Visual Basic / Word Macro Help - Massive Multiple Word Find / Replace

Question

Hello All,

I am very new to the macro creation / Visual Basic world, but I have a great need that requires me to understand it, or at least to use a macro for this task.

I have many huge documents with similar word misspelling, errors, etc, and I believe that using a macro to find/replace multiple words at one time will be a huge help.  I'm talking about thousands of words.  I've already done one document so far, and it's taken me weeks. 

I found many sample macros on this site and through different web searches that claim to do what I need.  But I can't seem to get any of them to work.

And I think it's either because I don't know the "basics" of Visual Basic, or the code may be wrong.  (But there's no way for me to tell.)

What I would like to do is make a list, to input into a macro, of words that could possibly be among those misspelled, and another list of what they should be.  IE: List #1 would have the word "neighbour" and List #2 would have the word "neighbor".  And this list would have thousands of words.

In my desperation, I've also tried using Notepad++, but I think this is only useful up to 9 words.  :(

Anyway, if someone has any ideas, or can point me to a macro (I'm sure it's already been done) that works, I would truly be thankful.

PS. I have access to both Office 2010 and 2013.

Answer 1

Something seems to have disappeared from the original code in the link. I've updated it now, so try the update.

Answer 2

See: http://www.msofficeforums.com/word-vba/12803-find-replace.html#post34254

Answer 3

Since you have a list, why don't just add your external list to your Word dictionary file?

Merging Custom Dictionaries

http://word.tips.net/T007599_Merging_Custom_Dictionaries.html

Summary: It is possible to develop a custom dictionary on your computer that reflects the types of documents with which you work most often. If you have several people in your office, at some point you may want to take each person's custom dictionary and combine them into a single dictionary that reflects the way everyone works. Here's how to do it.

Where is the Custom Dictionary for Microsoft Word Located?

http://www.howtogeek.com/186363/where-is-the-custom-dictionary-for-microsoft-word-located/

This macro gets you half way there, it uses an external list to highlight words in a doc. You can modify it do replace instead

Highlight Words from a Word List

http://word.tips.net/T000502_Highlight_Words_from_a_Word_List.html

Summary: Do you need to highlight certain words in a document, and aren't quite sure how to go about it? Using the techniques described in this tip, you can create a word list document and then run a macro to highlight all the occurrences of the words in that word list.

Finally, you can download the following free book. It has MANY spelling related macros that you may be able to use or modify

Computer Tools for Editors (and Proofreaders)

by Paul Beverley, LCGI

Formerly “Macros for Writers, Editors and Proofreaders”

http://www.archivepub.co.uk/book.html

Answer 4

Seethis thread and Installing Macros.

Answer 5

What happens when you simply run the spelling checker on your document? (F7) Does it not show these as misspelled? In Word 2010 you can easily add these to your AutoCorrect.