How to Pause a Word Macro

Both excellent answers.  The disadvantage of stopping the macro is one has to redefine all variables in the second macro.  Yet, the advantage of that is that these become standalone macros so that I can, for example, print a pdf, or insert my picture, or insert my final excel attachment into my Word document as a separate action from my main macro that creates the basic Word doc.  Thanks.

Actually, an addendum.  On another question, I did receive a solution to losing the content of the variables when the first macro ends.  The answer suggested storing the content of the variables in the Custom Document Properties of the Word doc before the first macro finished so they can be reused for the seconde macro.  See below.


Here's the deal with custom document properties, as used in the code sample earlier in this thread. We want to create a place in the document to keep information that will remain there even after the macros have been run. I like to use custom document properties (CDPs) for this purpose because they don't appear in the document text anywhere (unless you want them to) and so are not prone to accidental erasure.

Creating a CDP is easy, with a simple Add to the CustomDocumentProperties collection:
ActiveDocument.CustomDocumentProperties.Add _
            Name:=sMyCDP, LinkToContent:=False, Value:="upc_setup_r" & MyValue & PropValue & "test.doc", _
            Type:=msoPropertyTypeString

Parameters:
* The Name parameter can be anything (no reason not to hardcode it, if you're only going to be working with the one CDP).
* LinkToContent ties it to a value in the document, which I never do. I set it to False based on a choice I made in the late 90s, but you can probably just ignore it. (I don't remember anymore why I did that.)
* Value is what it says it is.
* Type is where you declare it as a string (you can also choose dates, numbers, etc.).

So, that much is easy. I've run into problems, though, trying to Add a CDP that already exists, so I've gotten into the habit of always checking whether it exists, first. I do this by cycling through all the CDPs in the collection and comparing each name to the one I want to Add (or Update):

    Dim xx As DocumentProperty
    For Each xx In ActiveDocument.CustomDocumentProperties
        If LCase(xx.Name) = LCase(sMyCDP) Then
            bCDPFound = True
        End If ' xx.Name <> CdpName
    Next xx

As before, you can hardcode the name if you prefer (I'm using the string variable sMyCDP in the example). There's also no particular reason to use a boolean to track whether the CDP was found; that's another bit of legacy code that follows me around. To ditch it, you can replace the "bCDPFound = True" statement with the code that sets the value of an existing CDP:

ActiveDocument.CustomDocumentProperties(sMyCDP) = "upc_setup_r" & MyValue & PropValue & "test.doc"

In that case (skipping the boolean), you'd want to put the CDP creation code in the Else side of the If..Then..Else..End If section. Here's the whole thing in that format:

   Dim xx As DocumentProperty
    For Each xx In ActiveDocument.CustomDocumentProperties
        If LCase(xx.Name) = LCase(sMyCDP) Then
            ' Populate the CDP with the current name:
            ActiveDocument.CustomDocumentProperties(sMyCDP) = "upc_setup_r" & MyValue & PropValue & "test.doc"
        Else
           ' Didn't find one, so Add it and populate it
            ActiveDocument.CustomDocumentProperties.Add _
                Name:=sMyCDP, LinkToContent:=False, Value:="upc_setup_r" & MyValue & PropValue & "test.doc", _
                Type:=msoPropertyTypeString
       End If
    Next xx
   

Of course, you can use a variable for the Value parameter, such as sFileName...but you know all that.

The code snippet I've attached is a routine I use to create/add a CDP and give it a value. You'll pass in the CDP name and the value, and it does the rest. Since it refers to yet another routine (CdpExists), I've included that, too. Finally, I'm throwing in the one I use to create a CDP with a numerical value instead of a string (I didn't even remember I had this, so I can't say why I chose Currency).
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32:      '--------------
Public Sub CreateAndPopulateOneCDP(ByVal psCdpName As String, ByVal psCdpValue As String)
        If CdpExists(psCdpName) Then
            ActiveDocument.CustomDocumentProperties(psCdpName) = psCdpValue
        Else ' CdpExists(psCdpName) = False
            ActiveDocument.CustomDocumentProperties.Add _
                Name:=psCdpName, LinkToContent:=False, Value:=psCdpValue, _
                Type:=msoPropertyTypeString
        End If ' CdpExists(psCdpName)
End Sub ' CreateAndPopulateOneCDP(ByVal psCdpName As String, ByVal psCdpValue As String)
'--------------
Public Function CdpExists(ByVal CdpName As String) As Boolean
Dim xx As DocumentProperty
    For Each xx In ActiveDocument.CustomDocumentProperties
            If LCase(xx.Name) = LCase(CdpName) Then
                CdpExists = True
                Exit Function
            End If ' xx.Name <> CdpName
    Next xx
    CdpExists = False
End Function
'--------------
Public Sub CreateAndPopulateOneCDP_Number(ByVal psCdpName As String, ByVal pcurCdpValue As Currency)
        If mxcCdpExists(psCdpName) Then
            ActiveDocument.CustomDocumentProperties(psCdpName) = psCdpValue
        Else ' CdpExists(psCdpName) = False
            ActiveDocument.CustomDocumentProperties.Add _
                Name:=psCdpName, LinkToContent:=False, Value:=pcurCdpValue, _
                Type:=msoPropertyTypeNumber
        End If ' CdpExists(psCdpName)
End Sub ' CreateAndPopulateOneCDP_Number(ByVal psCdpName As String, ByVal pcurCdpValue As Currency)
'--------------_

If you are still linked to this.  Having problems with the CDP code.  Received a "catastrophic failure.

Ouch. That doesn't sound good. I hope no one was injured. Can you tell at what point the code errored out?