A word frustration, resolved - Scripting is your freind
I have long been a fan of scripting, from batch files to 'psuedo-app' vb/vba scripts I pride myself in the ability to answer and opportunity by writing a script. This was no different.
First off, I am by no means a pro at scripting, most of my work is hashed together by reading and using code snippets here and there, where I can. That being said, I started looking for a script that could, as .vbs, traverse a directory of my coding and open all .doc's and update the page setup settings. This quickly deteriorated into me banging on the keyboard and asking..."WHY! WHY! WHY!???" each time the code errored out. So I returned to the search engines and user groups and soon enough someone posed the idea of using MS Word's macro engine, to do the 'Page setup' piece and then wrap that in another code for traversing the folder tree to open all .doc files. Sure enough it worked! I neglected to do a tally mechanism to report back the number of files that it converted, but it looks like it did somewhere in the region of about 900 files in about 2 minutes, that includes a network share and all it's overhead and running on an older Pentium IV 1.5 Ghz pc with 256MB ram. It did pretty well, i'ld say.
to say this code is sloppy would be an understatement, however, it works when run from a VBA window in MS Word.
While this code, I would probably never need again, shows the effectiveness of scripting to answer some of the PC worlds toughest challenges. In this case I spent roughly an hour of time identifying the problem, then about another 1.5 hours researching and writing a script and then running the script. This customer is under a contract for monthly labor, so from them I get $500/month for up to 16 hrs per month, otherwise I would have charged $100/hr, so therefore @$250 to correct this problem. Now, to do roughly 900 files manually would have taken me @ $100/hr about 12 hours of mind numbing delrium or $1200. for me to teach them to do it, and them to actually do it, probably close to $900 in lost productivity and training time. And even then, I could not say for sure that it was completed correctly. So in this case, the client saved anywhere from $950 to $650 to correct this issue, becuase of the power of scripting.
It should go without saying, but I will anyway, always use a GREAT ANTI-VIRUS. Also, I disable scripting and macros when I am not actually the one creating/writing the macro/script and running same. for some power users, I will enable macros and scripting solutions, but only after putting forth all due dilegence and investigation into the nature of the scripts and macros as well as the AV situation.
That being said, happy scripting!