How to: Restore Selections After Searches

Applies to
The information in this topic applies only to the specified Visual Studio Tools for Office projects and versions of Microsoft Office. Project type Document-level projects Application-level projects Microsoft Office version Word 2003 Word 2007 For more information, see Features Available by Application and Project Type.

If you find and replace text in a document, you might want to restore the user's original selection after the search is completed.

The code in the sample procedure makes use of two Range objects. One stores the current Selection, and one sets the entire document to use as a search range.

To restore the user's original selection after a search

1. Create the Range objects for the document and the current selection.

   Dim start As Word.Range = Application.Selection.Range
   Dim searchArea As Word.Range = Application.ActiveDocument.Range
   

   Word.Range start = Application.Selection.Range; 
   Word.Range searchArea = Application.ActiveDocument.Range(ref missing, ref missing); 
   

2. Perform the search and replace operation.

   searchArea.Find.ClearFormatting()
   searchArea.Find.Text = "find me"
   
   searchArea.Find.Replacement.ClearFormatting()
   searchArea.Find.Replacement.Text = "Found"
   
   searchArea.Find.Execute(Replace:=Word.WdReplace.wdReplaceAll)
   

   searchArea.Find.ClearFormatting(); 
   searchArea.Find.Text = "find me"; 
   
   searchArea.Find.Replacement.ClearFormatting(); 
   searchArea.Find.Replacement.Text = "Found"; 
   
   object replaceAll = Word.WdReplace.wdReplaceAll; 
   
   searchArea.Find.Execute(
       ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing,
       ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing,
       ref replaceAll, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing);
   

3. Select the start range to restore the user's original selection.

   start.Select()
   

   start.Select(); 
   

The following example shows the complete method.

Example

Friend Sub ReplaceRestoreSelection()
    Dim start As Word.Range = Application.Selection.Range
    Dim searchArea As Word.Range = Application.ActiveDocument.Range

    searchArea.Find.ClearFormatting()
    searchArea.Find.Text = "find me"

    searchArea.Find.Replacement.ClearFormatting()
    searchArea.Find.Replacement.Text = "Found"

    searchArea.Find.Execute(Replace:=Word.WdReplace.wdReplaceAll)

    start.Select()
End Sub

internal void ReplaceRestoreSelection() 
{ 
    Word.Range start = Application.Selection.Range; 
    Word.Range searchArea = Application.ActiveDocument.Range(ref missing, ref missing); 

    searchArea.Find.ClearFormatting(); 
    searchArea.Find.Text = "find me"; 

    searchArea.Find.Replacement.ClearFormatting(); 
    searchArea.Find.Replacement.Text = "Found"; 

    object replaceAll = Word.WdReplace.wdReplaceAll; 

    searchArea.Find.Execute(
        ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing,
        ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing,
        ref replaceAll, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing);

    start.Select(); 
}

See Also

Tasks

How to: Search for and Replace Text in Documents

How to: Search for Text in Documents

How to: Set Search Options in Word

How to: Loop Through Found Items in Documents

Concepts

The Variable missing and Optional Parameters in Office Solutions