Visual Basic Library

This page was last updated on Saturday, November 24, 2001
Sub AutoExec()
' How to check whether Word is open
'                Article contributed by Lutz Gentkow
' Some users are very talented at opening many instances of Word, by
' repeatedly clicking on the shortcut, until memory or resources run out. This
' is particularly so with Word 97, where clicking on Word's shortcut almost
' always starts a new instance of Word. With Word 2000, clicking on Word's
' shortcut generally creates a new document using an existing instance of
' Word, if there is one; but if a Word dialog box is active at the time, even
' Word 2000 creates a new instance of Word.
'
' So I have written the following macro to prevent users from doing this. Being
' an AutoExec macro, it fires automatically when you start a new instance of
' Word; and if it finds two open instances (the new one plus another one that
' was already open), then it activates the one that was already open and quits
' the new instance.
'
' However, if you are using Automation to open Word from another
' application (such as a VB application, or Excel) and want to check whether
' Word is already open before you start, then you can't use the Tasks
' collection. Instead, use the method described in the article: Control Word from Excel.
    Dim strTask As String
    strTask = "Microsoft Word"
    Dim Hits As Long
    Dim oTask As Task
    For Each oTask In Tasks
        Debug.Print oTask.Name
    Next oTask
    For Each oTask In Tasks
        If Left(oTask.Name, Len(strTask)) = strTask Then
            Hits = Hits + 1
            If Hits >= 1 Then
                oTask.WindowState = wdWindowStateMaximize
                Application.Quit
            Else ' Not yet exceeded our limit
            End If
        Else ' not Microsoft Word
        End If
    Next oTask
End Sub