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Hey, Scripting Guy! I have a folder that contains a number of Microsoft Word documents that are all related to a specific project. I need to know the number of words in all of those Word documents. This is because the project is billable based upon the number of words. In the past, I used Explorer to...

Hey Scripting Guy! We are currently beta testing Microsoft Office 2010. It is awesome by the way, and I need to figure out what version of Word we have installed on our computers. I know there are different versions, and I would like to get some kind of inventory before we do the upgrade. How can I determine...

Hey Scripting Guy! You are not going to believe this. I have just been given the task of counting how many images are embedded in Word documents. The document folder, of course, has hundreds of documents. I am not sure why they want to know how many documents have embedded images, but I think it has...

Hey, Scripting Guy! I loved your last "Hey, Scripting Guy!" article about formatting paragraphs in a Microsoft Office Word document. What I need to do is a little bit more mundane, but for me much more important. I have a number of Word documents that are stored in a folder. Unfortunately, the person...

Hey, Scripting Guy! I have really been enjoying the recent Windows PowerShell articles on the Script Center. I am wondering if it is possible to use Windows PowerShell to work with a Microsoft Office Word document. Specifically, what I would like to be able to do is to change the paragraph formatting...

Hey, Scripting Guy! I have large files output by a reservoir simulator, files I use to predict oil, water and gas movements in hydrocarbon reservoirs. These files are finite-difference numerical simulators, and work by timestep (i.e. a time interval, usually about 90 days); when they have finished calculating...

Hey, Scripting Guy! I’ve come up with a way to imitate handwriting in a document, but I need some help. Because real handwriting is characterized by variability, I had the idea of using four slightly-different fonts, taken from my actual handwriting, and then randomly assigning a font to each letter...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I run a specified Word macro after opening Word using a script? -- JD Hey, JD. You know, when they first tested the atomic bomb a number of physicists had legitimate fears that the bomb might set off an unstoppable chain reaction that would end up destroying the entire...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I insert text into an existing Microsoft Word bookmark? -- WM Hey, WM. Believe it or not, this turned out to be the most difficult script the Scripting Guy who writes this column has ever had to create. Not because the script itself is very hard; as you’re about to see...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I get a total page count for all the Word documents in a folder? -- RA Hey, RA. You’ll have to forgive the Scripting Guy who writes this column if he seems a little tired this morning. Yesterday was the first day of school in the Lake Washington School District and, as...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I search a Microsoft Word document for all occurrences of the string <computername> and replace those occurrences with the actual name of a computer (e.g., atl-ws-01 )? -- WC Hey, WC. And by the way, thanks for your question. Microsoft employees will be getting their...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I find text in a Word document that has been highlighted in a particular color (say, turquoise), and then both remove the highlight and change the font color of that text to something else (say, blue)? I’d be extremely chuffed if you can solve this one! -- KB Hey, KB! Blimey...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I get a list of the unique words used in a Microsoft Word document? -- RK Hey, RK. Funny you should mention unique words. Last Saturday the Scripting Coach’s baseball team played in the city championship. Despite the importance of the game the team was missing two key players...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I add multiple tables to a Word document? -- KH Hey, KH. You know, if the Scripting Guys have one failing (hey, we said if ) it’s this: we’re simple guys with simple tastes. Create a Microsoft Word document with multiple tables? No, sir; that’s not for us, not at all. One...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I use WSH to close a command window with a specific title? -- MF Hey, MF. You know, some things are just really hard to believe, regardless of whether or not they happen to be true. For example, according to the Big Bang Theory the entire universe was created when a miniscule...

Hey, Scripting Guy! In Microsoft Word 2003, my documents open as Final Showing Markup . How can I change this so the default view is Final ? -- CD Hey, CD. You know, this is the first Hey, Scripting Guy! column we’ve written since returning from the Thanksgiving holiday. After four days of eating...

Hey, Scripting Guy! In Microsoft Word, how can I change the file locations for User Templates and Workgroup Templates ? -- SB Hey, SB. At least one of the Scripting Guys has always had a lifelong fear that he would write, say, the greatest novel ever written, except that no one would know about it...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I hide a specific toolbar in Microsoft Word? -- AG Hey, AG. Now this question brings back memories. When our editor joined the team one of her first actions was to make us redo a whole bunch of screenshots we had made for the Scripting Week 2 webcasts. Why? Because she...

Hey, Scripting Guy! Awhile back you showed people how they could combine several text files into a single file . I’d like to do the same thing in Word. How can I insert files into a Word document? -- HK Hey, HK. Believe it or not it’s actually easier to insert files into a Microsoft Word document...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I tell if a specific Excel workbook is open and, if it isn’t, open it? -- RK Hey, RK. Every now and then we see a question and think, “We should answer this one; it’s so easy it won’t take more than a few minutes to finish the column and then we can all take a nice long...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I put the user name into the footer of a Microsoft Word document? -- RR Hey, RR. That’s an interesting question, and probably the first how-do-I-put-the-user-name-in-the-footer-of-a-Word-document question we’ve ever received. (No, really!) But what the heck; let’s see if...

Hey, Scripting Guy! I have a series of Word files. I would like to open each of these files and save them as plain-text files. Is there a way to do that using a script? -- CG Hey, CG. Yes, you can do this quite easily with a script; in fact, with very few exceptions anything you can do within a Microsoft...