How to use the TextBox form control to work around the 255-character limit in Word (212717)

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Creating the User Form

Create the form using the following steps:

1. On the Tools menu, point to Macro, and then click Visual Basic Editor. Alternatively, press ALT+F11 in Word to start the Visual Basic Editor.
2. In the Visual Basic Project window, click Normal.
   (This allows the form to be available to all documents.)
3. On the Insert menu, click UserForm.
4. Click the TextBox control on the Toolbox toolbar, and then click the form. The TextBox control appears in the default size. Drag a sizing handle to resize the control, or drag the control to move it to a new location.
5. Press F4. On the Properties menu, select EnterKeyBehavior set to True, and then select MultiLine set to True.
6. Click the CommandButton control on the Toolbox toolbar, and then click the form.
   The CommandButton control appears in the default size. Drag a sizing handle to resize the control, or drag the control to move it to a new location.
   Repeat this step to add a second CommandButton control.
7. Select the first CommandButton control, and then click Code on the View menu.
8. In the Code window, type
   
   Selection.TypeText TextBox1.Text
   
   so that your code looks like this:

   Private Sub CommandButton1_Click ()
      Selection.TypeText TextBox1.Text
      'When you click this button on the form, the contents of the text
      'box is inserted into the active document at the location of the
      'insertion point.
   End sub
   						

9. On the View menu, click Object to return to the form.
10. Select the second CommandButton control, and then click Code on the View menu.
11. In the Code window, type
    
    End
    
    so that your code looks like this:

    Private Sub CommandButton2_Click ()
       End
       'When you click this button after you click the first command
       'button, the form is closed. If you click this button instead of
       'the first command button, the form is canceled.
    End sub
    						

12. On the File menu, click Save Normal, and then press ALT+F4 to close the Visual Basic Editor.

Displaying the Form

To display the form, switch to Word, and then do the following:

1. On the Tools menu, point to Macro, and then click Macros.
2. In the Macro name box, type
   
   FillInForm
   
   and then click Create.
3. In the Code window, type
   
   UserForm1.Show
   
   so that your code looks like this:

   Sub FillInForm()
      UserForm1.Show
   End Sub
   						

4. Save and close the macro.
5. Close the Visual Basic Editor.
6. You can now run the macro from Word to display the form.

If you want default text to appear in the text box, create the following Initialize event for the UserForm object. To do this, use the following steps:

1. Double-click the form.
2. From the Object drop-down list, select UserForm.
3. From the Procedure drop-down list, select Initialize.
4. In the Code window, type the following code
   

   Private Sub UserForm_Initialize()
      TextBox1.Text = "<default text>"
   End Sub
   						

   where <default text> is the text you want to appear in the text box when the form appears.

For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: