Messages

76

General Software Discussion / Re: Excel - pattern matching in cells

« on: March 17, 2011, 05:46 AM »

Basic tutorial on using regular expressions in Excel VBA: http://www.tmehta.com/regexp/index.htm
Regular Expression guide (many languages): http://www.regular-expressions.info/
List of articles showing some other ways of using Regex in Excel VBA: http://excelicious.wordpress.com/category/regular-expressions/

77

General Software Discussion / Re: Lyx is the answer

« on: March 16, 2011, 10:43 AM »

Regarding preview, does this help: http://wiki.lyx.org/LyX/NewInLyX20#toc22

78

Living Room / Re: Micro Reviews of Board Games From a Non-Competetive Perspective

« on: February 28, 2011, 10:49 AM »

For those who have tried Settlers and didnt like it, have you tried the Cities and Knights expansion?  I think it adds a LOT of interesting gameplay/tactics into the original.  I dont like playing the original anymore as it's way too simple. 

As mouser said, everyone has their own taste so I'm not saying Cities and Knights will make Settlers appeal to those who dont like the original version, but it's worth a shot!

79

General Software Discussion / Re: Program to beautify crappy exports from other applications?

« on: February 23, 2011, 11:45 AM »

the easiest thing would be for the app to dump its data to an HTML table and let a browser handle the printing.

I disagree... I am amazed at how poor IE and Opera printing is.  I know, why would anyone want to print a webpage?  But a lot of PDF converters are just printers... many times I'm not making a hard copy, just saving to PDF and it looks like crap.  Opera's functionality feels like it's going backwards and IE's just never really matured in configurability.

I wish what you said was true, it certainly would make things nice, but I dont see it yet.

80

Living Room / Re: Wow!! Are Any of You THIS limber?

« on: February 04, 2011, 06:22 AM »

An interesting article on why flexibility is overrated (realizing that projecting reality on a fun and frivolous discussion ruins the fun!):
http://toddhargrove.wordpress.com/2011/01/27/flexibility-and-running-economy/

An interesting alternative if you're into stretching already is to look up resistive stretching or dynamic stretching.

81

General Software Discussion / Re: Photo managers with face recognition?

« on: January 30, 2011, 10:51 AM »

IDImager is weak in this area (as of version 5.1.1) because the third party tools used are not yet reliable enough in the author's opinion (Hert is the author of IDImager, Hert's comment on Face Recognition) to open up all the features to for use by IDImager.  There are a few threads on the IDImager forum about this if you want more information, and a script written to import Picassa face data to IDImager (I have not used this so cant comment on it).

These programs (I bought and use Bibble and IDImager) are expensive because of their power and flexibility in other areas.  I use IDImager for overall image management/cataloging, and Bibble as my RAW converter.  Those are the things that matter most to me.  I am greatly impressed by the faces feature in Picassa, but am not willing to give up the other things.  If faces is what you want, then Picassa might be the best option for now (or iPhoto if you're a Mac user). 

To each his own.

82

Mouser's Zone / Re: IDEA - Webpage archiving

« on: January 02, 2011, 05:48 PM »

Anybody have information on the status of cyberarticle?  Last update was Feb 2010, blog hasnt been updated since aug 2009.

Or, any other similar software?  I'd really like to be able to archive/catalog webpages and pdfs.  I have Local Website Archive, but there are no tags/keywording and the author is not planning on doing anything for multi-page saving (per email a year or so ago).  I'm impressed by what I see in Cyberarticle, just not sure about longevity.

83

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: [Freeware] Text Filter - search and filter text files with ease

« on: October 23, 2010, 01:57 PM »

Does it, or is it going to, support regular expressions?

84

N.A.N.Y. 2011 / Re: NANY 2011 Pledge: Mouser App - Webcam Diary

« on: October 12, 2010, 05:50 AM »

What format will files be saved as?  Will there be ways to include still photos, text, etc with the video?

85

General Software Discussion / Re: Whoa, this gal hates MS Office 2010 -- 5 Reasons Why You Don't Need It

« on: July 23, 2010, 02:16 PM »

VBA is one of the only reasons I continue to even think about MS Office.  2010 got a minor upgrade, with more coming in the future.

86

What's the Best? / Re: PDF Cataloger - Any Suggestions

« on: July 14, 2010, 01:40 PM »

If you are a programmer there are programs (such as the excellant ExifTool by Phil Harvey) that will read/write metadata to PDF files.  Therefore you could write a frontend.  I realize this is much more time-consuming and may not be practical, but it's an option.

87

General Software Discussion / Re: Rename files based on a list of similar names

« on: June 27, 2010, 02:50 PM »

To get started, look up  "Levenshtein distance."  There are various algorithms in various languages (I found one in python, converted it to VB).  There are variations depending on speed vs fuzzy matching complexity.

Stackoverflow
How the algorithm works

88

General Software Discussion / Re: Word 2007: Are Table Styles safe to use now?

« on: June 03, 2010, 02:11 PM »

AndyM... going back to your advice on using tabs instead of tables.  How would one format text so each "cell" could have multiline text in it?  I dont see how tabs allow you to do this.

89

General Software Discussion / Re: Word 2007: Are Table Styles safe to use now?

« on: May 28, 2010, 08:38 AM »

Thanks for the info on setting up tabstops... I'll have to keep that in mind when I next use word....

90

General Software Discussion / Re: Word 2007: Are Table Styles safe to use now?

« on: May 27, 2010, 05:45 AM »

... If you are just formatting a report, that is one thing, that is what tab stops are for, ...

-steeladept (May 26, 2010, 07:33 PM)

Since my answer would be formatting "things" I'm very interested in how tabstops can be used to create a multi-column  (say 10) table.  How is this done?

91

General Software Discussion / Re: What to use to back up 1:1 ?

« on: May 18, 2010, 08:16 AM »

Hmmm... yeah I never tried to do that... wonder if you could just back up all folders in the root.  Dont know.

92

General Software Discussion / Re: What to use to back up 1:1 ?

« on: May 18, 2010, 07:50 AM »

MirrorFolder has worked great for me:
MirrorFolder

93

General Software Discussion / Re: Help me with MS Word styles

« on: May 18, 2010, 05:44 AM »

I only really have experience with styles, but in general searching for Word MVP sites for information is a good idea.  Shauna Kelly's site is still one of the best.  She gives a bunch of different options... some are very interesting. 

Glossary

94

General Software Discussion / Re: Help me with MS Word styles

« on: May 17, 2010, 10:53 AM »

As AndyM says, the messagebox is not an error, that's just showing you that the TOC does not use fields.   In your real document make sure the messagebox does not display (by commenting it out or deleting the entire line).  That was just a step I used to learn that the TOC is it's own object, not a bunch of seperate fields.

The error you gave in post 46 (the "cant find object or library") was not allowing the VBA script to run at all.  My code just pops a message box with the true or false value of the TOC UseFields property.  In other words, two seperate problems.  As long as the script runs and updates your TOC you should be fine.  

Given what I've seen of the template, I think you're using the correct code for the job.  The other scripts loop through various fields in the document... not the same thing as the TOC object.


Yeah learning things on the job is awesome cause you get paid to figure things out, but it sucks because the people above you dont want to pay you for learning!  They would rather you save time, until they learn that it takes initial time to learn how use the tools in a time-saving way.

I will say that learning VBA does pay big dividends.  Lots of tedious tasks can be automated rather quickly, once the object model is understood!

95

General Software Discussion / Re: Help me with MS Word styles

« on: May 17, 2010, 10:00 AM »

The error you describe is usually because the com references are not set correctly.  If you go into the VBE, click on Tools -> References.  You should see at least the following references with a checkmark. 

Visual Basic for Applications
Microsoft Word 11.0 Object Library
OLE Automation
Microsoft Office 11.0 Object Library

Another way to troubleshoot this is to click Debug -> Compile Project.  Sometimes Office apps will throw library errors for problems that dont involve the library.  Compiling will usually catch these errors.


Regarding the initial problem... I dont quite understand what's going on.  I looked McGhie's template and he's using an actual TOC object (I think, if I understand the object correctly).  As setup in the template, the TOC object does not use fields.  I found this by checking the UseFields property of the TOC object... by slightly modifying the code that worked for you on Friday:

[Select]

Sub UpdateAllTOCs1()
    Dim toc As TableOfContents
    For Each toc In ActiveDocument.TablesOfContents
        toc.Update
        msgbox "TOC Uses Fields: " & toc.UseFields
    Next toc
End Sub

What I think this means is that for your situation (trying to update the TOC of your document) you should just have to use the code that worked for you on Friday.  Try the two fixes I listed above and see if that enables your script to run.

96

General Software Discussion / Re: Help me with MS Word styles

« on: May 17, 2010, 08:22 AM »

Quick update: found this link which is another way of updating fields.  It appears to be closer to what SuperBoyAC is doing by hand. 

Link: Update all fields

Code:

[Select]

Sub UpdateAll()
     
    Dim myRange
     
    Set myRange = Selection.Range
     
    Selection.WholeStory
    Selection.Fields.Update
     
    myRange.Select
     
End Sub

Notice that this is using the Selection.WholeStory object... different from the other examples I've seen above.

97

General Software Discussion / Re: Help me with MS Word styles

« on: May 17, 2010, 08:17 AM »

Here is a page that shows why this can be different for different people.  Update Fields VBA

Going back to the article on the way Word thinks, each compartment is a container for different things.  Fields could possibly go in many of the different compartments, depending on how (and where) you inserted the field.  In the code SuperBoyAC first posted, you loop through all Word ranges, look in each range's Fields collection, and then cycle through those fields. 

In the first reply of the webpage I just linked to, the user loops through each field in the Document's Fields collection... which is different than what the first code does.

It's all about object hierarchies, and I agree can be very very confusing.  However, dont go bashing VB for this problem!    This is a "problem" with any object-oriented language/application.  You can bash MS for making the Word Object Model so complex, but VB/VBA is not at fault here.  If you try to script Word through any com enabled language you will have to use the same types of object references.

Without your document in front of me I dont know which container the fields you are trying to update are in.  That's where the Object Model map can come in handy (I dont think the one I linked to above is the full map):  it shows you the object hierarchies and where each piece can be located.

Hope that helps explain... I doubt it solves the problem.

98

General Software Discussion / Re: Help me with MS Word styles

« on: May 14, 2010, 05:43 PM »

What I was trying to say is that your original code was looking inside range objects.  I dont know the Word Object model well enough to know if your fields are contained within the ranges you're looping through. 

The article I linked to gives a high level overview of the object model.  For example, in excel you have Workbooks, worksheets, ranges, and cells (among hundreds of other things). You can loop through all worksheets in a workbook, all cells in a worksheet, etc etc. 

For Word, I dont know where fields are "kept."  Sorry, I dont know the object model well enough, nor have the time tonight to look at it further.

99

General Software Discussion / Re: Help me with MS Word styles

« on: May 14, 2010, 04:16 PM »

Hmmm... dont know.  I have extensive Excel VBA experience, and minimal Word.  However, I would look at what Ranges are in Word.  By cycling through them you may be limiting your search too much.  This link may help... dont know: Word Object Model

100

General Software Discussion / Re: Help me with MS Word styles

« on: May 14, 2010, 11:40 AM »

Agreed on the MS bashing, way too many do it.  With the caveat that I wish their updates would address some of the actual deficiencies in their products...

Word is amazingly powerful (I also only realized it after reading those links), but the problem is styles are somewhat finicky when you start to use them among multiple documents, the document combiner thingy (there is a feature that lets you treat multiple documents as one) corrupts files... why does Microsoft have awesome ideas and then not fully implement them?  

Excel has (as far as I have seen, havent checked 2007) an 8 level grouping limitation, a 4000 style (expanded in 2007, but not fixed) limitation that can render a workbook unopenable (see Too Many Formats Error), and there is no way (that I've seen) to manipulate Excel Lists from VBA.

These are the things that I dont like about Office.... immense power, features, etc, but some nasty little niggles in there just when you thought you figured something out!

But, yes, the products are very capable.  Particularly once you start to think like them.