Personal.dotx Release Notes

Version 3.28 — 2025-09-14

'Personal - VBA, toolbars, & keybindings to customize MS Word
'Author: Christopher Rath < >
'Date: 2025-09-14
'Version: 3.28
'Archived at: http://www.rath.ca/Misc/VBacs/
'Copyright (c) 1998-2025 Christopher Rath
'Distributed under the GNU Lesser General Public License v2.1
'   (see the LGPL_License VBA module for the license text)
'Warranty: None, see the license.

Note: the customizations in this template file are intended to accompany VBacs.dotm.

Installation Instructions

To install these Personal customizations into your copy of MS Word (the customizations may be downloaded from Personal_3.28.zip):

1. Copy this file into your MS Word Startup folder. If you’re not sure where this is, check the location by going to OfficeàWord Options]àAdvancedàGeneralà[File Locations] and checking the “Startup” entry.  I strongly recommend actually double-checking the Startup folder location.  Please be aware that on some versions of Windows the Startup folder is hidden; you can view hidden folders by opening Explorer and then checking the “Show hidden files and folders” option on the ToolsàFolder OptionsàView panel.
2. Check your MS Word security options to ensure that the signed macros will run (Officeà[Word Options]àTrust Centerà[Trust Center Settings…]àMacro SettingsàDisable all macros except digitally signed macros)
3. Close all open MS Word documents and exit the program (i.e., choose FileàExit in all documents and MS Word windows; this will also require you to exit and logoff of MS Outlook).
4. Restart MS Word.

Usage

Once the Personal template is installed, the following shortcuts are available (keys marked <<unassigned>> have had their default MS Word assignment cleared):

Once the Personal template is installed, a toolbar containing the follow buttons is available:

Personal Toolbar Buttons
Don’t allow table rows to split across pages
Invoke MS Words Calculate function
Set language of all text in document to Canadian English
Set various MS Word options settings to my personal liking.
Perform ROT13/ROT5 on a the selected text.
Toggle the visibility of text boundaries.
Remove trailing whitespace from all paragraphs in this document. Note, this macro doesn’t find trailing whitespace in the final paragraph of a table cell.
Remove the extra spaces around numbers that appear following a copy-paste from Excel.

Release History

v3.28 [2025-09-14] — expanded the list of honorifics the add-in can handle (in particular, higher-education and military titles).

v3.27 [2024-07-27] — changed behaviour of CompleteActionTag_I() so that it positions the cursor to the right of the closing square bracket after the tag has been updated.

v3.26 [2024-04-14] — added a new Styles group to the Home tab with the styles gallery removed.

v3.25 [2023-09-27] — add clearing of highlighting to the <ctrl><alt>0 code.

v3.24 [2023-09-05] — make Action Tag code more robust.

v3.23 [2023-08-29] — add option panel (and underlying code) to allow <ctrl><alt>0 to either apply the “Normal” paragraph style or to clear formatting.

v3.22 [2023-04-07] — when two spaces appear before a lowercase letter, remove the extra space. This extra space was inadvertently being inserted into dialogue (for example: “What is your name?” she asked).

v3.21 [2022-07-19] — handle “you and I.” properly; that is, ensure the “I.” isn’t treated as an initial in a name. Also Fixed minor issue with sentences that end in multiple quotation marks. Fixed issue with sentences that begin or end with a round bracket. Also restructured the code for readability.

v3.20 [2022-05-28] — handles names with two initials; for example, “J.D. Salinger” and “J. D. Salinger”.

v3.19 [2022-05-23] — handle sentences where the following sentence begins with a quotation character.

v3.18 [2022-05-22] — handle Dr., Mr., Mrs., and Ms., prefixes in FixSpaceAfterPeriod().

v3.17 [2022-05-16] — added Advanced Document Properties and Paragraph Keep With Next buttons to Actions button group on Home tab of ribbon.

v3.16 [2022-05-13] — now handle sentences that end with a quotation mark or a colon. Test cases created and included in the document body, above.

v3.15 [2022-05-11] — Added new conform sentence spacing to two spaces functionality and moved some buttons to the Review tab, in a Personal group.

v3.14 [2022-04-29] — Disabled “Options. EnableProofingToolsAdvertisement” in PersonalSetPreferences macro.

v3.11 [2021-01-10] — Changed date format from yyyy/mm/dd to yyyy-mm-dd in CompleteActionTag().

v3.10 [2020-05-10] — Added function to copy the current selection into an Action Register table contained within the document.

v3.09 [2020-04-24] — Removed the button to clean-up pastes from Excel and added a button to update all fields in the active document.

v3.07 [2016-04-09] — Added a button to remove trailing whitespace and clean-up pastes of numbers from Excel.

v3.06 [2016-04-02] — Added a button to toggle the visibility of text boundaries.

v3.05 [2015-01-06] — Added “AllowOpenInDraftView” option to PersonalSetPreferences().

v3.04 [2014-01-29] — Added ROT13/ROT5 functionality.

v3.00 [2010-07-15] — First MS Word 2007 native version. Version number aligned to match VBacs’ first MS Word 2007 version (that is, there is no version 2.x of this MS Word style). Replace string in files command was dropped due to a change in Word 2007’s object model. Two toolbar buttons were removed because Word 2007 has reintroduced them in the ribbon (“Set a row as a table heading” and “Open style panel”).

Miscellaneous Notes

A similar set of macros is available from http://www.wordstar.org/ for those who would rather be using WordStar than MS Word.  Note that the WordStar template file completely reorganizes MSWord’s menu structure to match an old WordStar for Windows release.