Word Hacks [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Hack 39 Apply Context-Sensitive Formatting

Which character style you apply to a selection
of text may depend on its context. This hack makes it easy to apply
the correct one of several similar styles by using a macro to examine
the selection''s surroundings.

A complex document template
may have several similar character
styles, each fulfilling a different semantic purpose in the
document''s structure. The template used for this
manuscript, for example, has two styles used to emphasize portions
of
text: one called emphasis (used to emphasize
normal body text) and the other
replaceable (used to emphasize text
presented in a constant-width font). Which style is used depends on
the context of the text to be emphasized.

One way to ensure the correct application of several different, but
similar, character styles is to provide users with a detailed set of
instructions about which style to use in any particular situation
(and when not to use a particular style, such as
in a heading). But many people will simply do what
they''ve always done in Word to emphasize text: press
the I button on the Formatting toolbar.

Unfortunately, this action only applies direct formatting on top of
the paragraph style already in use. You can try just telling people
not to reach for the I button, or you can opt to intercept the Italic
command [Hack #61]
and apply the correct character style based on the current paragraph
style.

For example, assume that there are two character styles,
emphasis and
replaceable, governed by the following
four rules:

Do not apply character styles with multiple paragraphs selected.

Do not use character styles in headings.

If the paragraph style''s name includes the word
"Code," use the
replaceable character style.

In all other situations, use the emphasis
character style.

4.14.1 The Code

The following macro examines the context of the selected text when
you press the I button and then, based on the rules described above,
performs one of three possible actions:

Ignores the command

Warns the user that the attempted action is not permitted

Applies one of the two character styles

After you place this macro in the template of your choice [Hack #50],
it will run whenever you press the I button on the toolbar or the key
command associated with italic (typically Ctrl-I):

Sub Italic( )
Dim sel As Selection
Dim sParagraphStyleName As String
Set sel = Selection
'' Quietly exit if selection spans multiple paragraphs
If sel.Range.Paragraphs.Count <> 1 Then Exit Sub
'' Warn then exit if selection is in a heading
sParagraphStyleName = sel.Range.Paragraphs.First.Style
If InStr(sParagraphStyleName, "Heading") Then
MsgBox "Sorry, Character Styles aren''t allowed in headings"
Exit Sub
End If
'' Apply appropriate character style
If InStr(sParagraphStyleName, "Code") Then
sel.Style = "replaceable"
Else
sel.Style = "emphasis"
End If
End Sub

For another example of intercepting toolbar buttons, check out [Hack #42] .