WD: How to Determine Which Items Are Selected in a ListBox (201669)

MORE INFORMATION

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In a UserForm, when you set the MultiSelect property to "1 - fmMultiSelectMulti" (without the quotation marks) for a ListBox control, you can choose any number of items from a list. For example, if a list contains Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie, you can select any, none, or all of the items.

To determine which items are selected, use the Selected property of the list box. The Selected property of a list box is an array of values in which each value is either True (if the item is selected) or False (if the item is not selected). For example, if the list contains 1, 2, 3, and 4, and 2 and 3 are selected, the Selected property is the following array:

   False, True, True, False
				

This is true because the first item (1) is not selected, the second and third items (2 and 3) are selected, and the fourth item (4) is not selected.

Sample Visual Basic Procedure

The following code uses two methods for using the selected data from the listbox. The first method uses one selected item at a time, while the second method builds a list of all the selected items. These steps for creating a UserForm in the Visual Basic Editor assume that the user of the article has an understanding of Visual Basic for Applications, Microsoft Word, and Microsoft Forms design and tools.

1. Start the Visual Basic Editor (ALT+F11).
2. If the Properties window is not visible, click Properties on the View menu (or press F4).
3. If the Project Explorer window is not visible, click Project Explorer on the View menu.
4. On the Insert menu, click UserForm.
5. Place a ListBox control on the UserForm.
6. Activate the Properties window (press F4).
7. Change the MultiSelect property to the following value:
   
   1 - fmMultiSelectMulti
8. Place two CommandButton controls on the UserForm.
9. Double-click the UserForm to display the Code window for the UserForm.
10. Press Page Down, and then type the following code for the Userform initialize and the CommandButton Click event:

        Private Sub UserForm_Initialize()
        'Creates and assigns the Array to the Listbox when the form loads.
           Dim mylist As Variant
           mylist = Array("Sun.", "Mon.", "Tue.", "Wed.", "Thu.", "Fri.", "Sat.") 
    
           ListBox1.List = mylist
        End Sub
    
        Private Sub CommandButton1_Click()
        'Displays individual selections one at a time.
           For x = 0 To ListBox1.ListCount - 1
              If ListBox1.Selected(x) Then
                 msg = msg & ListBox1.List(x) & vbCrLf 
              End If
           Next x
           MsgBox "You have selected " & vbCrLf & msg 
           Unload Me
        End Sub
    
        Private Sub CommandButton2_Click()
        'Displays all the items in one message box
           Dim msg As String
           For x = 0 To ListBox1.ListCount - 1
              If ListBox1.Selected(x) = True Then
                 msg = msg & ListBox1.List(x) & vbCrLf
              End If
           Next x
           MsgBox "You have selected  " & vbCrLf & msg
           Unload Me
           'Uncomment the following two line to insert the variable into a
           'document.
           'Documents.Add
           'Selection.TypeText  Text:= msg
        End Sub
    
    						

11. Run the UserForm.
12. Select one or more items in the list.
13. Click the command buttons to see the selection results.

When you click CommandButton1, each item you selected in the list box is displayed in a separate message box. When all the selected items are displayed in message boxes, the UserForm is automatically dismissed. When you click CommandButton2 a single message box displays listing the selected items on separate lines, which is the content of the string variable 'Msg', which could be inserted into a document as text.


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