I need a macro that will enter dashes into the highlighted portion of
a table...if it is possible it would be even better if this macro
enters dashes only into the empty cells in a highlighted portion of a
table.  Thanks.

Google_Maniac,

The following VBA will enter a dash in any empty table cell in the
current selection. It loops through each cell in the current
selection, checks each one for emptiness, and sets the value of any
empty cell to a dash.

Sub DoIt()
Dim obj As Cell

    For Each obj In Selection.Cells
        If obj.Range.Text = Chr(13) & Chr(7) Then
            obj.Range.Text = "-"
        End If
    Next obj

End Sub

The trick is in knowing how to check if the cell is empty. An "empty"
table cell in Word actually has a couple of ASCII characters in it - a
13 and a 7. See the link below under Additional Information for more
methods of testing this condition.

Good luck with your Word project!

- Hammer


Search Strategy
---------------
word table vba cell empty

Additional information
----------------------
Microsoft Word MVP FAQ Site
Detect whether a table cell is empty
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/MacrosVBA/TableCellEmpty.htm

---

Request for Answer Clarification by google_maniac-ga on 20 Feb 2006 15:11 PST

EXCELLENT...it works like a charm...however I am requesting one
additional thing...which I will add a tip of $5.00 for...I would also
like the macro to add a dash if a cell value is found to equal 0.  So
if the cell has the values "0" or "0.0" or "0.00" it will replace all
those with a single dash.  Thanks.
 
(and thank you brix24 for the tip)

---

Clarification of Answer by hammer-ga on 26 Feb 2006 08:05 PST

Google_Maniac,

I'm sorry for not responding earlier. I have been out of town. Does
the comment posted by brix24 meets your needs?

- Hammer

You sure that's Word and not Excel?

EXCELLENT...it works like a charm...however I am requesting one
additional thing...which I will add a tip of $5.00 for...I would also
like the macro to add a dash if a cell value is found to equal 0.  So
if the cell has the values "0" or "0.0" or "0.00" it will replace all
those with a single dash.  Thanks.

Google_maniac, you might try adding your Comment as a "Request for
clarification." I think that will send the google researcher an alert
that you have this additional request. Otherwise, an answer may depend
on whether or not hammer-ga looks at this question again.

google_maniac, I may have been mistaken in believing that a Request
for Clarification sent an alert to the researcher. In a partial
attempt to redeem myself, I tried to find the answer for you. The best
that I have been able to come up with is a macro that replaces exact
text, but does not evaluate a cell's value. (Searching led me to a
".Calculate" function, but I got erratic results with that in Excel on
a Mac.)

Below is a simple modification of hammer-ga's macro.

Note: I am not an expert in VBA and do not routinely use word macros,
so I would check the results of this macro carefully. I was helped by
search results that indicated that the Chr(13) and Chr(7) were used in
all Word cells.

The macro replaces cells with 0, 0.0, and 0.00; it does not affect
cells with "0", .0, or 0.0<space>.

This first version is combined with the empty cell replacement action:

Sub DoIt()

Dim obj As Cell

    For Each obj In Selection.Cells
        If (obj.Range.Text = Chr(13) & Chr(7)) Or _
            (obj.Range.Text = "0" & Chr(13) & Chr(7)) Or _
            (obj.Range.Text = "0.0" & Chr(13) & Chr(7)) Or _
            (obj.Range.Text = "0.00" & Chr(13) & Chr(7)) Then
            obj.Range.Text = "-"
        End If
    Next obj

End Sub

You may prefer to run the replacements for empty cells and for zero
value cells separately since this makes it easy to visually check the
results for possible malfunctions.

(Note: in testing the macros, I found that, in Excel on a Mac, if I
created a table and used "select all," not everything got replaced;
however, if I decreased the selection to include just the cells in the
table, the macros worked fine. There may be other situation that you
will have to be on the alert for.)

Sub DoItZero()

Dim obj As Cell

    For Each obj In Selection.Cells
        If  (obj.Range.Text = "0" & Chr(13) & Chr(7)) Or _
            (obj.Range.Text = "0.0" & Chr(13) & Chr(7)) Or _
            (obj.Range.Text = "0.00" & Chr(13) & Chr(7)) Then
            obj.Range.Text = "-"
        End If
    Next obj

End Sub