Reading and Printing Word Documents in WSH

We’ll begin with one of the most popular requests I receive.  I’m constantly being asked how to read text from a Word document.  Well, you’re in luck because I’m going to show you how—and it’s actually pretty simple.

To get started, you’ll either need to open a document or create a new one and fill it with some text.  You learned how to do both in my last article so I won’t go into too much detail.

Const wdDoNotSaveChanges = 0

strDocument = "C:mydoc.docx"

Set objWord = CreateObject("Word.Application")

objWord.Visible = False

objWord.DisplayAlerts = False

objWord.Documents.Open strDocument,, True

Set objDoc = objWord.ActiveDocument

What I’ve done here is created an instance of the Word automation object, set some basic properties, and opened an existing Word document.  In this example, I’ve opened the document as read-only to prevent accidentally saving any changes.

Set objRange = objDoc.Content

strContents = objWord.CleanString(objRange.Text)

Next, I set a range that includes the entire contents of the document using the Document object’s Content property.  That Range object has a Text property that returns a text string containing the text of that range.  I’ve gone a little further by using the Word object’s CleanString function as well.  This function will remove any Word-specific formatting from the string.

objWord.Quit wdDoNotSaveChanges

MsgBox strContents

I finish up by closing the Word application and displaying the contents in a message box.  Of course, you could use this text string in any way you like.

I also get a lot of readers asking how they can print Word documents from within a WSH script.  Many of them are looking for ways to automate report printing or simply to perform batch printing of multiple documents.  Whatever your specific need might be, this is a fairly simple task to perform.

Const wdDoNotSaveChanges = 0

strDocument = "C:mydoc.docx"

Set objWord = CreateObject("Word.Application")

objWord.Visible = False

objWord.DisplayAlerts = False

objWord.Documents.Open strDocument,, True

Set objDoc = objWord.ActiveDocument

Once again, you’ll begin by connecting to the Word automation object and opening the document that you wish to print.  Here again, I’m keeping the Word application hidden since most automation scripts are designed to run unattended.

objWord.Options.PrintBackground = False

Next, we’re going to turn off Word’s Background Printing feature.  An error message is sometimes displayed if the Word object is released before the print job completes.  Turning off Background Printing will eliminate this error.

objDoc.PrintOut

Finally, we get to the meat and potatoes of the script.  We use the Document object's PrintOut method to send our document to the printer.  Note that this method will print to the printer that is found in Word’s default printer setting.  In most cases, this will be the last printer that was used within Word.  If you would like to print to another printer, or just prevent some unwanted mishaps by specifying a printer, you can use the code below instead.

strActivePrinter = objWord.ActivePrinter

objWord.ActivePrinter = "HP LaserJet 4 local on LPT1:"

objDoc.PrintOut

objWord.ActivePrinter = strActivePrinter

This piece of code first polls the ActivePrinter property for its current value and assigns it to a variable.  Then it sets that value manually before calling the PrintOut method.  Finally, the ActivePrinter property is set back to its original value.

This does present one major caveat in some cases.  Setting the value of the ActivePrinter property in Word will also set the system default printer.  You may not wish to change the system’s default printer setting.  In the next example, I’ll show you how to set a Word printer setting without changing the system default printer.

objWord.WordBasic.FilePrintSetup "HP LaserJet 4 local on LPT1:", 1

Here I’m using the FilePrintSetup method. This method allows me to specify an optional parameter that tells Word not to set the system default printer when changing its active printer.

objWord.Quit wdDoNotSaveChanges

Now we can close the document and exit the Word application.

If you’re performing batch print jobs, you may want to think of ways to that this functionality could be packaged in a reusable function.

Okay, so simply printing a document may not be enough for you.  After all, what if you want to print multiple copies or just specific page ranges?  Most of the settings available in Word’s Print… dialog are also available through the Word automation object.

In most cases, there are two different ways to specify these settings:  as parameters to the PrintOut method or as property settings of either the Options object or the PageSetup object.

You’ve already seen how we’ve used the PrintBackground property in the examples provided so far.  Let’s look at a couple more possible implementations.

objWord.Options.PrintDraft = True

objWord.Options.PrintHiddenText = False

This code sample will enable Draft printing while instructing Word not to print hidden text.

Page Setup options

The PageSetup object provides access to the settings in Word’s Page Setup… dialog box.  These settings are used to control page layouts, margins, and more.  They can be used in conjunction with the Options object’s properties to create different print effects.

Const wdPaperLegal = 4

objWord.ActiveDocument.PageSetup.LeftMargin = 72

objWord.ActiveDocument.PageSetup.RightMargin = 72

objWord.ActiveDocument.PageSetup.PaperSize = wdPaperLegal

In this example, I’m manually setting the left and right margins to one inch (72 points) and changing the layout to use legal size paper.  For more information on the PageSetup object’s properties and associated constant values, refer to the MSDN documentation here.

The PageSetup object can be used to set properties for the entire document, specific pages, or even specific sections!

Finally, you’re probably wondering about printing specific pages or page ranges.  These types of settings must be supplied as parameters to the PrintOut method.  There are many different optional parameters available.  I’m not going to cover all of them here, but I’ll show you a couple of common examples.

   'Example 1

Const wdPrintFromTo = 3

objWord.ActiveDocument.PrintOut(,, wdPrintFromTo,, 4, 6,,,"2")

   'Example 2

objWord.ActiveDocument.PrintOut(,,,,,,,,"2,4-6")

Both of these examples perform the same task by setting different property values.  The idea here is to print four total pages: page 2, and pages 4 through 6.  The first example uses a print range.  In the third parameter I’ve specified that I’m using a From-To range.  Then, in the fifth and sixth parameters I’ve specified the starting and ending pages, respectively.  Finally, I use the ninth parameter to specify a single addition page to print—page 2.

The value of the ninth parameter (or the “Pages” parameter) of the PrintOut method must always be enclosed in quotes. This is to avoid conflicts whenever you supply multiple ranges separated by commas.

In the second example, I’ve done this again, but I’m only specifying the ninth parameter.  It accepts any comma-separated combination of individual page numbers and ranges.

objWord.ActiveDocument.PrintOut(,,,,,,, 10,,,, True)

In my final example, I’m telling Word to print ten copies of my current document and to collate them on the printer.  I’m using the eighth parameter to specify the number of copies to print, and a Boolean value in the twelfth parameter turns collation on or off.

The syntax of the PrintOut method is a bit complicated. For more information, see the MSDN documentation here. You can mix and match a combination of any of the methods I’ve shown you here to achieve the desired result.

You’ve now seen how you can read and print the contents of your Word documents using Word’s OLE automation object. Take the time to explore the possibilities. The Word object is very detailed and offers much more power than I could capture in a few articles. Don’t be afraid to leaf through the MSDN’s online documentation. Until next time, keep coding!