The newly updated Word Macros A to Z course—now seven weeks long—is moving along nicely. Students have learned about macros for making copyedits, looking up information online, analyzing documents for consistency issues, adding terms to a style sheet, and creating a system to ensure that easily overlooked errors are caught…and there are still three more weeks left. This month’s macro makes quick work of removing content control boxes from a document.
Have you ever opened a document and discovered boxes scattered throughout the text? These are content control boxes, an element used with templates and forms that can appear when a document has been edited in Google Docs and then returned to Word.
![A Microsoft Word document showing a content control box, a rectangular box with a blue border and a small handle in the upper left corner, containing the text "This is a content control box."](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!qcB4!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F05439544-ce4d-4f8a-ad07-4c3e254958a5_1144x170.png "A Microsoft Word document showing a content control box, a rectangular box with a blue border and a small handle in the upper left corner, containing the text "This is a content control box."")
Content control boxes don’t affect the text itself, but they can get in the way of editing. The commonly suggested fix is to select all the text, right-click one of the boxes, and choose “Remove Content Control” from the menu, which should remove them all at once.
However, if you don’t notice the boxes until you’ve already made edits with Track Changes on, you’ll need to turn off Track Changes, remove the boxes, and then turn Track Changes back on—and hope you remember to do so. Or you can remove them one by one as you encounter them.
ContentControlsRemove simplifies the process of removing them.
Run ContentControlsRemove once, and it removes all content control boxes from the document without tracking the removals. That’s it! If there is text inside the boxes, the macro leaves it intact.
Tip: Run ContentControlsRemove with FRedit
Did you know that FRedit can run macros? FRedit is a global find-and-replace macro that many editors run as a preflight step to clean up routine issues before editing, such as removing double spaces, fixing straight quotes, correcting dashes, and more. If FRedit is already part of your workflow, you can add ContentControlsRemove to your FRedit list so it runs automatically as part of that cleanup process. Add this entry near the top of your FRedit list:
DoMacro|ContentControlsRemove
New to FRedit? Because it's such a powerful macro, the Word Macros A to Z course devotes an entire week to it; registration for the next session will open later this year. You can get started with the free FRedit from Square One guide.
MaggyIt: Creates a Maggied version of a file
Have a question or want to suggest a macro for a future newsletter, or just want to say hi? Reply to this email.
Happy macroing,
Jennifer
ps: When was the last time you backed up your macros and keyboard shortcuts? If you can’t remember, now is a good time.
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