Writing Word Macros, Second Edition

Chapter 10. The Word Object Model

In this chapter:

• The Word Object Model: A Perspective

• Word Enums

• The VBA Object Browser

The Word object model is the most extensive in Microsoft’s Office arsenal, with 188 objects and more than 3,000 properties and methods in total. It is certainly not my intention in this book to cover all, or even most, of these objects and their members. My goal is to acquaint you with the major portions of this model so that you can easily learn more as needed.

It seems appropriate to begin by presenting an overall view of the Word object model, using pictures of the model taken from various viewpoints, along with some tables. I suggest that you stare at these pictures and tables for a little while and then read on, returning to them as needed.

The Word Object Model: A Perspective

To put the Word object model in some perspective, Table 10-1 gives some statistics on various Microsoft object models. As you can see from this table, the Word object model has more objects than any other model. (Excel is a close second, but 52 of the Excel objects are included only for compatibility with earlier versions of Excel and are on their way out. Also, when you consider only those members of the Excel objects that are not obsolete, the count drops to 1,974 properties and 985 methods. Thus, Word is truly the largest object model in this group!)

Table 10-1. Some Object Model Statistics

Application	Objects	Properties	Methods	Enums	Constants
Access 8	51	1,596	532	31 ...