How to: Programmatically loop through found items in documents

Article
02/02/2017

Applies to: Visual Studio Visual Studio for Mac

Note

This article applies to Visual Studio 2017. If you're looking for the latest Visual Studio documentation, see Visual Studio documentation. We recommend upgrading to the latest version of Visual Studio. Download it here

The Find class has a Found property, which returns true whenever a searched-for item is found. You can loop through all instances found in a Range using the Execute method.

Applies to: The information in this topic applies to document-level projects and VSTO Add-in projects for Word. For more information, see Features available by Office application and project type.

To loop through found items

Declare a Range object.

The following code example can be used in a document-level customization.

Dim rng As Word.Range = Me.Content

Word.Range rng = this.Content;

The following code example can be used in a VSTO Add-in. This example uses the active document.

Dim rng As Word.Range = Me.Application.ActiveDocument.Content

Word.Document document = this.Application.ActiveDocument;
Word.Range rng = document.Content;

Use the Found property in a loop to search for all occurrences of the string in the document, and increment an integer variable by 1 each time the string is found.

rng.Find.ClearFormatting()
rng.Find.Forward = True
rng.Find.Text = "find me"

rng.Find.Execute()

Do While rng.Find.Found = True
    intFound += 1
    rng.Find.Execute()
Loop

rng.Find.ClearFormatting(); 
rng.Find.Forward = true; 
rng.Find.Text = "find me"; 

rng.Find.Execute(
    ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, 
    ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing,
    ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing);

while (rng.Find.Found) 
{ 
    intFound++;
    rng.Find.Execute(
        ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, 
        ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing,
        ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing);
}

Display the number of times the string was found in a message box.

MessageBox.Show("Strings found: " & intFound.ToString())

MessageBox.Show("Strings found: " + intFound.ToString());

The following examples show the complete method.

Document-level customization example

To loop through items in a document-level customization

The following example shows the complete code for a document-level customization. To use this code, run it from the ThisDocument class in your project.

Private Sub FindLoop()
    Dim intFound As Integer = 0
    Dim rng As Word.Range = Me.Content

    rng.Find.ClearFormatting()
    rng.Find.Forward = True
    rng.Find.Text = "find me"

    rng.Find.Execute()

    Do While rng.Find.Found = True
        intFound += 1
        rng.Find.Execute()
    Loop

    MessageBox.Show("Strings found: " & intFound.ToString())
End Sub

private void FindLoop() 
{ 
    int intFound = 0; 
    Word.Range rng = this.Content; 

    rng.Find.ClearFormatting(); 
    rng.Find.Forward = true; 
    rng.Find.Text = "find me"; 

    rng.Find.Execute(
        ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, 
        ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing,
        ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing);

    while (rng.Find.Found) 
    { 
        intFound++;
        rng.Find.Execute(
            ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, 
            ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing,
            ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing);
    } 

    MessageBox.Show("Strings found: " + intFound.ToString()); 
}

VSTO Add-in example

To loop through items in a VSTO Add-in

The following example shows the complete code for a VSTO Add-in. To use this code, run it from the ThisAddIn class in your project.

Private Sub FindLoop()
    Dim intFound As Integer = 0
    Dim rng As Word.Range = Me.Application.ActiveDocument.Content

    rng.Find.ClearFormatting()
    rng.Find.Forward = True
    rng.Find.Text = "find me"

    rng.Find.Execute()

    Do While rng.Find.Found = True
        intFound += 1
        rng.Find.Execute()
    Loop

    MessageBox.Show("Strings found: " & intFound.ToString())
End Sub

private void FindLoop()
{
    int intFound = 0;
    Word.Document document = this.Application.ActiveDocument;
    Word.Range rng = document.Content;

    rng.Find.ClearFormatting();
    rng.Find.Forward = true;
    rng.Find.Text = "find me";

    rng.Find.Execute(
        ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing,
        ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing,
        ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing);

    while (rng.Find.Found)
    {
        intFound++;
        rng.Find.Execute(
            ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing,
            ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing,
            ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing, ref missing);
    }

    MessageBox.Show("Strings found: " + intFound.ToString());
}

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