tried "[A-Za-z0-9]]".

Does your document have curly quotes (a.k.a. "smart quotes")
substituted for straight quotes by the AutoFormat As You Type feature?
The Like operator treats them separately.

The single quote that you can type directly into VBA code matches only
straight single quotes in the text. The curly opening and closing
single quotes are Chr$(145) and Chr$(146), respectively. The curly
double quotes are 147 and 148. All four of them would have to be
included in the pattern string for the Like operator to match them.

Let's start by including just the straight single and double quotes in
a pattern:

If oChar.Text Like "[A-Za-z0-9'""]" Then

The single quote should work fine by itself. The double quote would
prematurely end the string if you tried to stick one inside the square
brackets, but two of them together are understood to mean an actual
double quote character instead of the string-ending quote.

Now, to get the curly quotes into the expression, you have to somehow
get them inside the square bracket. You could just jam all the Chr$()
calls in, using the concatenation (&) operator, but I'd make it more
readable by creating a separate string to hold them:

Dim curlies As String
curlies = Chr$(145) & Chr$(146) & Chr$(147) & Chr$(148)
For Each oChar In Selection.Characters
If oChar.Text Like "[A-Za-z0-9'""" & curlies & "]" Then

After the 0-9 the characters there are a single quote, two double
quotes to make a double-quote character, and another double quote to
end that part of the string; then the & curlies & ; and finally the
closing square bracket. As far as the Like operator knows, it's all
one string within square brackets.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP FAQ: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
newsgroup so all may benefit.

On Mon, 02 Jan 2006 19:45:41 -0500, Jay Freedman
wrote:

On Mon, 02 Jan 2006 14:54:11 -0800, LurfysMa
wrote:
On Wed, 28 Dec 2005 16:01:02 -0500, Jay Freedman
wrote:

On Tue, 27 Dec 2005 20:23:26 -0800, LurfysMa
wrote:

...snip...

You can test against a list by replacing

If oChar.Text = " " Or oChar.Text = vbCr Or oChar.Text = vbLf Then

with

For Each oChar In Selection.Characters
If oChar.Text Like "[A-Za-z0-9!#$%*]" Then

Perfect. That was just what I was looking for.

I was able to get the letters and numbers to work, but ran into
trouble with a few of the special characters:

For single quote, I tried "[A-Za-z0-9']" and "[A-Za-z0-9]'". Neither
worked. With the quote ouside the brackets, no characters were
selected. The help mentions special provisions for []?#*, but not for
the quotes.

For double quote, similar results. I tried "[A-Za-z0-9""]" and
"[A-Za-z0-9]""".

The help warns about "*?#" and the brackets, but this string worked
just fine: "[A-Za-z0-9[*?#]". I could not find a way to make "]" work,
however. I tried "[A-Za-z0-9]]".

Does your document have curly quotes (a.k.a. "smart quotes")
substituted for straight quotes by the AutoFormat As You Type feature?
The Like operator treats them separately.

Yes, I should have thought of that.

The single quote that you can type directly into VBA code matches only
straight single quotes in the text. The curly opening and closing
single quotes are Chr$(145) and Chr$(146), respectively. The curly
double quotes are 147 and 148. All four of them would have to be
included in the pattern string for the Like operator to match them.

Let's start by including just the straight single and double quotes in
a pattern:

If oChar.Text Like "[A-Za-z0-9'""]" Then

The single quote should work fine by itself. The double quote would
prematurely end the string if you tried to stick one inside the square
brackets, but two of them together are understood to mean an actual
double quote character instead of the string-ending quote.

Now, to get the curly quotes into the expression, you have to somehow
get them inside the square bracket. You could just jam all the Chr$()
calls in, using the concatenation (&) operator, but I'd make it more
readable by creating a separate string to hold them:

Dim curlies As String
curlies = Chr$(145) & Chr$(146) & Chr$(147) & Chr$(148)
For Each oChar In Selection.Characters
If oChar.Text Like "[A-Za-z0-9'""" & curlies & "]" Then

After the 0-9 the characters there are a single quote, two double
quotes to make a double-quote character, and another double quote to
end that part of the string; then the & curlies & ; and finally the
closing square bracket. As far as the Like operator knows, it's all
one string within square brackets.

All that now works properly.

The only character I cannot get to work in "]".

I tried doubling it "[A-Z]]]", but that didn't work.

The help says it cannot be used within a group, but it can be used
outside of a group. There is no example and I can't figure that one
out.



I also got the user form to work. I'll post the complete macro when I
get "]" working.

--
Running Word 2000 SP-3 on Windows 2000

Use \]

See the article "Finding and replacing characters using wildcards" at:

http://www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/Genera...gWildcards.htm


--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

"LurfysMa" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 02 Jan 2006 19:45:41 -0500, Jay Freedman
wrote:

On Mon, 02 Jan 2006 14:54:11 -0800, LurfysMa
wrote:
On Wed, 28 Dec 2005 16:01:02 -0500, Jay Freedman
wrote:

On Tue, 27 Dec 2005 20:23:26 -0800, LurfysMa
wrote:

...snip...

You can test against a list by replacing

If oChar.Text = " " Or oChar.Text = vbCr Or oChar.Text = vbLf Then

with

For Each oChar In Selection.Characters
If oChar.Text Like "[A-Za-z0-9!#$%*]" Then

Perfect. That was just what I was looking for.

I was able to get the letters and numbers to work, but ran into
trouble with a few of the special characters:

For single quote, I tried "[A-Za-z0-9']" and "[A-Za-z0-9]'". Neither
worked. With the quote ouside the brackets, no characters were
selected. The help mentions special provisions for []?#*, but not for
the quotes.

For double quote, similar results. I tried "[A-Za-z0-9""]" and
"[A-Za-z0-9]""".

The help warns about "*?#" and the brackets, but this string worked
just fine: "[A-Za-z0-9[*?#]". I could not find a way to make "]" work,
however. I tried "[A-Za-z0-9]]".

Does your document have curly quotes (a.k.a. "smart quotes")
substituted for straight quotes by the AutoFormat As You Type feature?
The Like operator treats them separately.

Yes, I should have thought of that.

The single quote that you can type directly into VBA code matches only
straight single quotes in the text. The curly opening and closing
single quotes are Chr$(145) and Chr$(146), respectively. The curly
double quotes are 147 and 148. All four of them would have to be
included in the pattern string for the Like operator to match them.

Let's start by including just the straight single and double quotes in
a pattern:

If oChar.Text Like "[A-Za-z0-9'""]" Then

The single quote should work fine by itself. The double quote would
prematurely end the string if you tried to stick one inside the square
brackets, but two of them together are understood to mean an actual
double quote character instead of the string-ending quote.

Now, to get the curly quotes into the expression, you have to somehow
get them inside the square bracket. You could just jam all the Chr$()
calls in, using the concatenation (&) operator, but I'd make it more
readable by creating a separate string to hold them:

Dim curlies As String
curlies = Chr$(145) & Chr$(146) & Chr$(147) & Chr$(148)
For Each oChar In Selection.Characters
If oChar.Text Like "[A-Za-z0-9'""" & curlies & "]" Then

After the 0-9 the characters there are a single quote, two double
quotes to make a double-quote character, and another double quote to
end that part of the string; then the & curlies & ; and finally the
closing square bracket. As far as the Like operator knows, it's all
one string within square brackets.

All that now works properly.

The only character I cannot get to work in "]".

I tried doubling it "[A-Z]]]", but that didn't work.

The help says it cannot be used within a group, but it can be used
outside of a group. There is no example and I can't figure that one
out.



I also got the user form to work. I'll post the complete macro when I
get "]" working.

--
Running Word 2000 SP-3 on Windows 2000

On Tue, 3 Jan 2006 06:23:40 +0100, "Doug Robbins - Word MVP"
wrote:

Use \]

See the article "Finding and replacing characters using wildcards" at:

http://www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/Genera...gWildcards.htm

Do you mean like this: "[A-Za-z0-9\]]" ?

The following code:

If obChar.Text Like "[A-Za-z0-9\]]" then...

is always false with even for A-Z, a-z, and 0-9.

Change it to:

If obChar.Text Like "[A-Za-z0-9]" then ...

and it works perfectly.


--
Running Word 2000 SP-3 on Windows 2000

Or the revised version of it at
http://www.gmayor.com/replace_using_wildcards.htm

--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org


Doug Robbins - Word MVP wrote:
Use \]

See the article "Finding and replacing characters using wildcards" at:

http://www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/Genera...gWildcards.htm



"LurfysMa" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 02 Jan 2006 19:45:41 -0500, Jay Freedman
wrote:

On Mon, 02 Jan 2006 14:54:11 -0800, LurfysMa
wrote:
On Wed, 28 Dec 2005 16:01:02 -0500, Jay Freedman
wrote:

On Tue, 27 Dec 2005 20:23:26 -0800, LurfysMa
wrote:

...snip...

You can test against a list by replacing

If oChar.Text = " " Or oChar.Text = vbCr Or oChar.Text = vbLf Then

with

For Each oChar In Selection.Characters
If oChar.Text Like "[A-Za-z0-9!#$%*]" Then

Perfect. That was just what I was looking for.

I was able to get the letters and numbers to work, but ran into
trouble with a few of the special characters:

For single quote, I tried "[A-Za-z0-9']" and "[A-Za-z0-9]'".
Neither worked. With the quote ouside the brackets, no characters
were selected. The help mentions special provisions for []?#*, but
not for the quotes.

For double quote, similar results. I tried "[A-Za-z0-9""]" and
"[A-Za-z0-9]""".

The help warns about "*?#" and the brackets, but this string worked
just fine: "[A-Za-z0-9[*?#]". I could not find a way to make "]"
work, however. I tried "[A-Za-z0-9]]".

Does your document have curly quotes (a.k.a. "smart quotes")
substituted for straight quotes by the AutoFormat As You Type
feature? The Like operator treats them separately.

Yes, I should have thought of that.

The single quote that you can type directly into VBA code matches
only straight single quotes in the text. The curly opening and
closing single quotes are Chr$(145) and Chr$(146), respectively.
The curly double quotes are 147 and 148. All four of them would
have to be included in the pattern string for the Like operator to
match them. Let's start by including just the straight single and double
quotes
in a pattern:

If oChar.Text Like "[A-Za-z0-9'""]" Then

The single quote should work fine by itself. The double quote would
prematurely end the string if you tried to stick one inside the
square brackets, but two of them together are understood to mean an
actual double quote character instead of the string-ending quote.

Now, to get the curly quotes into the expression, you have to
somehow get them inside the square bracket. You could just jam all
the Chr$() calls in, using the concatenation (&) operator, but I'd
make it more readable by creating a separate string to hold them:

Dim curlies As String
curlies = Chr$(145) & Chr$(146) & Chr$(147) & Chr$(148)
For Each oChar In Selection.Characters
If oChar.Text Like "[A-Za-z0-9'""" & curlies & "]" Then

After the 0-9 the characters there are a single quote, two double
quotes to make a double-quote character, and another double quote to
end that part of the string; then the & curlies & ; and finally
the closing square bracket. As far as the Like operator knows, it's
all one string within square brackets.

All that now works properly.

The only character I cannot get to work in "]".

I tried doubling it "[A-Z]]]", but that didn't work.

The help says it cannot be used within a group, but it can be used
outside of a group. There is no example and I can't figure that one
out.



I also got the user form to work. I'll post the complete macro when I
get "]" working.

--
Running Word 2000 SP-3 on Windows 2000

On Tue, 3 Jan 2006 08:47:47 +0200, "Graham Mayor"
wrote:

Or the revised version of it at
http://www.gmayor.com/replace_using_wildcards.htm

--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

OK. I have read both articles. Based on that, it seems to me that the
expression "[A-Za-z0-9[\]]" ought to find all of the letters and
numbers plus the square brackets ([]) in a Like comparison.

But it doesn't match any characters at all.

However, if I delete the "\]", leaving "[A-Za-z0-9[]", then it will
match all of the letters and numbers plus "[".

What am I doing wrong?

--
Running Word 2000 SP-3 on Windows 2000

It certainly works when used from a Wildcard search within Word - As for
your code, that has long since lapsed from my newsreader.

--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org


LurfysMa wrote:
On Tue, 3 Jan 2006 08:47:47 +0200, "Graham Mayor"
wrote:

Or the revised version of it at
http://www.gmayor.com/replace_using_wildcards.htm

--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

OK. I have read both articles. Based on that, it seems to me that the
expression "[A-Za-z0-9[\]]" ought to find all of the letters and
numbers plus the square brackets ([]) in a Like comparison.

But it doesn't match any characters at all.

However, if I delete the "\]", leaving "[A-Za-z0-9[]", then it will
match all of the letters and numbers plus "[".

What am I doing wrong?

It turns out that you are doing nothing wrong (apart from not making use of
the Help file g). It is a difference between the use of a Wildcard Find
and the use of the Like function.

The following is from the Visual Basic Help file:

Quote
Note To match the special characters left bracket ([), question mark (?),
number sign (#), and asterisk (*), enclose them in brackets. The right
bracket (]) can't be used within a group to match itself, but it can be used
outside a group as an individual character.

Unquote

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

"LurfysMa" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 3 Jan 2006 08:47:47 +0200, "Graham Mayor"
wrote:

Or the revised version of it at
http://www.gmayor.com/replace_using_wildcards.htm

--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

OK. I have read both articles. Based on that, it seems to me that the
expression "[A-Za-z0-9[\]]" ought to find all of the letters and
numbers plus the square brackets ([]) in a Like comparison.

But it doesn't match any characters at all.

However, if I delete the "\]", leaving "[A-Za-z0-9[]", then it will
match all of the letters and numbers plus "[".

What am I doing wrong?

--
Running Word 2000 SP-3 on Windows 2000