Word VBA, Removing Picture Captions

Aug 17, 2015 by azurous in Images

In this article I will explain how you can remove caption from all the images in a document.

As explained in the article Word VBA, Loop Through Images there are basically 2 types of images:

Floating
Inline

The 2 image types have different types of caption and therefore require 2 different types of macros to remove their caption.

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Remove Caption From Floating Pictures:

Assume we have the following images with caption in our document:

The caption used for floating images are text boxes. What we need is a macro that will search all text boxes in the document. If the text box starts with the word “Figure” then it is probably a caption and it must be deleted:

Sub Example() 'number of shapes in document Dim intCount As Integer Dim i As Integer 'number of deleted captions Dim intDeleted As Integer 'the text in the caption Dim strText As String intCount = Shapes.Count intDeleted = 0 'loops through all the shapes in the document For i = 1 To intCount 'checks if the current shape is a text box If Shapes.Item(i - intDeleted).Type = _ msoTextBox Then Shapes.Item(i - intDeleted).Select 'gets the text in the text box strText = Selection.Range 'checks if the text box is a caption If Strings.Left(strText, 6) = "Figure" Then 'removes the text box Shapes.Item(i - intDeleted).Delete 'increments the variable intDeleted = intDeleted + 1 End If End If Next i End Sub

Result:

The for i loop literates through all the shapes in the document:

For i = 1 To intCount .... Next i

The code below checks if the shape is a text box (Note that captions are actually a text box inserted below the picture);

If Shapes.Item(i - intDeleted).Type = _ msoTextBox Then ... End If

The lines below select the text box and retrieve the text:

Shapes.Item(i - intDeleted).Select 'gets the text in the text box strText = Selection.Range

The If statement below checks if the text box starts with the string “Figure”:

If Strings.Left(strText, 6) = "Figure" Then ... End If

If it does then the text box will be deleted:

Shapes.Item(i - intDeleted).Delete 'increments the variable intDeleted = intDeleted + 1

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Remove Caption From Inline Pictures:

The caption for inline pictures is regular text. In this text there is a field with the code:

" SEQ Figure *"

This field is what causes the numbers to increment per image. This was obtained by right clicking the field and clicking on edit field:

What we need is a macro that will loop through all the fields in the document. If the field starts with the code above then it must select the entire line the field is in and delete it. The code below does this:

Sub Example() Dim i As Integer Dim strField As String Dim intDeleted As Integer 'loop through all the fields For i = 1 To Fields.Count 'get the field code strField = Fields.Item(i - intDeleted).Code 'check the field code If Strings.Left(strField, 14) = _ " SEQ Figure *" Then 'select the field Fields.Item(i - intDeleted).Select Selection.HomeKey Unit:=wdLine Selection.EndKey Unit:=wdLine, _ Extend:=wdExtend 'delete it Selection.Delete intDeleted = intDeleted + 1 End If Next i End Sub

The for i loop iterates through all the fields in the document:

For i = 1 To Fields.Count ... End Sub

The If statement checks if the field is a caption field:

If Strings.Left(strField, 14) = _ " SEQ Figure *" Then ... End If

The lines below removes everything on the field line:

Fields.Item(i - intDeleted).Select Selection.HomeKey Unit:=wdLine Selection.EndKey Unit:=wdLine, _ Extend:=wdExtend 'delete it Selection.Delete

Result:

You can download the files and code related to this article from the links below: