Mastering Visual Basic .NET

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Chapter 10 AUTOMATING MICROSOFT OFFICE APPLICATIONS
The application will contact Word and request the list of misspelled words. The list of misspelled
words is displayed on a ListBox control on the same Form, as shown in Figure 10.2. The
ListBox control on the left shows all the misspelled words returned by Word. Word can not only
locate misspelled words but suggest alternatives as well. To view the alternate spellings for a specific
word, select the word in the left list by double-clicking it.
To replace all instances of the selected misspelled word with the selected alternative, click the
Replace button. You can design your own interface to allow the user to select which and how many
instances of the misspelled word in the original document will be replaced.
The program uses three public variables, which are declared as follows:
Public WordApp As Application
Public CorrectionsCollection As SpellingSuggestions
Public SpellCollection As ProofreadingErrors
The SpellCollection variable is a collection that contains all the misspelled words, and the
CorrectionsCollection variable is another collection that contains the suggested spellings for a specific
word. The CorrectionsCollection variable’s contents are changed every time the user selects another misspelled
word in Word’s Spelling Suggestions window.
When the SpellCheck Document button is clicked, the program creates a new document and
copies the TextBox control’s contents to the new document using the InsertAfter method of the
Range object, as follows:
WordApp.Documents.Add
Dim Drange As Word.Range
Drange = WordApp.ActiveDocument.Range
DRange.InsertAfter(Text1.Text)
Now comes the interesting part. The Visual Basic code calls the Range object’s SpellingErrors
method, which returns a collection of ProofreadingErrors objects. The result of the SpellingErrors
method is assigned to the object variable SpellCollection:
Dim SpellCollection As Word.ProofreadingErrors
Set SpellCollection = DRange.SpellingErrors
The lines in Listing 10.5—the SpellCheck Document button’s Click event handler—spell-check
the document and add the words contained in the SpellCollection collection (the misspelled words) to
the ListBox1 control.
Listing 10.5: The Check Document Button
Private Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, _
ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click
Dim DRange As Word.Range
Me.Text = “Starting Word ...”
WordApp.Documents.Add()
Me.Text = “Checking words...”
DRange = WordApp.ActiveDocument.Range
DRange.InsertAfter(TextBox1.Text)