Looping Through a Collection

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