Iterate backwards using a repeat loop when deleting items

As a result, if you accidentally skip items, you can receive script errors when you get to final items whose indices are greater than any existing item. The solution is to iterate backwards through items using a repeat loop that moves backwards "by -1."

The examples below delete all rows from a table that contain a particular text string in the first column.

Sub DeleteRows() 
 
Dim TargetText As String 
Dim oRow As Row 
 
If Selection.Information(wdWithInTable) = False Then Exit Sub 
 
TargetText = InputBox$("Enter target text:", "Delete Rows") 
 
For Each oRow In Selection.Tables(1).Rows 
	If oRow.Cells(1).Range.Text = TargetText & vbCr 
		& Chr(7) Then oRow.Delete 
Next oRow 
 
End Sub

set cellEndChar to ASCII character 7
tell application "Microsoft Word"
	if (get selection information selection information type ¬
		(with in table)) = "false" then return
	display dialog ¬
		"Delete rows with this text in cell 1:" ¬
		default answer "Enter target text" with icon 1
	set targetText to text returned of result

	set theRows to every row of table 1 of selection
	repeat with i from (count theRows) to 1 by -1
		set theRow to item i of theRows
		if content of text object of cell 1 of theRow = ¬
			(targetText & return & cellEndChar) then
			delete theRow
		end if
	end repeat
end tell

Avoid using commands for characters in loops

In AppleScript, ASCII character 7 is the same thing as Chr(7) in Visual Basic for Applications (VBA): an invisible character used by Microsoft Word as a table-cell-end character following a carriage return. The carriage return is known as vbCr or Chr(13) in VBA, and return or ASCII character 13 in AppleScript. ASCII character is a command in the Standard Additions dictionary, which contains the built-in Macintosh collection of scripting additions. You can see this character by doing the following:

There is overhead that slows scripts when you call scripting additions, so you don't want to call them repeatedly in a repeat loop. The solution is to set a variable to the scripting addition at the top of the script, and then call it just once.

Similarly, you typically want to use the return, space, and tab AppleScript constants rather than their equivalent ASCII character commands (13, 31, 9).

Prior to Word 2004, you could not use tab in Word tell blocks, because it was interpreted as the tab class. That class is now called tab stop, and tab on its own is the usual text character.

Also, AppleScript doesn't confuse the return character with the return command. You can see the character in the following snippet from the example above: (targetText & return & cellEndChar).

How repeat loops handle deletions of items

There is also a difference between the AppleScript repeat loop and the VBA For Each loop. In AppleScript, if you use the repeat with theRow in the Rows syntax, or, more literally, repeat with theRow in (every row of table 1 of selection), AppleScript keeps track of the count by indexing the list exactly as in a repeat with i from 1 to (count theRows) loop. It constantly checks, or refreshes, the list of items on every iteration, but it doesn't check the index.

Therefore, any time you use a delete loop to delete items, you must iterate backwards, as in (count theRows) to 1 by -1. Otherwise, every time you delete an item, the next iteration skips one.

For example, if you have three items [a, b, c], and you delete item 1 (a), item 2 becomes the original item 3 (c), and item 1 becomes the original item 2 (b), as in [ b, c]. Item 1 is then skipped. Every second item gets skipped this way, and eventually you receive an error when the index becomes larger than the last remaining item.

For this reason, you must always iterate backwards when deleting. That way, all items that have not yet been inspected keep their original index to the end.

Finally, note that the with in table information type (remember that with and in are separate words) does not return the booleans true and false. Rather, it returns the strings true and false.