Category Archives: VBA Programming

Social Media, VBA Programming, Word

Tweet Cruncher

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I have a Social Media project on the go (waves at https://twitter.com/librarytrustees) that is going to involve tweeting sections of existing documents.

I really hate counting characters. So I decided it was time to make myself a tool for the job.

Original Document and Result after Tweet Cruncher is run on the selected text
Original Document and Result after Tweet Cruncher is run on the selected text

You can see above what I have; the selected area of the original document is highlighted in varying colours, corresponding to the resulting text broken up into tweets. Additionally, I have inserted my chosen hashtag and a count of the sequence of tweets.

Dialog box for Tweet Cruncher
Tweet Cruncher Dialog

The length of the tweets and the Hashtag are entered in a dialog box when the Tweet Cruncher runs. This information is saved with the document, for consistency with subsequent tweets. The Tweets are not exactly the tweet length; I’ve added a bit of code to “round off” each tweet to whole words. The hashtag and sequence count are additional to the length.

And realistically, there will still be editing for content and meaning. Nevertheless, this tool should save me a ton of counting and get the project going faster.

Sub BreakIntoTweets()
Dim IntSelection As Integer
Dim IntPostNumb As Integer
Dim IntPostCount As Integer
Dim IntCharCount As Integer
Dim IntTweetLength As Integer
Dim rngSelectedRange As Word.Range
Dim strPostText As String
Dim intColourPick As Integer
Dim docNewDoc As Word.Document
Dim docWorkingDoc As Word.Document
Dim strPropertyName As String
Dim strHashTag As String
Dim blnWord As Boolean
Dim intActualLength As Integer

Dim arrColourOptions As Variant
arrColourOptions = Array(wdBrightGreen, wdPink, wdTurquoise, wdYellow)
   
Set docWorkingDoc = ActiveDocument
strPropertyName = "HashTag"
strHashTag = frmStartCrunchingTweets.txtHashTag
docWorkingDoc.CustomDocumentProperties(strPropertyName) = strHashTag
IntTweetLength = frmStartCrunchingTweets.txtTweetLength
Set rngSelectedRange = Selection.Range
MsgBox rngSelectedRange.Characters.Count & " characters are selected. Including Paragraph Marks"
IntSelection = rngSelectedRange.Characters.Count
IntPostNumb = IntSelection / IntTweetLength
MsgBox IntPostNumb

rngSelectedRange.Characters(1).Select
IntCharCount = 1
Documents.Add DocumentType:=wdNewBlankDocument
Set docNewDoc = ActiveDocument
docWorkingDoc.Activate
For IntPostCount = 1 To IntPostNumb
    Selection.MoveRight unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=IntTweetLength - 1, Extend:=wdExtend
    If (Right(Selection.Text, 1) <> " ") Then blnWord = True ' extend to word
    If (Right(Selection.Text, 1) <> ".") Then blnWord = True
    If (Right(Selection.Text, 1) <> "?") Then blnWord = True
    If (Right(Selection.Text, 1) <> vbCr) Then blnWord = True
    If (Right(Selection.Text, 1) <> "!") Then blnWord = True
    If blnWord = True Then
        Selection.MoveRight unit:=wdWord, Count:=1, Extend:=wdExtend
        intActualLength = Selection.Characters.Count
    Else
        intActualLength = IntTweetLength
    End If
    blnWord = False
    strPostText = Selection.Text & frmStartCrunchingTweets.txtHashTag & " " & IntPostCount & "/" & IntPostNumb
    'get rid of any hard returns
    strPostText = Replace(strPostText, vbCr, " ")
    docNewDoc.Activate
    Selection.TypeText (strPostText) & vbCr
    docWorkingDoc.Activate
    intColourPick = IntPostCount - (4 * Int(IntPostCount \ 4)) 'note this is why no base 1 option for array here, also \ means different than / (truncation function)
    Selection.Range.HighlightColorIndex = arrColourOptions(intColourPick)
    IntCharCount = IntCharCount + intActualLength
      On Error Resume Next
    rngSelectedRange.Characters(IntCharCount).Select '(errors on final character of selection)
Next IntPostCount

End Sub