Working with MS Word - Page 2 - Writers Forum

Spudley · 02-09-2005, 06:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ilan Bouchard

How do you edit macros, or better yet, how do you delete them? Because I DO have a virus that hides inside my Word documents, and it's intensely frustrating. If I delete it from all the infected documents, would that solve the problem?

It depends on which virus it is - there's a lot of them, and there's a lot of ways they can work, so there's no one method you can use to fix them. Best bet - get a decent virus checker.

Oh, and make sure you've got backups of everything. (but you've been doing that anyway, right....

)

teflon · 02-10-2005, 01:59 AM

Grisoft has a free and extremely powerful anti-virus download with an automatic self-updating and real-time protection.

Everytime I open a word doc it takes a second or two for it to finally let it open while informing that it is checking the doc for malicious code.

Philo · 02-10-2005, 09:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by teflon

You would use macros when you realize that you need to find all Capitalized words, then make only the first letter capital, then Bold the whole word, then add "Mr." to every last name, then to replace every "it's" and "don't" with "it is" and "do not." If you are a teacher, a writer, a professor, an editor, a web content writer, or an intensive customer relations e-mailer, then you would are facing having to process a huge volume of raw documents that have to be hammered into a specific format, and performing these little tasks one at a time is not practical.

A good friend of mine suggested Bbedit http://www.barebones.com/ which is specifically designed to search through text and make just the kind of changes you're talking about whether its Word or text code such as html. AND you can run the search, find and replace on multiple documents at once then save your search and replace parameters to use again. A folder full of web pages or chapters of you're book can all be changed at once without opening them and doing each separately.

There's also a Bbedit Lite version available as shareware or freeware. The last bit: bbedit is Mac software and I don't know if its available for PC. The website has all the info and screen shots.

teflon · 02-10-2005, 03:28 PM

I don't think BBedit is for PCs.

The screenshots show some functionalities that are similar to OpenOffice.

Are you working in Mac environment?

Philo · 02-10-2005, 08:18 PM

Yes, I have Macs at my office as well as at home. Word is cross platform so not everything that will work for me will work for you if you're using a PC.

I'm not familiar with OpenOffice, is that the open source verison of MS products? Bbedit is not really designed for word processing as much as making changes to text documents created in other applications.

Does anyone know of a PC version of bbedit or similar tool?

Maybe Chrispian does. Bbedit states that it can be used for php editing, but I think Chrispian uses a Mac.

halfrighter · 02-11-2005, 02:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ilan Bouchard

How do you edit macros, or better yet, how do you delete them? Because I DO have a virus that hides inside my Word documents, and it's intensely frustrating. If I delete it from all the infected documents, would that solve the problem?

You can prevent macros from running by opening up Word, going to Tools > Macro > Security, and choosing High.

If there are some macros you know are not viruses, you can choose Medium instead. Then you'll be prompted each time you open a Word document with macros as to whether you want to run them for that session.

As far as viruses in general, keep those virus definitions updated, and scan at least every couple weeks. You should not be working with a live virus on your computer.

Philo · 02-12-2005, 12:41 AM

I couldn't find a way to delete macros when I took a look last time I had a macro virus. I ended up do a Save As and with the dialog opens scroll through the options and select RTF (Rich Text File) this will preserve your formatting etc... but when you hit the save button it will inform you that everything will be saved but the macro. You say okay and its gone. Once its gone you can resave as a Word document.

Please make a back up, before you do this and if it all works out (your formatting etc...) then you can toss the back up as well (it'll have the macro virus.)

A word of warning, I'm not sure how macros spread, but I have had a macro virus spread to other documents and I'm not sure how it happens. Any hackers here who can help out of cleaning out macro virus's?

teflon · 02-12-2005, 02:58 PM

If a macro is written to work in DOS environment(and it is easy to do -open Vbasic editor offered along with Macro in Word and start writing BAsic commands manipulating file sand disks) then the best solution is running antiVirus.