Sometimes we just want to keep writing, so a setting detail or simple character action shouldn’t slow us down unnecessarily. Enter novel notes. We can quickly insert a note based on the context and move on with writing (or editing).
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Quickly insert contextual notes
In a writing sprint or a Pomodoro sequence, we often just want to keep writing or editing, but we also don't want to forget a concern or a potential issue about a scene. A setting detail or simple character action shouldn’t slow us down unnecessarily. It's easy to lose momentum by stopping to correct the detail, but our minds can freeze like stubborn neurological mules.
Enter novel notes. We can quickly insert a note based on the novel context and move on with writing (or editing). A lot variation exists for preferences based on the placement, wording, context, or style of the notes. We cover three main variations, but future articles will create some assistant functions to facilitate multiple note types.
The previous version inserted a simple novel note as a styled paragraph (my preference), but we also implemented an inline simple note variation. This version adds the contextual note as well as validating the style, so we don't see any nasty error messages.
Using the selection for context
When I write in a historical genre, I sometimes know a period-specific word exists for something or they did things a certain way during the time period. Unfortunately, I just can't remember it at the moment, and I don’t want to break my momentum by stopping to look it up right. That's what editing is for.
How do we include the context?
It's probably related to the word I just typed.
Granted we don't want to leave "everything" for the editing phase, but my priority in the first draft is to get the story on the page. Some details just have to wait.
Create the empty macro
A previous post covers creating an empty macro like the one shown below using the Word interface. The result will look something like:
The single quote tells VBA the rest of the text on that line is a comment meant for human readers. We start our macro steps on the empty line.
What are the manual steps?
I’ll quickly insert a note in a new paragraph above where I’m writing without having to move back and forth in the document.
What steps would we use to add a new novel note paragraph manually?
There are several ways to accomplish this, but we'll take a direct route here.
- Select and copy any relevant text for the note
- Move to the beginning of the paragraph
- Insert a new paragraph
- Type the note and paste any selected text
- Move back to the original editing location
A standard Word keyboard shortcut exists to move by paragraphs in Word (Control+Up in Windows or Command+Up arrow on a Mac), so that helps a little, but it’s still a lot of steps if we insert the note often.
Use Ranges
We would like to leave the insertion point in place when we insert the note, so we can just keep writing. Using Ranges is probably the easiest way to make our changes.
A Range is basically a span of text in the document. Much like an invisible Selection, we can move or change it as well as delete and modify any text. See this previous article on a brief introduction to Ranges.
Insert a contextual novel note
We will determine the context of the note based on the selection or the nearby word if no selection exists. Then we'll insert the note including the contextual reference.
Get the note text from the initial selection
Given the intended note placement, it's convenient to define a working Range corresponding to the whole original paragraph.
We must “Set” the Range since it contains other information than just a value.
This works even if the starting selection doesn’t include the whole paragraph.
This is an example of using Ranges to make writing your macros easier. It is independent of the initial selection, if any, in the sense that we can manipulate it without directly changing the selection (unless we use it to delete or modify text within the original selection).
Expand over the nearest word
We can expand of the nearest word(s) in preparation for creating our context-based novel note below.
This expansion does not harm either case. If a selection exists, it just makes sure all of the words are selected. If a selection does not exists, it expands over the nearest word. Both uses are convenient.
Don't need a conditional statement
It is tempting (me too) to add a full conditional statement to vai Without a lot of explanation, a knee-jerk reaction might be to include the following
This just isn't necessary. Trimming any spaces still needs to be done either way. Sometimes less is more.
Trim extra spaces (optional)
I tend to keep article macros simpler, but this time it's only two lines, and it keeps the note tidy.
Trim spaces from end of the Range
We use the MoveEndWhile method to retract the End position of the range back across any spaces.
The command requires a set of characters which is just a space. We assign whichever characters as plain text to the Cset option. Usually they are in double quotes, so our space character set is just " ".
We're moving the End position of the range backward, so we need to specify the count option as wdBackward from a short Word constants table.
This constant tells the command to move any number of spaces backward in the document. We separate the options with a comma, and both require a colon equals := symbol for the assignments.
Trim spaces from start of the Range
We can also trim the space from the beginning of the range. This will not usually matter due to the prior Expand method, but a user might accidentally include a preceding space at the beginning of a paragraph. We use the corresponding MoveStartWhile method.
We again use a space " " as the character set, but the default is to move the Start position forward in the document, so we can omit the Count option.
Store the contextual note
We can define the note text as a “string” (of characters) and include the text spanned by the above range. We get it with the Text property.
The note text needs to be in double quotes, so VBA knows it’s plain text. We used an equals “=” to store the note text value in the variable, and we can "concatenate" strings together with a plus + sign to mimic addition with numbers. We included a space with "Check " since the MyRange text most likely does not have a space at the start.
This is not strictly necessary, but it makes the macro easier to read.
Set the current paragraph Range
Given the intended note placement, it's convenient to define a working Range corresponding to the whole original paragraph. We need the range of the whole first paragraph, so we'll start by referring to the Paragraphs collection of the Selection.
We want the first paragraph of the collection using the First property.
A Paragraph is its own data type in VBA. We're storing the paragraph range, so we need to access the range of content it spans using the Range property.
Now we can assign this paragraph range to our paragraph range variable.
We must Set the Range since it contains other information than just a value. This works even if the starting selection doesn’t include the whole paragraph or if the selection spans multiple paragraphs (following paragraphs are ignored).
This is an example of using Ranges to make writing your macros easier. This range variable is independent of the initial selection. We can manipulate it without directly changing the selection unless we use it to specifically delete or modify text in that region.
We could redefine the previous range variable since we no longer need it, but I created a separate variable for extra clarity.
Insert the new paragraph
In the current macro, we're inserting the note into a separate paragraph to improve clarity, so we need to add the new paragraph using the InsertParagraphBefore method.
A separate macro article inserts inline novel notes if you prefer that approach.
Insert the note text
Finally insert the actual note text using the InsertBefore method.
Both of these insert commands extend the MyParagraphRange backward to include the newly added characters.
Set the note paragraph style
Using a distinct note paragraph style will set the note apart from the novel text.
Validate the paragraph style
Invalid styles cause a macro to crash. What's worse is VBA doesn't give us a native way to validate them before trying to apply a style to a paragraph.
Style validation function
Another article covers a separate function to validate any style. It has the format:
We just provide (called "pass") the function a plain text name of any style to validate. It returns a True or False (Boolean) value which we can use directly in a conditional statement. This function is handy for multiple macros that involve styles.
If the style is invalid (a False result), we just skip the style assignment which means we can just omit that part of the If statement. The note text will just be in the same paragraph style defined as the current one.
What do we do if the style is valid?
Collapsing the paragraph Range
Since MyParagraphRange now spans two paragraphs, we collapse the Range to the newly added first paragraph. With this command, the style only applies to that paragraph. We use the Collapse method.
Technically, this command does not depend on whether the style is valid, but it's tidier to include it with the style assignment command next.
Setting the style
We set the paragraph style using the Style property of the Range.
Notice we just used a literal style name as text. VBA does all the work under the hood to apply it.
Style conditional statement
Insert the function validation check and the previous two commands into the above conditional statement.
If you don't want to incorporate an additional function to validate the style, just omit the conditional statement but keep the two commands. You will almost inevitably forget to create the style in a new novel, and the macro will crash. I did it multiple times until I became annoyed enough to always validate a style.
Finish the macro
Now put the commands together.
This one definitely helps me include reminders to myself during editing while still allowing me to move on with my writing at the moment. Defining the note at the top allow me to quickly change it as needed. I have several variants of this macro assigned to different keyboard shortcuts.
It may seem inefficient to validate the style every time the macro is run, but it's when you open a new document that the error becomes annoying. The handful of milliseconds VBA spends validating the style each time the macro is used will almost never be noticed.
Improvements
We can still improve several things about either macro above.
Undo record
Since this macro makes multiple small changes, it's a decent candidate for undo records, but they are excluded from this version because then can cause problems if not properly implemented.
Function version
I have several flavors of notes with different text and note paragraph styles. It's a shame to copy the entire macros over and repeat everything, so these macros are begging to be included in a function. Alas, that is outside the scope of this article.
