How to automate Word from Visual Basic or Visual Basic for Applications for spell checking

Software written to work with Microsoft Office can take advantage of the spell checking capabilities of Microsoft Word to add spell checking to their own application.

Word's Automation model contains a CheckSpelling function that lets you check the spelling of a document hosted in Word. By using Word Automation, developers can dynamically create a new document, add some text they want to check, and then have Word check the spelling. This article shows you how to automate Word to provide this functionality.

You can use this code sample from either Microsoft Visual Basic or Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications without any changes. However, the sample assumes that you are using a Visual Basic client to create a new project.

Creating a spell check client

1. Start Visual Basic and create a new Standard EXE project. Form1 is created by default.
2. Add a TextBox control and CommandButton to Form1.
3. In the code window for Form1, add the following code:

   Option Explicit
   
   Private Declare Function CoAllowSetForegroundWindow Lib "ole32.dll" (ByVal pUnk As Object, ByVal lpvReserved As Long) As Long
   
   Private Sub Command1_Click()
       Dim oWord As Object
       Dim oTmpDoc As Object
       Dim lOrigTop As Long
       
       ' Create a Word document object
       Set oWord = CreateObject("Word.Application")
       
       CoAllowSetForegroundWindow oWord, 0
   
       Set oTmpDoc = oWord.Documents.Add
       ' Position Word off screen to avoid having document visible
       lOrigTop = oWord.Top
       oWord.WindowState = 0
       oWord.Top = -3000
       
       oWord.Visible = True
       oWord.Activate
       
       ' Copy the contents of the text box to the clipboard
       Text1.SelStart = 0
       Text1.SelLength = Len(Text1.Text)
       Clipboard.Clear
       Clipboard.SetText Text1.SelText
       
       ' Assign the text to the document and check spelling
       
       With oTmpDoc
           .Content.Paste
           .Activate
           .CheckSpelling
           
           ' After the user has made changes, use the clipboard to
           ' transfer the contents back to the text box
           .Content.Copy
           Text1.Text = Clipboard.GetText(vbCFText)
           ' Close the document and exit Word
           .Saved = True
           .Close
       End With
       Set oTmpDoc = Nothing
       
       oWord.Visible = False
       
       oWord.Top = lOrigTop
       oWord.Quit
       Set oWord = Nothing
   End Sub
   

4. Compile and run the program. Press the Command1 command button to run the spell check. Word's spell check dialog box appears to confirm the spelling of the words "mispelled", "textt", "receive", and "resultes". After you correct the misspelled words, the text is returned to the text box.