VBAUnicodeTools

Tools for working with Unicode in the VB Editor

This repository contains a standard VBA module ProgrammingTools.bas and associated userforms for working with Unicode text in the VB Editor (VBE).

References

The code in these VBA modules references the following libraries.

1. Microsoft VBScript Regular Expressions 5.5
2. Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications Extensibility 5.3.

Main Features

There are two main subroutines to help you edit VBA code that deals with Unicode characters outside the ASCII range to circumvent VBE's lack of support for Unicode.

1. Public Sub PromptToInsertUnicodeStringIntoVBA()
2. Public Sub DisplayUnicodeFromVBACode()

Public Sub PromptToInsertUnicodeStringIntoVBA()
Place the cursor wherever you want to insert VBA code for a string containing Unicode characters outside the ASCII range, then run PromptToInsertUnicodeStringIntoVBA. The sub will show a userform with a single textbox that you can type into. Press the "Convert & Insert" button to convert the contents of that textbox to corresponding VBA code and insert it where you placed your cursor in the VB editor.

Public Sub DisplayUnicodeFromVBACode()
Select VBA code in the VB editor with Unicode characters hard-coded hexidecimal or decimal codepoints inside ChrW$ or ChrW calls, then run DisplayUnicodeFromVBACode. The sub will show a userform with a single textbox containing those ChrW$/ChrW calls replaced by the Unicode characters they represent.

Additional Features

There are a few other utility functions for processing Unicode text in VBA.

• Public Function MsgBoxW(Prompt As String, Optional Buttons As VbMsgBoxStyle = vbOKOnly, Optional Title As String = "Microsoft PowerPoint") As VbMsgBoxResult
  A wide version of MsgBox, adapted from forum post by John_w at https://www.mrexcel.com/board/threads/vba-display-foreign-character-code.1142510/post-5536387.

• Public Sub ShowCharForCodePoint()
  Shows a message box containing the character associated with the codepoint selected in the VB editor. Assumes the selection contains only a VBA int/long literal.

• Public Function GetSelectedVBACode() As String
  Returns a string containing the text currently selected in the VB editor.

• Public Function ConvertUnicodeTextToVBACode(ByRef text As String) As String
  Takes a string of ordinary text and returns a string with that text converted to corresponding VBA string literals, VBA constants, and calls to ChrW$, all concatenated together. VBA line continuations and CRLFs are inserted whenever any line in the output would exceed 512 characters (Adjustable by changing the private constant VBA_MAX_LINE_LENGTH declared at the top of the module. Actual VBE max line length is 1024 characters.).

• Public Function AscWLong(char As String) As Long
  Wrapper around AscW to make sure that all codepoints returned are positive. (Because VBA doesn't have unsigned data types!)