I made a quick little writing aid and decided to share it here. What it does is cycle through background shade colors for each sentence in a selection. This makes it easier to visually separate your sentences while reviewing. Some uses could be: checking sentence length variation; how you start and end each sentence; or checking sentence structure. I set the default colors to cannibal hippy earth tones, but they're easy to change. There is another Sub to undo the color that works the same way. I recommend not selecting 40+ pages at once; it takes awhile to run. Below are some snap shots:
BEFORE
AFTER
Below is the code with instructions. It is possible to assign these to a hotkey or create a dialog box, but I think that the process to implement that is more difficult for both developer and the user than opening the developer tab and hitting run.
The code is also attached as a .txt
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'Open MS Word Developer Tab (To enabe: File > Options > Customize Ribbon > Customize the Ribbon > Main Tabs > Check Developer)
'Visual Basic > Select current Project > Insert Module > Past the text below
'Changes the sentences of a selection to alternate between 3 colors as an editing aid.
'The default colors are hippy earthtones, but you can change the RGB values to your liking.
'To Use: Select a section of text from your document, click on this Sub, run (F5)
Sub Colors()
With ActiveDocument
Dim color(2) As Long
'change the values for different colored sentences
color(0) = RGB(222, 184, 135)
color(1) = RGB(240, 230, 140)
color(2) = RGB(167, 202, 95)
For i = 1 To Selection.Sentences.Count
Selection.Sentences(i).Font.Shading.BackgroundPatternColor = color(j)
If j = 2 Then
j = 0
Else
j = j + 1
End If
Next i
End With
End Sub
'Removes the color from selected sentences. Highlighting with 'No Color' won't work since
'the sub uses Shading for more color options.
'To Use: Select a section of text from your document, click on this Sub, run (F5)
Sub NoColor()
With ActiveDocument
For i = 1 To Selection.Sentences.Count
Selection.Sentences(i).Font.Shading.BackgroundPatternColor = -603914241 'I have no idea why this number means 'no shading'
Next i
End With
End Sub
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I made a quick little writing aid and decided to share it here. What it does is cycle through background shade colors for each sentence in a selection. This makes it easier to visually separate your sentences while reviewing. Some uses could be: checking sentence length variation; how you start and end each sentence; or checking sentence structure. I set the default colors to cannibal hippy earth tones, but they're easy to change. There is another Sub to undo the color that works the same way. I recommend not selecting 40+ pages at once; it takes awhile to run. Below are some snap shots:
BEFORE
AFTER
Below is the code with instructions. It is possible to assign these to a hotkey or create a dialog box, but I think that the process to implement that is more difficult for both developer and the user than opening the developer tab and hitting run.
The code is also attached as a .txt
-----
'Open MS Word Developer Tab (To enabe: File > Options > Customize Ribbon > Customize the Ribbon > Main Tabs > Check Developer)
'Visual Basic > Select current Project > Insert Module > Past the text below
'Changes the sentences of a selection to alternate between 3 colors as an editing aid.
'The default colors are hippy earthtones, but you can change the RGB values to your liking.
'To Use: Select a section of text from your document, click on this Sub, run (F5)
Sub Colors()
With ActiveDocument
Dim color(2) As Long
'change the values for different colored sentences
color(0) = RGB(222, 184, 135)
color(1) = RGB(240, 230, 140)
color(2) = RGB(167, 202, 95)
For i = 1 To Selection.Sentences.Count
Selection.Sentences(i).Font.Shading.BackgroundPatternColor = color(j)
If j = 2 Then
j = 0
Else
j = j + 1
End If
Next i
End With
End Sub
'Removes the color from selected sentences. Highlighting with 'No Color' won't work since
'the sub uses Shading for more color options.
'To Use: Select a section of text from your document, click on this Sub, run (F5)
Sub NoColor()
With ActiveDocument
For i = 1 To Selection.Sentences.Count
Selection.Sentences(i).Font.Shading.BackgroundPatternColor = -603914241 'I have no idea why this number means 'no shading'
Next i
End With
End Sub
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