Get return value of Word macro function called from Excel macro

Question

I am doing an Excel macro to get the text of the 1st paragraph preceding the 1st table (basicly the title of the table) of a Word file.

My macro from Excel is the following :

Sub Main()

    Set applicationWord = CreateObject("Word.Application")
    Set documentWord = applicationWord.Documents.Open(Filename:="C:\Users\...\my_word.docm", ReadOnly:=True)
    applicationWord.Visible = True
    applicationWord.Activate
    applicationWord.Run "GetFirstString"

    Set documentWord = Nothing
    Set applicationWord = Nothing

End Sub

We can't write str = applicationWord.Run "GetFirstString" as any other programming language to save the return String in a variable. And in my Word file my_word.docm , I have the following macro GetFirstString :

Function GetFirstString() As String

    GetFirstString = ActiveDocument.Tables(1).Range.Previous(Unit:=wdParagraph, Count:=1)
    
End Sub

This is a prototype. I want to do it like that because I want to write an Excel file with the text extracted from each Word file of a specified folder. I tried the following macro from Excel to see if I was able to read text from Word file using Paragraph object but I got an error, this code is not working with Excel VBA, who doesn't recognize method members.

Private Sub ExtractionPrototype()

    Dim applicationWord As Object
    Dim documentWord As Object

    Set applicationWord = GetObject(, "Word.Application")
    applicationWord.Visible = True
    Set documentWord = applicationWord.Documents.Open(cheminDossierReparation)
    
    MsgBox documentWord.Tables(1).Range.Previous(Unit:=wdParagraph, Count:=1)

    documentWord.Close savechanges:=False

End Sub

Is there any way to return values from a Word macro to an Excel macro ? It is written in the doc that "The Run method returns whatever the called macro returns" but what is exactly this value and how to get it ?

Answer 1

The only reason that your ExtractionPrototype routine didn't work is because you have used the constant value wdParagraph , part of the WdUnits enum, which isn't defined in Excel. Either substitute it with its value, which is 4, or declare it as a constant with that value in your routine.

"We can't write str = applicationWord.Run "GetFirstString" "

Correct, because you've missed the brackets that tell VBA you expect a return value. So you write str = applicationWord.Run("GetFirstString")