Knowledge Base

WD97: Document Must Be Open to Change Properties by Macro

Article ID: 170892

Article Last Modified on 1/20/2007

APPLIES TO

Microsoft Word 97 Standard Edition

This article was previously published under Q170892

SYMPTOMS

If you attempt to use Visual Basic for Applications to change the properties of a document, you may receive one of the following error messages:

Run-time error '4248': This command is not available because a document window is not active.

-or-

Run-time error '4605': Bad File Name

-or-

Run-time error '5941': The requested member of the collection does not exist.

CAUSE

This error message occurs when no documents are currently open or the document you are referencing is not open.

Word can only change the properties of an open document.

NOTE: In earlier versions of Word, no error message is displayed, and no document properties are changed.

WORKAROUND

Microsoft provides programming examples for illustration only, without warranty either expressed or implied, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and/or fitness for a particular purpose. This article assumes that you are familiar with the programming language being demonstrated and the tools used to create and debug procedures. Microsoft support professionals can help explain the functionality of a particular procedure, but they will not modify these examples to provide added functionality or construct procedures to meet your specific needs. If you have limited programming experience, you may want to contact a Microsoft Certified Partner or the Microsoft fee-based consulting line at (800) 936-5200. For more information about Microsoft Certified Partners, please visit the following Microsoft Web site:

https://partner.microsoft.com/global/30000104

For more information about the support options that are available and about how to contact Microsoft, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;EN-US;CNTACTMS

The following sample Visual Basic for Applications macros demonstrates how to change the value of the Title field in the Properties dialog box.

This following sample includes code to trap the error, in case there are no documents open, and display a message:

Sub ChangeDocProperties()
   On Error GoTo ErrHandler
   ActiveDocument.BuiltInDocumentProperties("Title") = "My Title"
ErrHandler:
   If Err <> 0 Then
      ' Display an error message.
      MsgBox Err.Description
   End If
End Sub

The following sample includes code to:

Trap the error, in case there are no documents open.
Within the error trap, create a new document.
Resume execution at the line that caused the error.

Sub ChangeDocProperties()
   On Error GoTo ErrHandler
   ActiveDocument.BuiltInDocumentProperties("Title") = "My Title"
ErrHandler:
   If Err <> 0 Then
      Documents.Add
      Resume
   End If
End Sub

MORE INFORMATION

For additional information, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

173707 OFF97: How to Run Sample Code from Knowledge Base Articles

REFERENCES

For more information about getting help with Visual Basic for Applications, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

163435 VBA: Programming Resources for Visual Basic for Applications

Additional query words: wordcon vb vba vbe

Keywords: kbcode kbmacroexample kbprb kbprogramming KB170892

Microsoft KB Archive/170892

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