Mac Forum / Applications / Word / May 2008

In Mac Word 2008, VBA is not there at all. It's not a question of not
"working", the interpreter is physically not there.

In Mac Word 2004, an old version of VBA is available.  However, I seem to
remember that setting a tab order was one of the things that didn't work in
Mac Word VBA.

1)  In Word 2008, not only is the VBA missing, so is the ability to create
forms of the kind you are talking about.  You can enter individual form
fields, but you cannot create your own userforms like you can in Word 2003.

2)  AppleScript is, if anything, more powerful than VBA, and will go down to
the bit level as VBA will.  However, doing this would be a chore, because
AppleScript does not script the "application", it scripts the "Operating
System".  You are sitting "outside" the application telling it to do things.
And AppleScript has not implemented some of the objects and collections in
Word.

For example, you won't be able to retrieve a "userform" from Word in
AppleScript, because there aren't any in this version :-)

3)  You can, of course, create your own dialogs in AppleScript, and feed the
data from there into a Word document.  I don't know how, but since
AppleScript is an Application Programming Language, custom dialog boxes are
well within its reach.

So:  The first law of computing: if you can't find the answer, change the
question...

4)  The first thing I would to is to use Word 2008's available Text and
Fillin fields.  Make up a page containing the fields in the order in which
she wants to type them.  Then bookmark the fields and set cross-references
on the next page to copy the content of the fields into the text in the
order that they should print.

So the user works in the first page, hitting Tab to go to the next field
each time.  The second page contains cross-references that re-arranges the
form data in printing order.

This will give you a native Word 2008 solution without a lot of research and
coding.

Currently there is a bug in Word 2008 that constrains how you can use
section breaks to protect the document.  Word 2008 can't currently allow you
to protect only "part" of a document.

If a document contains any protected sections, currently Word 2008 opens the
document as though ALL sections are protected.  Hopefully they will fix that
bug soon.

5)  The other solution you might consider is to install a copy of Virtual PC
7 on the iBook.  That will contain a licensed copy of Windows XP, and enable
her to run Word 2003 (very slowly!) on her iBook G4.

If she can find a copy of Microsoft Office 2004 Professional for Mac, that
is a bundled product that includes VPC7 and Office 2004.

Hope this helps

On 6/04/08 3:12 AM, in article ee978e5.-1@webcrossing.caR9absDaxw,