[PowerPoint VBA] Positioning the cursor to the first occurrence of the keyword

[dannyboy198]

Hi all,

Basically, I want to run a macro that will search for the keyword and move the cursor to the first occurence within the text body.

In Word, I was able to do this easily thanks to the Macro Recorder. However, this was not possible in Powerpoint since no recorder is available.

As I searched in the Help section, I found the code to find the keyword, as below:

Sub searchMacro()
For Each sld In Application.ActivePresentation.Slides
    For Each shp In sld.Shapes
        If shp.HasTextFrame Then
            Set txtRng = shp.TextFrame.TextRange
            Set foundText = txtRng.Find(FindWhat:="CompanyX")
            Do While Not (foundText Is Nothing)
                With foundText
                    .Font.Bold = True
                    Set foundText = _
                        txtRng.Find(FindWhat:="CompanyX", _
                        After:=.Start + .Length - 1)
                End With
            Loop
        End If
    Next
Next
End Sub

What this code does is to find the occurences of the keyword in the text, make them bold but the mouse cursor is still at the first page.

Please help me point out what I need to modify to move the cursor to the first occurence of the keyword being found.

Any input is greatly appreciated. Thank you so much in advance.

-D

[Stewart Ross]

This answer is probably too late to assist the poster, but is provided to clear up the question.

The example code in the question comes straight from the Powerpoint VBA help file - but it is incorrect. Attempting to run it as written leads to an infinite loop. The FindFirst function does not return Nothing for the textrange object value if there is no match in the tests I have performed (on PowerPoint 2007). Instead it returns an empty string. In addition to this problem, on the last occurrence of the text concerned Find repeatedly cycles between the start of the last matching text range and the end, again creating an infinite loop.

The revised code below correctly terminates for any number of instances of the text "CompanyX" included on slides in a presentation.

Sub searchMacro()
Dim sld As Slide
Dim shp As Shape
Dim txtRng As TextRange
Dim foundtext As TextRange
Dim lngStart As Long
 For Each sld In Application.ActivePresentation.Slides
     For Each shp In sld.Shapes
         If shp.HasTextFrame Then
             Set txtRng = shp.TextFrame.TextRange
             lngStart = 0
             Set foundtext = txtRng.Find(FindWhat:="CompanyX")
             Do While Not (foundtext = "") And (foundtext.Start > lngStart)
                 With foundtext
                     .Font.Bold = True
                     Set foundtext = _
                         txtRng.Find(FindWhat:="CompanyX", _
                         After:=.Start + .Length - 1)
                     lngStart = .Start
                 End With
             Loop
         End If
     Next
 Next
End Sub

Although I have not yet found how to move the cursor itself to the first occurrence of the text concerned, the first occurrence of the search text can be selected using the following sub (again based on the 'CompanyX' exemplar in the helpfile).

Sub SelectFirst()
Dim sld As Slide
Dim shp As Shape
Dim txtRng As TextRange
Dim foundtext As TextRange
Dim lngStart As Long
 For Each sld In Application.ActivePresentation.Slides
     For Each shp In sld.Shapes
         If shp.HasTextFrame Then
             Set txtRng = shp.TextFrame.TextRange
             lngStart = 0
             Set foundtext = txtRng.Find(FindWhat:="CompanyX")
             If foundtext <> "" Then
                sld.Select
                shp.Select
                foundtext.Select
                Exit Sub
             End If
         End If
     Next
 Next
End Sub

Note that for the Select method of the textrange object to work correctly the slide and shape objects concerned must be selected first, as shown. If you omit those steps a run-time error occurs due to failure to select the outer objects before trying to select the inner textrange object.

To generalise the search, replace the string literal "CompanyX" in the code above with a reference to an appropriately-set string variable containing the search term you are looking for.

-Stewart