How to add a button to a Word document and assign its Click event at run-time

Summary

This article demonstrates how you can use a Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications macro to programmatically add a control to a Microsoft Word document and add a Click event handler for that control.

More Information

The following steps illustrate how you can create a Word macro that will add a control to a document and assign the Click event of that control at run-time. The steps are for Word. However, you can apply the same concepts to programmatically manipulate controls in Microsoft Excel workbooks.

Steps to create the sample

1. Start a new document in Word.

2. Press Alt+F11 to go to the Visual Basic Editor.

3. On the Tools menu, click References.

4. Select the reference for Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications Extensibility.

5. Insert a new module, and then add the following code example.

   Sub Test()
   
   'Add a command button to a new document
   Dim doc As Word.Document
   Dim shp As Word.InlineShape
   Set doc = Documents.Add
   
   Set shp = doc.Content.InlineShapes.AddOLEControl(ClassType:="Forms.CommandButton.1")
   shp.OLEFormat.Object.Caption = "Click Here"
   
   'Add a procedure for the click event of the inlineshape
   '**Note: The click event resides in the This Document module
   Dim sCode As String
   sCode = "Private Sub " & shp.OLEFormat.Object.Name & "_Click()" & vbCrLf & _
           "   MsgBox ""You Clicked the CommandButton""" & vbCrLf & _
           "End Sub"
   doc.VBProject.VBComponents("ThisDocument").CodeModule.AddFromString sCode
   
   End Sub
   

6. Run the macro "Test".

7. Once the macro "Test" finishes running, you will see a new CommandButton control on a new document. When you click the CommandButton control, the Click event of the control fires.

Additional notes for Word 2002 and Word 2003

By default, access to a Word VBA project is disabled. When disabled, the code above may generate the run-time error '6068', "Programmatic Access to Visual Basic Project is not trusted." For more information about this error and how you can correct it, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

282830 Programmatic access to Office VBA project is denied