The HotDocs Computation Archive

0006 - Bold, Italic, or Underlined Text

Description:

A work-around that allows you to use simple text formatting (bold, italics, underline) in a computation variable. For word processor-based documents only.

• Explanation •

Insert HTML tags for underlining ("<U>...</U>"), bold ("<B>...</B>"), or italics ("<I>...</I>"), and then use a macro after assembly to search out the tags and actually apply the formatting. This macro is executed using a HotDocs "PLAY" instruction inserted at the end of the document.

I'll just sketch out underlining here--bold and italics are very similar. For underlining "tags" I chose to use the respective HTML commands <U> to start and </U> to end, but they could be anything. The text that needs to be underlined is surrounded by these tags, as follows:

SET TextVariable TO "<U>This is underlined text</U>"

The macros used to actually apply the formatting follow.

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• Code •

Microsoft Word macro code:

(kept in a template in the Office Startup
folder to make it globally available)

With Selection
   ' Set up common .Find properties
   .Find.ClearFormatting
   .Find.Forward = True
   .Find.Wrap = wdFindStop
   .Find.Replacement.ClearFormatting
   .Find.Replacement.Text = ""    ' empty string
   ' Handle the underlining
   .HomeKey unit:=wdStory
   While .Find.Execute(FindText:="<U>", MatchCase:=False)
      .Delete
      .Extend
      If .Find.Execute(FindText:="</U>", MatchCase:=False) Then
         .MoveLeft unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=4  ' left of "</U>"
         .Font.Underline = wdUnderlineSingle
         .Collapse wdCollapseEnd
         .Delete unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=4   ' delete "</U>"
      End If
   Wend ' While .Find.Execute()
End With

• Explanation •

For Bolding and Italics, repeat this from ".HomeKey" to "Wend" (within the "With Selection" and "End With), looking for appropriate tags (I used <B></B> and <I></I>) and setting ".Font.Bold = True" and ".Font.Italic = True".

•  •  •  •  •  •  •

• Code •

WordPerfect macro code:

(paste it into a WordPerfect document
and save it as "format.wcm" in your macro
directory; invoke it with «PLAY "format.wcm"»)

Prompt ("Format"; "Applying formatting. Please wait ..."; NoButtons!)

NotFound (Off!)
Error (Off!)
Display (Off!)
SearchInSelection (No!)
SearchWrap (No!)
SearchCaseSensitive (No!)
SearchFindWholeWordsOnly (No!)
MatchLimit (No!)
MatchWithAttributes (No!)
MatchWithFont (No!)
MatchWithFontSize (No!)

// Search out each of the following tags:
// <U>...</U> - underline
// <B> ... </B> - bold
// <I> ... </I> - italics

ForEach (vType; {"U"; "B"; "I"})
   PosDocVeryTop
   vTagOpen := "<" + vType + ">"
   vTagClose := "</" + vType + ">"
   Label (Again)
   SearchString (vTagOpen )
   MatchSelection
   SearchNext (Extended!)
   If ( ?NotFound = False )
      // Found one
      SelectDelete
      SearchString (vTagClose)
      SelectMode (On!)
      MatchExtendSelection
      SearchNext (Extended!)
      If (?NotFound = True)
         // Didn't find the end tag
         MessageBox (; "Error"; "One of the codes is missing")
         Quit
      EndIF
      // Apply the proper formatting
      Switch (vType)
         CaseOf "U": AttributeAppearanceOn (Underline!)
         CaseOf "B": AttributeAppearanceOn (Bold!)
         CaseOf "I": AttributeAppearanceOn (Italics!)
      EndSwitch
      Go (Again)
   EndIf
   PosDocVeryTop
   SearchString (vTagClose)
   ReplaceString ("")
   ReplaceAll (Extended!)
EndFor

EndPrompt
PosDocTop