Manipulating the Work menu with macros
Word's menu is one of Word's best and most underutilized features. Many of us have documents we work on often, or templates that we modify on a regular basis. Storing these files in the Work menu makes them easy to retrieve at a moment's notice. And unlike the Most Recently Used file list in the File Menu, the Work menu is persistent, which is handy if you open nine files in between.
The Work menu suffers, however, from some disadvantages as well. First, it can be difficult to remove items from the menu, if one manages to remember the keyboard shortcut (and on Mac OS X, the default accessibility options may pre-empt the shortcut, making it impossible). Since the shortcut's Remove Menu Item command works for any menu item, if your finger inadvertently slips off the mouse button, you may delete something else entirely.
A second disadvantage is that the menu is stored in a volatile preference file, which means that if you have to trash the preferences, or if you want to move your installation to another machine, you lose your settings.
A third disadvantage is a lack of context-specific loading of the menu. Whenever I'm developing an add-in, I like to have the add-in listed in the Work menu, so that if I have to modify it, I can open it quickly without having to navigate through a bunch of folders. When the add-in isn't loaded, however, I'd prefer not to see it on the menu. Using the regular user interface, though, once you add a file, it stays added until it you manually remove it.
I use a system of macros to make sure that the menu stays clean and user friendly. Specifically,
- Make it easy to remove items from the Work menu
- Store the current Work menu items in a safe location
- Automatically add a file to the Work menu when the file is loaded.
Removing items from the Work Menu
Removing items manually
You can remove items from the Work menu by typing the CMD, OPT and - keys (that's the minus key from the main keyboard). The cursor will turn into a thick minus sign:
Now select the item from the menu. Note: You should be careful selecting menu items, as this works for any menu item in Word.
If the keyboard shortcut does nothing...When Mac OS X's Universal Access (UA) is enabled, and zooming is turned on (perhaps via the CMD-OPT-8 key combo), the CMD-OPT-<minus> key combination is intercepted by the system to zoom the screen out. If your screen is already at max zoom, this will make the combination appear to do nothing. If you want to leave UA enabled, type CMD-OPT-8, then CMD-OPT-<minus>. If you want to turn UA off, select the tab from the Keyboard and Mouse pane of the dialog. Uncheck the Universal Access checkbox. |
Using a macro to delete selected items from the Work menu
This macro will allow you to selectively delete items from the Work menu. You can attach it to a toolbar button or a keyboard shortcut, or run it from the Tools/Macro/Macros dialog. A series of prompts will appear, allowing you to delete or skip each item in the Work menu:
Public Sub DeleteWorkMenuItems()
Dim i As Long
Dim nDelete As Long
With WorkMenuItems
For i = .Count To 1 Step -1
nDelete = MsgBox( _<
Prompt:="Delete """ & .Item(i).Name & """?", _
Buttons:=vbYesNoCancel, _
Title:="Delete Item from menu")
If nDelete = vbCancel Then Exit For
If nDelete = vbYes Then .Item(i).Delete
Next i
End With
End Sub
Using a macro to delete ALL items from the Work menu
This macro will clear all items from the Work Menu:
Public Sub ClearWorkMenu()
Dim wmItem As WorkMenuItem
For each wmItem in WorkMenuItems
wmItem.Delete
Next wmItem
End Sub
Adding a Delete item to the Work menu
You can put an item on the menu that will allow you to call the macro, above. Putting the following macros and in a regular code module in an add-in will place a new item on the menu to make deletions easier.
Public Sub AutoExec()
AddDeleteItemToWorkMenu
End Sub
Public Sub AutoClose()
RemoveDeleteItemFromWorkMenu
End Sub
Private Sub AddDeleteItemToWorkMenu()
Debug.Print "Add Delete Item"
RemoveDeleteItemFromWorkMenu
With CommandBars(1).FindControl(ID:=30100).Controls 'Work menu
With .Add(Type:=msoControlButton, Before:=2, temporary:=True)
.Caption = "Delete item from menu"
.Tag = "jemWdWorkMenuDeleteItem"
.Style = msoButtonCaption
.OnAction = "DeleteWorkMenuItems"
End With
End With
End Sub
Private Sub RemoveDeleteItemFromWorkMenu()
On Error Resume Next
CommandBars.FindControl(Tag:="jemWdWorkMenuDeleteItem").Delete
On Error GoTo 0
End Sub
Storing and retrieving Work menu items in a text file
Word stores your menu items in the ~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/com.microsoft.Word.prefs.plist file, where ~ is your home folder. If this file ever gets corrupted or you have to run Remove Office, you'll lose your Work menu items. One way to preserve them is to store the items in a safe place. I choose to use an add-in to store the items in a text file store in the ~/Library/Application Support/Microsoft Office/Word folder. This folder isn't created by Word or Office (it should be, but that's a different story), so the add-in creates the folder if it doesn't already exist.
Note that, once you create your text file, you can edit the file directly using any text editor, to add or delete menu items.
Store Work menu items in a text file
This macro stores the Work menu items in a text file and deletes them from the menu:
Public Sub UnloadWorkMenuToTextFile()
Dim nFileNum As Long
Dim i As Long
Dim sPathSep As String
Dim sTextFilePath As String
Dim sTextFileFullName As String
sPathSep = Application.PathSeparator
sTextFilePath = PrepSupportFolder
If Len(sTextFilePath) > 0 Then
sTextFileFullName = sTextFilePath & sPathSep & "jemWdWorkMenu.txt"
nFileNum = FreeFile
If Dir(sTextFileFullName) <> "" Then Kill sTextFileFullName
Open sTextFileFullName For Output As #nFileNum
For i = WorkMenuItems.Count To 1 Step -1
With WorkMenuItems(i)
Write #nFileNum, .Path & sPathSep & .Name
.Delete
End With
Next i
Close #nFileNum
End If
End Sub
This macro checks to see if the storage folder exists. As written it's designed only for MacWord v.X or 2004, but it could be modified for earlier versions of MacWord or WinWord:
Public Function PrepSupportFolder() As String
Dim sPathSep As String
Dim sPrepSupportPath As String
sPathSep = Application.PathSeparator
#If Mac Then
If Application.Version >= 10 Then
sPrepSupportPath = Options.DefaultFilePath(wdUserOptionsPath)
If Len(Dir(sPrepSupportPath, vbDirectory)) = 0 Then _
sPrepSupportPath = UCase(Left(sPrepSupportPath, 1)) & _
Mid(sPrepSupportPath, 2)
sPrepSupportPath = Left(sPrepSupportPath, _
InStr(sPrepSupportPath, "preferences") - 1) & "Application Support"
If Len(Dir(sPrepSupportPath, vbDirectory)) = 0 Then _
MkDir sPrepSupportPath
sPrepSupportPath = sPrepSupportPath & sPathSep & "Microsoft Office"
If Len(Dir(sPrepSupportPath, vbDirectory)) = 0 Then _
MkDir sPrepSupportPath
sPrepSupportPath = sPrepSupportPath & sPathSep & "Word"
If Len(Dir(sPrepSupportPath, vbDirectory)) = 0 Then _
MkDir sPrepSupportPath
End If
#End If
If Len(Dir(sPrepSupportPath, vbDirectory)) > 0 Then _
PrepSupportFolder = sPrepSupportPath
End Function
Restore Work menu items from a text file
Of course, you'll want to retrieve the items when the add-in is loaded:
Public Sub LoadWorkMenuFromTextFile()
Dim nFileNum As Long
Dim sInput As String
Dim sTextFilePath As String
Dim sTextFileFullName As String
sTextFilePath = GetSupportFolder
If Len(sTextFilePath) > 0 Then
sTextFileFullName = sTextFilePath & _
Application.PathSeparator & "jemWdWorkMenu.txt"
nFileNum = FreeFile
If Len(Dir(sTextFileFullName)) > 0 Then
Open sTextFileFullName For Input As #nFileNum
Do While Not EOF(nFileNum)
Input #nFileNum, sInput
If Dir(sInput) <> "" Then WorkMenuItems.Add sInput
Loop
Close #nFileNum
End If
End If
End Sub
Public Function GetSupportFolder() As String
Dim sPathSep As String
Dim sSupportPath As String
sPathSep = Application.PathSeparator
#If Mac Then
If Application.Version >= 10 Then
sSupportPath = Options.DefaultFilePath(wdUserOptionsPath)
If Len(Dir(sSupportPath, vbDirectory)) = 0 Then _
sSupportPath = UCase(Left(sSupportPath, 1)) & _
Mid(sSupportPath, 2)
sSupportPath = Left(sSupportPath, _
InStr(sSupportPath, "preferences") - 1) & "Application Support" _
& sPathSep & "Microsoft Office" & sPathSep & "Word"
End If
#End If
If Len(Dir(sSupportPath, vbDirectory)) > 0 Then _
GetSupportFolder = sSupportPath
End Function
Automating storing and restoring Work menu items
To automate the above macros in an add-in, the following macros are called when the add-in is loaded and unloaded:
Public Sub AutoExec()
LoadWorkMenuFromTextFile
End Sub
Public Sub AutoClose()
UnloadWorkMenuToTextFile
End Sub
Automatically add a file to the Work menu
This technique is useful for ensuring that an add-in (or other file) is automatically added to the menu. Put this in a regular code module in the add-in:
Public Sub AutoExec()
WorkMenuItems.Add ThisDocument
End Sub
or regular document:
Public Sub AutoOpen()
WorkMenuItems.Add ThisDocument
End Sub
To then automatically unload the add-in/file from the menu:
Public Sub AutoExit()
Dim i As Long
For i = 1 To WorkMenuItems.Count
With WorkMenuItems(i)
If ThisDocument.FullName = .Path & _
Application.PathSeparator & .Name Then _
.Delete
End With
Next i
End Sub