Editing a text box in Word

[ercicttech]

Hi, there.

I'm trying to edit specific text boxes in a Word document, but I'm running into issues because they're grouped? (I think??)

I used the Macro recorder, and it shows:

 

ActiveDocument.Shapes.Range(Array("Group 5")).Select
    ActiveDocument.Shapes.Range(Array("Text Box 8")).Select
    Selection.TypeText Text:="Centre"

Could some kind soul please tell me how to access these in AutoIt?

All assistance gratefully received.

[Danyfirex]

You can get the shape this way:

 

$oDoc.Shapes("Group 5").GroupItems("Text Box 8")

 

Saludos

[ercicttech]

On 3/19/2026 at 6:05 PM, Danyfirex said:

You can get the shape this way:

 

$oDoc.Shapes("Group 5").GroupItems("Text Box 8")

 

Saludos

Thank you for the reply. Sorry I didn't respond before now - I don't get notifications from the forum.

I'll give this a try shortly.

 

[ercicttech]

Arghh.. I feel like I'm almost there? My lack of knowledge on using "with" is letting me down..

$test = $oDoc.Shapes("Group 5").GroupItems("Text Box 61").Select

Highlights the textbox in the Word Document...

But how do I change the contents of the text box to be "Hello world"?

Or read the current value of that textbox?

I've tried 

$test = $oDoc.Shapes("Group 5").GroupItems("Text Box 61").Select.TypeText
$test = $oDoc.Shapes("Group 5").GroupItems("Text Box 61").Select.Text
$test = $oDoc.Shapes("Group 5").GroupItems("Text Box 61").Select.TypeText.Text

They all return a blank value.

I know I'm missing something REALLY obvious!!

I've tried using "With ODoc.blah, OWord.blah"... It just throws up errors about the requested action with this object has failed.

 

 

[water]

$sText = $oDoc.Shapes("Group 5").GroupItems("Text Box 8").TextFrame.TextRange.Text

Should return the text.

You can find an example of how to edit the text in Microsofts Office Reference.

Edited March 22 by water

[ercicttech]

13 hours ago, water said:

$sText = $oDoc.Shapes("Group 5").GroupItems("Text Box 8").TextFrame.TextRange.Text

Should return the text.

You can find an example of how to edit the text in Microsofts Office Reference.

Returning the current value worked - thanks!

$Box = $oDoc.Shapes("Group 5").GroupItems("Text Box 8").TextFrame.TextRange
$CurVal = $Box.Text
Msgbox(0, "CurVal", $CurVal)



$Box.Text = "Has this changed?!?!"
$CurVal = $Box.Text
Msgbox(0, "CurVal", $CurVal)

Next questions - SORRY!

I've found that I have two documents types where the text boxes are named slightly differently.

Scenario 1 - Surname=1; Forename=2; ID number=3
Scenario 2 - Surname=8; Forename=11; ID number=15

I can have:
 

$TB=""
For $i in $oDoc.Shapes("Group 5").GroupItems
$TB = $TB & $i.Name & "|"
Next

So I can have

Case $TBList = "Text Box 8|Text Box 11|Text Box 14"
; do population for that scenario.

Case $TBList = "Text Box 1|Text Box 2|Text Box 3"
; do population for that scenario


But.. How can I change the hard-coded variable:

$oDoc.Shapes("Group 5").GroupItems("Text Box 8").TextFrame.TextRange.Text="Value of Surname"

To something like
 

$oDoc.Shapes("Group 5").GroupItems($TB).TextFrame.TextRange.Text = "Value of Surname"

The reason being I was hoping to have the Text box name/replacements in an array.
Column 0 for the type where it's Text Box 1/2/3/4/5/6, and Column 1 for the Text Box 8/11/14 etc scenario
[1][8][$SchoolName]
[2][11][$TownName]
[3][14][$Forename]
[4][15][$Surname]
[5][16][$Desk]
[6][61][$ID number}

Then I could have a single for/next to populate both types depending on the case statement above.

 

Hope that makes sense?

I apologise for the repeated questions, but I'm having a mental block working with Office
 

[ercicttech]

Never mind! I think I've figured it out

Now I just have 1 text box which seems to corrupt when it gets replaced.

It has "000000000*" followed by hex characters at the end - 0D-07-0D-07-0D
Which I think is because the Word document is configured to use that as the footer.
If I change the text directly (with or without the hex at the end), it breaks the text box and the footer doesn't change.

If I use $NewVal = StringReplace($CurVal, "000000000*", $IDNumber, it breaks.

 

If I populate CTRL H and use hot keys to trigger a search replace inside Word, it works.
So I'm ALMOST there!!

 

[ercicttech]

In case it got lost in my assorted replies...

Thank you very much for the help and assistance provided with my query.

 

I may be back with similar questions about filling in PDF files. Though it looks like I may have to use 3rd party software like pdftk to get that done, so hopefully I'll muddle through!