WD97: Using the ASCII and ANSI Characters in Word for Windows

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Microsoft provides programming examples for illustration only, without warranty either expressed or implied. This includes, but is not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. This article assumes that you are familiar with the programming language that is being demonstrated and with the tools that are used to create and to debug procedures. Microsoft support engineers can help explain the functionality of a particular procedure, but they will not modify these examples to provide added functionality or construct procedures to meet your specific requirements. For printing and display on a computer system, each font has its own character set according to ASCII, ANSI, OEM, or other industry standard that defines what character is represented by a specific keystroke. Windows uses the ANSI character set. Many non-Windows-based applications use the ASCII character set.

Microsoft Word for Windows allows you to access special characters from the ASCII and ANSI character sets. The ANSI characters, not the ASCII characters, are the characters returned when using the CHR() macro function. You can also get these characters by pressing ALT+0 and typing the ANSI table number for the character on the numeric keypad. For example, pressing ALT and typing 065 (on the numeric keypad) inserts a capital letter A into your document.

You can obtain a list of the ANSI characters 128-255 by using the following sample Visual Basic for Applications macro routine:

Sub AnsiChars()
      Dim dlgFont As Dialog
      Dim iCount As Integer
      Dim defFont As String

      ' Create a new document.
      Documents.Add

      ' Get name of default font
      defFont = Selection.Font.Name

      ' Display Font dialog box to choose the font
      ' from which the ANSI character will be retrieved.
      Set dlgFont = Dialogs(wdDialogFormatFont)
      dlgFont.Display

      With Selection
         ' Insert the name of the chosen font.
         .TypeText dlgFont.Font & vbCr
         ' Set the point size of the chosen font.
         .Font.Size = dlgFont.Points
         ' Retrieve ANSI character set.
         For iCount = 128 To 255
            ' Set font to default font.
            .Font.Name = defFont
            ' Insert ANSI character number.
            .TypeText CStr(iCount) & " - "
            ' Set font to chosen font.
            .Font.Name = dlgFont.Font
            ' Insert ANSI character.
            .TypeText Chr(iCount) & vbCr
         ' Loop until done.
         Next iCount
      End With
   End Sub