Word – Chemistry Word VBA macros

list all the keyboard shortcuts

Using keyboard shortcuts saves a lot of time when making Word resources – it’s a lot quicker to subscript a number by pressing Ctrl and = than it is to go to the Home page then click on the subscript button. To get a list of all the keyboard shortcuts on your computer do theContinue reading “list all the keyboard shortcuts”

move lines up or down in a table

If you want to move a line or lines up or down in a table do the following: 1. Position the insertion point in the row you want to move or select the rows you want to move. 2. While holding down the Shift and Alt keys, press the Up Arrow or Down Arrow to move the row

use a non-breaking space

When you are producing a resource you don’t want a number at the end of a line with its unit on the next line or, even worse, the unit being split over two lines as in these examples: To avoid this, don’t use a normal space between 0.25 and mol and dm–3. Instead use aContinue reading “use a non-breaking space”

add a science symbol

Over the years my colleague Aula Nerd used to come across useful Word symbols in other people’s documents and copy them to one central very useful document. Every time she needed an equilibrium sign or a triple bond or a radical dot or a longer minus sign she would open the afore-mentioned document, copy theContinue reading “add a science symbol”

copy selected pages to new document

If you have a long document and want to copy part of it this is a quick way. There is a message box at the start requiring the page range to copy. These pages are then copied to a new document.

remove double spaces

My colleague Ada Nurel is always very frustrated by numpties who put double spaces into their documents, and especially ones who spread out their chemical equations with lots of spaces. She notes that when she does a ‘replace all’ and replaces a double space with a single it will still leave double spaces since threeContinue reading “remove double spaces”

landscape format

My Russian colleague Edna Ural produces a lot of resources in landscape format since they are intended for the student to look at on their screen rather than to be printed out. This macro formats a landscape document in House style:

add an equilibrium sign

In AutoCorrect I have added eqmz in the left-hand box and ⇌ in the right-hand box. This means that every time I need an equilibrium symbol I just type eqmz. See here for how to add to the AutoCorrect table. See here for how to find the Unicode symbol for the equilibrium arrow on theContinue reading “add an equilibrium sign”

remove automatic numbering but keep the numbers

Automatic numbering is a good servant but a bad master. It’s possible to turn it off but what happens if you have somebody else’s document with lots of automatic numbering that you want to turn off but keep the numbers generated by it? My Australian colleague Ned Alaru gave me such a document. The codeContinue reading “remove automatic numbering but keep the numbers”

replace the short minus sign, raise the superscripts and lower the subscripts

If you write the formula for the nitrate ion in Arial you get this: The minus sign is too small and the subscript and superscript look wrong. There is a better minus sign than the one on the keyboard, called the n-dash since it takes up the same space as a letter n. Use theContinue reading “replace the short minus sign, raise the superscripts and lower the subscripts”