![\"Hey,](\"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/29\/2019\/02\/q-for-powertip.jpg\" "\\"Hey,")
\n \n
Hey, Scripting Guy! I have a bunch of Word documents that include fields like LastSavedBy. How can I write a script that retrieves the current values for these fields? Hey, OS. You know, the other night the Scripting Guy who writes this column was watching TV when he saw an ad for a new Monopoly game: Monopoly, the Electronic Banking Edition<\/B><\/A>. What was interesting (or disturbing, depending on your point of view) is that this version of Monopoly does away with cash; instead, players use debit cards and an ATM-like machine to keep track of their winnings. <\/P>\n In case you\u2019re wondering, the Scripting Guy who writes this column found this disturbing. After all, there are few things in life more satisfying than watching one of your brothers grimly counting out every last Monopoly dollar he has, desperately hoping to reach the $1000 in rent he owes you. (And all the while you saying, \u201cTell you what, you give me your two yellow properties and you won\u2019t owe me a thing.\u201d) Having him simply swipe his debit card doesn\u2019t sound like much fun at all. Sitting there with a huge pile of cash in front of you is absolutely the<\/I> greatest feeling in the world.<\/P>\n Just ask \u2013 uh, never mind. There are certain people even the Scripting Guys shouldn\u2019t make jokes about.<\/P>\n
— OS<\/P>![\"Spacer\"](\"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/29\/2019\/05\/spacer.gif\")
![\"Hey,](\"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/29\/2019\/02\/a-for-powertip.jpg\" "\\"Hey,")
![\"Script](\"http:\/\/img.microsoft.com\/library\/media\/1033\/technet\/images\/scriptcenter\/ad.jpg\" "\\"Script")
<\/A> \n
| \n Sign of the times<\/B>. Technically, the game doesn\u2019t use just any old debit card: it\u2019s a Visa<\/I> debit card. Also, the playing pieces have been updated for the Banking Edition; these pieces now include: a Segway personal transporter (which is nice; after all, most of us will never see a Segway in real life); a space shuttle; a flat-screen TV; a baseball cap; a dog in handbag (yes, a handbag); and \u2013 the piece everyone will likely fight over \u2013 a tin of Altoids.<\/P><\/TD><\/TR><\/TBODY><\/TABLE>\n Anyway, the Scripting Guy who writes this column has no intention of playing the Electronic Banking Edition; he much prefers the old-fashioned version. And he will never, ever<\/I> be the tin of Altoids. Instead, he prefers to be the race car any time he plays Monopoly. But, then again, who doesn\u2019t?<\/P>\n Note<\/B>. Sigh. As you might expect, the Scripting <\/I>Ed<\/I>itor<\/I> doesn\u2019t like being the race car; she prefers to be the shoe. (You heard right: the shoe.) We assume that\u2019s only because the game doesn\u2019t have any playing pieces even more<\/I> boring than the shoe.<\/P><\/TD><\/TR><\/TBODY><\/TABLE>\n But it doesn\u2019t really matter; after all, who has time for games anyway? Not us, not when we need to write a script that can retrieve field values from a Microsoft Word document: <\/P> Set objDoc = objWord.Documents.Open(“C:\\Scripts\\Test.doc”)<\/p>\n Set colFields = objDoc.Fields\ncolFields.Update<\/p>\n For Each objField in colFields\n Select Case objField.Type\n Case 20\n Set objRange = objField.Result\n strUser = objRange.Text\n Wscript.Echo “Last Saved By: ” & strUser\n End Select\nNext\n<\/PRE>\n Let\u2019s meander through the code and see if we can figure out how this all works. To begin with, we create an instance of the Word.Application<\/B> object and then set the Visible<\/B> property to True; that gives us a running instance of Microsoft Word that we can see onscreen. We then use this line of code to open the file C:\\Scripts\\Test.doc:<\/P> Well, that was easy enough, wasn\u2019t it? Like taking candy from a baby.<\/P>\n Or playing Monopoly with your brothers.<\/P>\n After we open the document we then use the following line of code to retrieve a collection of all the fields in that document:<\/P> Once we have the collection in hand we call the Update<\/B> method to update each of these fields. By calling the Update method we get the latest, most up-to-the-minute value for each field in the document; we\u2019re assuming that this is what most of you will want to do. On the other hand, some of you might want to retrieve the value of the fields at the time the document was last saved. That\u2019s fine; just comment out (or remove) the following line of code and your script will not<\/I> update all the fields when it opens the document. The commented code would end up looking like this:<\/P> Our next task involves setting up a For Each loop to loop through the collection of fields. As it turns out, Microsoft Word identifies fields by their Type<\/B>, the Type property being a unique integer value. For example, the LastSavedBy field has a value of 20; the Author field has a value of 17. In our script, we set up a Select Case statement to examine the value of the Type property and then echo back the appropriate field name. As you can see, our Select Case statement only looks for one particular field type: the LastSavedBy field, which has a value of 20. However, you can easily extend the Select Case statement to account for other field types. For example, add this line of code to check for \u2013 and echo back the value of \u2013 the Author field:<\/P> Or, just use this code to echo back all the values, without specifying the field type:<\/P> |