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Find a Last Occurrence of a String

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    Find a Last Occurrence of a String

    I am a veteran of Excel VBA, but VBA in Word seems completely foreign to me. Perhaps you can help me.

    I have a word document with several occurrences of the string "BLOCK|". Is there a way to find the last occurrence in the document, then move down two lines and select to the end of the the line and replace the text " X |" with " |"? I am so lost with Word VBA, so any help is appreciated.
    Last edited by Ricker090; 04-27-2013 at 08:33 AM. Reason: Solved

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    Re: Find a Last Occurrence of a String

    Unless you're dealing with a table, you can do this without a macro, using a wildcard Find/Replace. However, you haven't provided enough information about what's in the two lines between "BLOCK|" and " X |". Are these lines separate paragraphs and, if so, what do they contain?
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    Paul Edstein
    [Fmr MS MVP - Word]

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    Re: Find a Last Occurrence of a String

    I believe these lines are considered separate paragraphs. The are separated by a return carriage. The line below "BLOCK|" is a series of "|---------" that repeat a number of times (which I wish to bypass). Below that is a series of " X |" which repeats a different number of times depending on the document. My desire is to replace all the " X |" with " |" to the end of that line.

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    Re: Find a Last Occurrence of a String

    So there are multiple instances of " X |" on the last 'line' and you want to replace all of them with " |", not just the last occurrence?

    Can you attach a document to a post with some representative data (replace anything sensitive)? You do this via the paperclip symbol on the 'Go Advanced' tab.

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    Re: Find a Last Occurrence of a String

    I have attached an example for you. It's a shorter version of the report I run, but it shows what I need it to show.

    Notice the string "BLOCK|" is located near the top of each page in the left column and the right column. Two lines below that is where I need the "X" replaced with spaces (and only for that line).

    On a side note, I'm using a font call Orator15 BT. I'm not sure how the document will look if the font type isn't installed.
    Attached Files Attached Files

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    Re: Find a Last Occurrence of a String

    In your sample file, the first three sample paragraphs with "BLOCK|" don't have any " X |" strings in the 2nd paragraph below, though the third paragraph below does. Only the fourth paragraph with "BLOCK|" has any " X |" strings in the 2nd paragraph below. So which paragraphs are we working with? The following macro assumes it's the 2nd below:
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    To work with the 3rd paragraph below instead, add another *^13 to the Find expression.

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    Re: Find a Last Occurrence of a String

    It does exactly what I want it to do. Thank you.

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    Re: Find a Last Occurrence of a String

    Hi, I have a similar issue. where I need to search an excel table for a string, located in in column (4), test a corresponding date in Column (17) is before a specific date and then if both are true, I then need to return the corresponding value from Column (1). Looping through each row in the table and generating a concatenated string of all the Column (1) values.

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    Re: Find a Last Occurrence of a String

    Administrative Note:

    Welcome to the forum.

    We are happy to help, however whilst you feel your request is similar to this thread, experience has shown that things soon get confusing when answers refer to particular cells/ranges/sheets which are unique to your post and not relevant to the original.

    Please see Forum Rule #4 about hijacking and start a new thread for your query.

    If you are not familiar with how to start a new thread see the FAQ: How to start a new thread
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    Re: Find a Last Occurrence of a String

    Quote Originally Posted by Sampson_B View Post
    Hi, I have a similar issue. where I need to search an excel table for a string, located in in column (4), test a corresponding date in Column (17) is before a specific date and then if both are true, I then need to return the corresponding value from Column (1). Looping through each row in the table and generating a concatenated string of all the Column (1) values.
    Given that this thread concerns Word (it's even posted in the Word Programming forum) and your issue concerns a quite different task in Excel, the 'similarity' is tangential at best...

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