Search & Replace in MS Word Puzzle

[Ola K]

Hi guys,
I wrote a script that works *almost* perfectly, and this lack of
perfection simply puzzles me.
I simply cannot point the whys, so any help on it will be appreciated.
I paste it all here, the string at the beginning explains what it does:

'''A script for MS Word which does the following:
1) Assigns all Hebrew italic characters "Italic" character style.
2) Assigns all Hebrew bold characters "Bold" character style.
2) Assign all English US characters "English Text" (can be regular,
Italic, or Bold)

'''
import win32com.client

#setting up shortcuts
word = win32com.client.Dispatch("Word.Application")
doc = word.ActiveDocument
find = doc.Content.Find
w=win32com.client.constants

#creating the needed styles if not there already
if "Italic" not in doc.Styles:
doc.Styles.Add("Italic",w.wdStyleTypeCharacter)
#"ItalicBi" is the same as "Italic", but for languages that go Right to
Left.
doc.Styles("Italic").Font.ItalicBi = True
print "Italic style was created"
if "Bold" not in doc.Styles:
doc.Styles.Add("Bold",w.wdStyleTypeCharacter)
doc.Styles("Bold").Font.BoldBi = True
print "Bold style was created"
if "English Text" not in doc.Styles:
doc.Styles.Add("English Text", w.wdStyleTypeCharacter)
doc.Styles("English Text").Font.Scaling = 80
print "English Text style was created"
if "English Text Italic" not in doc.Styles:
doc.Styles.Add("English Text Italic", w.wdStyleTypeCharacter)
doc.Styles("English Text Italic").BaseStyle = "English Text"
doc.Styles("English Text").Font.Italic = True
print "English Text Italic style was created"
if "English Text Bold" not in doc.Styles:
doc.Styles.Add("English Text Bold", w.wdStyleTypeCharacter)
doc.Styles("English Text Bold").BaseStyle = "English Text"
doc.Styles("English Text").Font.Bold = True
print "English Text Bold style was created"

#Search & Replacing Hebrew Italics
find.ClearFormatting()
find.Font.Italic = True
find.Format = True
find.LanguageID = w.wdHebrew
find.Replacement.ClearFormatting()
find.Replacement.Style = doc.Styles("Italic")
find.Execute(Forward=True, Replace=w.wdReplaceAll, FindText='',
ReplaceWith='')
print "Italic style was checked"

#Search & Replacing Hebrew Bolds
find.ClearFormatting()
find.Font.Bold = True
find.Format = True
find.LanguageID = w.wdHebrew
find.Replacement.ClearFormatting()
find.Replacement.Style = doc.Styles("Bold")
find.Execute(Forward=True, Replace=w.wdReplaceAll, FindText='',
ReplaceWith='')
print "Bold style was checked"

#Search & Replacing English Regulars
find.ClearFormatting()
find.LanguageID = w.wdEnglishUS
find.Font.Italic = False
find.Font.Bold = False
find.Replacement.ClearFormatting()
find.Replacement.Style = doc.Styles("English Text")
find.Execute(Forward=True, Replace=w.wdReplaceAll, FindText='',
ReplaceWith='')
print "English Text style was checked"

#Search & Replacing English Italics
find.ClearFormatting()
find.LanguageID = w.wdEnglishUS
find.Font.Italic = True
find.Replacement.ClearFormatting()
find.Replacement.Style = doc.Styles("English Text Italic")
find.Execute(Forward=True, Replace=w.wdReplaceAll, FindText='',
ReplaceWith='')
print "English Text Italic style was checked"

#Search & Replacing English Bolds
find.ClearFormatting()
find.LanguageID = w.wdEnglishUS
find.Font.Bold = True
find.Replacement.ClearFormatting()
find.Replacement.Style = doc.Styles("English Text Bold")
find.Execute(Forward=True, Replace=w.wdReplaceAll, FindText='',
ReplaceWith='')
print "English Text Bold style was checked"

print "We are done."
word.Visible=1

----------Code end here

So generally speaking this script works quite nicely, BUT:

1. Despite this sort of conditions:
" if "Italic" not in doc.Styles: "
if this style already exists I get an error, and the program stops.
Any idea how can that be?...

2. The replacement of the English characters doesn't seem to work very
well. It either assigns all English characters "English Text Bold", or
"English Text Italic" and with no apparent reason.
?....

3. The command
" word.Visible=1 "
doesn't work anymore. I say "anymore" because it used to work, but
later I ran "COM Makepy Utility" on "Microsoft Word 10 Object Library
(8.2)" and since then it stopped working. On Excel, for example, I
never ran Makepy and this commands works fine for it.
Any idea on this one?...

4. In the end of this long weekend I was pretty satisfied with my
script (even if not fully functioning) and used PY2EXE to make it an
..exe file so that I can use it in my work place. But alas, that .exe
file does not work because it doesn't recognize any of win32com client
constants. Such as "wdStyleTypeCharacter", or "wdEnglishUS"
How can I solve this one?

Advice will be very appreciated.

--Ola

 

[Waldemar Osuch]

I do not have answers for all your questions but a few remarks that may
help.

Hi guys,
I wrote a script that works *almost* perfectly, and this lack of
perfection simply puzzles me.
I simply cannot point the whys, so any help on it will be appreciated.
I paste it all here, the string at the beginning explains what it does:

'''A script for MS Word which does the following:
1) Assigns all Hebrew italic characters "Italic" character style.
2) Assigns all Hebrew bold characters "Bold" character style.
2) Assign all English US characters "English Text" (can be regular,
Italic, or Bold)

-- Code snipped

So generally speaking this script works quite nicely, BUT:

1. Despite this sort of conditions:
" if "Italic" not in doc.Styles: "
if this style already exists I get an error, and the program stops.
Any idea how can that be?...

doc.Styles is a container (a build in Word object) holding instances of
Styles
(another build in Word object). One way to make the intended check
would be.
style_names = set(s.NameLocal for s in doc.Styles)
if "Italic" not in style_names:
# create style

2. The replacement of the English characters doesn't seem to work very
well. It either assigns all English characters "English Text Bold", or
"English Text Italic" and with no apparent reason.
?....

Read about Range object in Word VBA documentation. Range.Collapse may
explain what happens here.

3. The command
" word.Visible=1 "
doesn't work anymore. I say "anymore" because it used to work, but
later I ran "COM Makepy Utility" on "Microsoft Word 10 Object Library
(8.2)" and since then it stopped working. On Excel, for example, I
never ran Makepy and this commands works fine for it.
Any idea on this one?...

This should work. If word.visible = True used to work but stopped
after running Makepy it could be explained. Looks to me there are some
other factors in play.

4. In the end of this long weekend I was pretty satisfied with my
script (even if not fully functioning) and used PY2EXE to make it an
.exe file so that I can use it in my work place. But alas, that .exe
file does not work because it doesn't recognize any of win32com client
constants. Such as "wdStyleTypeCharacter", or "wdEnglishUS"
How can I solve this one?

This is described in py2exe wiki.
http://www.py2exe.org/index.cgi/IncludingTypelibs

Waldemar

 

[Ola K]

1. doc.Styles is a container (a build in Word object) holding instances of
Styles (another build in Word object). One way to make the intended check
would be.
style_names = set(s.NameLocal for s in doc.Styles)
if "Italic" not in style_names:
# create style

I changed the code to that and it works perfectly! How come this is
better? I mean, I didn't find any logical or syntax problem with the
way it was before.

2. Read about Range object in Word VBA documentation. Range.Collapse may
explain what happens here.

Well, so I did, and I can see now that the problem is probably that
Word takes into consideration the previous characters as well, unless I
collapse the range. However, I don't seem to find the way to properly
do it, syntax-wise. I only managed to collapse the Selection, which
didn't do the trick.

4. This is described in py2exe wiki.
http://www.py2exe.org/index.cgi/IncludingTypelibs

Thanks. I am now implementing this.

--Ola