' Allows formatting problems with Word doc to be examinedĪpplication.ScreenUpdating = False ' stop screen display to speed upĭim LookFor, LookChar, FillerChar As String ' To replace real text with filler characters If you can suggest more elegant code/solutions we’d love to hear about them via our Feedback page. We working on an alternative approach where each word is replaced with a filler word of the same length. The code takes a little while to run and Word might seem to ‘lock up’, but it’s really just doing a lot of replacements. Like most modern developers, we’ve copied some functions from smart developers online. It was written, in part, so it could be easily understood. This will reassure you that all characters have been replaced. Suggestion: add the complete letter and digit string at the top of the document, as in the above example. Obviously, make a COPY of the original document before running this macro. Thanks to the lovely Lillie for prompting this idea. You can send the converted document off to anyone for help or comment without them knowing what the real document says.

Is converted into the same formatting but random letters like this: Formatting, numbering etc are all retained. Our simple Word macro replaces each letter with a random letter, keeping upper/lower case. We did some searches and could not find a solution so we fired up the VBA editor and wrote some code to do the job.

Random text in Word using Rand(), Rand.old() or Lorem() will insert filler text but not replace existing text. Redaction or replacing text with black bars is hard to read. Most of the ‘solutions’ to this issue aren’t appropriate. It’s hard to ask for outside help with a Word formatting or numbering problem when you can’t share the troublesome document. This is often a problem for legal workers or others with privacy considerations. Handy for getting help with Word formatting or numbering problems where you can’t share the real document to an outsider. Here’s how to replace private or confidential text with ‘filler’ nonsense or anonymous text.

Gibberish text to insert into word file