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7.1 Avoid using the
arrow keys
Often you will want to have the macro move the cursor to a
specific point. Remember that the macro will be running "blind,"
without "knowing" where the cursor is in a document, unless you
tell it how and where to position the cursor. (Should you need
to determine the current cursor position before the macro moves
the cursor, this information can be obtained by accessing system variables).
Because macros often insert or delete text (and thus move the
cursor) or will be played when the cursor is at different
positions in a document, relative cursor positioning (up, down,
left or right) often cannot be used, because the number of arrow
keypresses necessary to position the cursor will vary. For this
reason, the command equivalents to the arrow keys to position the
cursor can be used only in limited circumstances. Most of the
time, you will want the macro to position the cursor by
moving by word, moving to the top or bottom of a document, to the
beginning or end of a line, and especially by using "Find."
7.2 Using "Find" in
a macro
In order to use Find in macros, you will need to know and
understand its various features, especially how to find
WordPerfect codes, and the various "actions" that Find can
perform (select the match, position the cursor before or after
the match, and extend a selection to and including the match).
The action that find performs is governed by the last find
executed (the setting is "sticky"). You do not know what action
will be in effect when the
macro is run, and this action may or may not be the appropriate
action for the Find in your macro. To ensure that the Find in
your macro works as intended, you
must specify the action the Find is to take. The commands to set
the Find action are MatchSelection(),
MatchPositionBefore,
MatchPositionAfter(), and
MatchExtendSelection.
Normally, if a Find fails in your macro (i.e., a match is not
located), an error message will be displayed and the macro will
end. Even if you actually want your macro to terminate at that
point, generating an
error message is not a graceful way to do it. You can trap the
"not found" error and change what happens in your macro by using
the ONNOTFOUND command.
7.3 Finding
Codes
You probably know that to find codes in your document, you must
insert them into the Find edit box by clicking on Match/Codes,
and
selecting the code(s) from the Codes dialog box. When you edit a
macro that searches for a code, you will see text in
the search string that looks like the tag for that code that is
shown in the
reveal codes window. However, that text in the macro is only
a representation for display purposes.
If you open reveal codes while editing the macro, you will see
that the "code" is really a "macro function." That is why you
cannot simply type the code into the search string; you must
insert it using the "codes" button on the macro toolbar.
This will open the Macro Codes dialog, which you use to insert
the "macro function" equivalent to the code you want to locate.
Remember these codes include tabs, hard
returns, and hard page breaks (i.e., anything not a character).
7.4 Program
state
As we have seen, the position of
the cursor can determine what happens when a macro is run.
The same is true of "program state," which means the condition of
the program at a
particular time. For example, the results of playing a macro may
vary depending on whether reveal codes is active, whether page
view or draft view is active, whether hidden text is visible,
etc. These differences should be kept in mind when recording and
playing a macro. If the operation of a macro is dependent on a
particular program condition being in effect when you run it, you
should set that condition by including the applicable product
command in the macro. If necessary, the macro can determine
particulars of the current state of the program by accessing system variables.
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