Is there a 'tag'-like attribute anywhere in the word object model

[tfurnivall]

One of the delights of Access controls (and other controls, too) is the availability of a Tag attribute, which allows the programmer to stash away data useful to the programmer, and guaranteed not to be used by Microsoft!

I'm engaging in a situation where I will, for a short while, have three different documents open (which could, in reality, all be the same document). I'm opening one as HostDoc, one as SourceDoc, and one as TargetDoc. I'm building a test routine to simply display the names of the open documents, and which is the ActiveDocument at the time.

I have not been able to find Tag as an attribute of the Document object (boo), but would dearly love to be able to print the Documents collection and get what the logical name of the codument is (the name I'm using in the source code. If we call this hypothetical attribute SuperTag, then I'd be able, when I open the document to say

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That way I don't have to waste coding and debugging time figuring out which I'm working with (some of these documents may be closed and reopened during the course of the program). Does anyone have any ideas how I might accomplish this? One totally off the wall idea would be to have a non-displayed form with three controls, and to stash into the tag of those controls the name of the source document, but (a) that does not respect the actual Documents collection, and (b) returns the document name (which I can already get to), and not the path to the document (the name of the document in the code module.

Thanks, in advance, for any suggestions (including "Give Up!")

Tony

[shg]

Custom document properties?

[tfurnivall]

I encountered these while browsing a document a long time ago and in what felt like another galaxy. However, I gave it a look, and indeed they are present. So....

I set up a macro recording session to capture the steps necessary.


NOTHING

OK, let's take a look at the object model for Document. Sure enough there is CustomDocumentProperties (nothing about non-custom DocumentProperties). No type given, just Object. Really helpful. However, in the model (using F2) there are entries for CustomProperties, Custom Property, DocumentProperties and DocumentProperty.

OK, not too many possibilities, let's throw some code at it:

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It ran - and found the single custom property I had created manually (while trying to record the macro). OK, Let's redeclare PPInstance as a CustomProperty:

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OK - an entry in CustomDocumentProperties does indeed seem to be a DocumentProperty. Let's see if we can change the values:

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Glory be! It works. Only problem is that I have to create the CustomProperty manually. I wonder if I can add an entry.
(Short cut)
Browsing the MSDN site for info on this, I got:

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Hmm, I read the Type value as an integer, but it wants an Object? Turns out there are objects to specify the type (a simnple constant would be fartoo easy, I guess.
The description under the example in MSDN says msoPropertyTypeString should work.

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The Add fails with an automation error (long negative number signifying nothing).

I'm stumped - perhaps it's time for an adult beverage. If anyone has any ideas, or has done this before, some code examples would be great......

Tony

[shg]

Macropod will be along by and by. In the meanwhile, here's some code I use to set custom ducument properties in a proposal template:

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[macropod]

For code to add & update custom document properties, see: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/212618
Word also has document variables that can be used in much the same way.

The essential difference is that custom document properties are UI-accessible whereas document variables are not.

[tfurnivall]

Thanks, shgand Paul,

I'll explore this and get back to you.

Tony