GOOGLE

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HACKS
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Tips & Tools for Smarter Searching

TM

Tara Calishain & Rael Dornfest

With a new foreword by
Craig Silverstein, Director of Technology, Google
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HACK
#63 Google from Word

H A C K Google from Word Hack #63

#63 Add a little Google to Microsoft Word.

You probably use Google a few dozen times a day. If you work a lot within
Microsoft Word, using Google usually means switching over to your web
browser, checking the results, and then going back to Word. This hack will
show you how to display the search results in Word’s New Document Task
Pane.
This hack uses a plain text .ini file to store data and some Visual Basic for
Applications (VBA) code that also uses VBScript regular expressions.

This hack will work only with Word 2003 for Windows.

Using Google from Word requires a bit of setup, but once you’ve installed
the appropriate tools, you can use Google from within any Word macro.

Install the Web Services Toolkit

First, install the free Microsoft Office 2003 Web Services Toolkit 2.01.
Search for it on the Microsoft web site (http://www.microsoft.com/
downloads/) or Google it.

Create a New Template

Next, create a new template to hold your Google-related macros. The Web
Services Toolkit will create some code so that you can work with Google. A
separate template will help you keep track of the code. Create a new, blank
document and save it as a Document Template named GoogleTools.dot.

Install the Google Interface VBA Code

From your new GoogleTools.dot template, select Tools ➝ Macro ➝ Visual
Basic Editor. The Web Services Toolkit will have added a new item called
Web Service References on the Tools menu, as shown in Figure 5-19.
Select Tools ➝ Web Service References to display the dialog shown in
Figure 5-20. Enter google in the Keywords field and click the Search button.
When the web service is found, check the box next to it, and click the Add
button.
When you click the Add button, you’ll notice a flurry of activity on your
screen as the Web Services Toolkit installs several new class modules into
your template project, as shown in Figure 5-21.

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HACK
Google from Word #63

Figure 5-19. Creating a new reference for accessing Google

Figure 5-20. Locating the Google search web service

The Web Services Toolkit creates the code, but it actually

comes from Google using Web Services Description Lan-
guage (WSDL). The Toolkit interprets this information and
generates the VBA code needed to access the web service—in
this case, Google.

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HACK
#63 Google from Word

Figure 5-21. The code created by the Web Services Toolkit

The Code
With the GoogleTools.dot template you created open, select Tools ➝ Macro
➝ Macros and insert the following code, which consists of a procedure
named GoogleToTaskPane and a supporting function named StripHTML.

Make sure you replace the value insert key here with your
Google API developer’s key.

Sub GoogleToTaskPane( )
Dim vSearchResults As Variant
Dim v As Variant
Dim sResults As String
Dim sEntryName As String
Dim sEntryURL As String
Dim sLogFile As String
Dim sSearchDisplayTitle As String
Dim sSearchURL As String
Dim i As Integer

' Google API variables

Dim sGoogleAPIKey As String
Dim sSearchQuery As String
Dim lStart As Long
Dim lMaxResults As Long
Dim bFilter As Boolean
Dim sRestrict As String
Dim bSafeSearch As Boolean
Dim sLanguageRestrict As String

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HACK
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Dim sInputEncoding As String

Dim sOutputEncoding As String
Dim google_search As New clsws_GoogleSearchService

' Initialize variables

sLogFile = "C:\google_taskpane.ini"
sGoogleAPIKey = "insert your key"
lStart = 1
lMaxResults = 10
bFilter = True
sRestrict = ""
bSafeSearch = False
sLanguageRestrict = ""
sInputEncoding = "UTF-8"
sOutputEncoding = "UTF-8"

' Hide the Task Pane

Application.CommandBars("Task Pane").Visible = False

' Remove existing items from New Document Task Pane

For i = 0 To 9
sEntryURL = System.PrivateProfileString( _
FileName:=sLogFile, _
Section:="GoogleTaskPane", _
Key:="URLName" & CStr(i))
sEntryName = System.PrivateProfileString( _
FileName:=sLogFile, _
Section:="GoogleTaskPane", _
Key:="EntryName" & CStr(i))
If Len(sEntryURL) > 0 Then
Application.NewDocument.Remove _
FileName:=sEntryURL, _
Section:=msoBottomSection, _
DisplayName:=sEntryName, _
Action:=msoOpenFile
End If
Next i

' Get new search query

sSearchQuery = InputBox("Enter a Google query:")
If Len(sSearchQuery) = 0 Then Exit Sub

' Get search results

vSearchResults = google_search.wsm_doGoogleSearch( _
str_key:=sGoogleAPIKey, _
str_q:=sSearchQuery, _
lng_start:=lStart, _
lng_maxResults:=lMaxResults, _
bln_filter:=bFilter, _
str_restrict:=sRestrict, _
bln_safeSearch:=bSafeSearch, _
str_lr:=sLanguageRestrict, _
str_ie:=sInputEncoding, _

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HACK
#63 Google from Word

str_oe:=sOutputEncoding).resultElements

' Check for no results

On Error Resume Next
v = UBound(vSearchResults)
If Err.Number = 9 Then
MsgBox "No results found"
Exit Sub
ElseIf Err.Number <> 0 Then
MsgBox "An error has occurred: " & _
Err.Number & vbCr & _
Err.Description
Exit Sub
End If

' Add each result to the task pane

' and to the log file
i = 0
For Each v In vSearchResults
sSearchURL = v.URL
sSearchDisplayTitle = StripHTML(v.title)
Application.NewDocument.Add _
FileName:=sSearchURL, _
Section:=msoBottomSection, _
DisplayName:=sSearchDisplayTitle, _
Action:=msoOpenFile

System.PrivateProfileString( _
FileName:=sLogFile, _
Section:="GoogleTaskPane", _
Key:="URLName" & CStr(i)) = sSearchURL
System.PrivateProfileString( _
FileName:=sLogFile, _
Section:="GoogleTaskPane", _
Key:="EntryName" & CStr(i)) = sSearchDisplayTitle
i = i + 1
Next v

' Show the New Document Task Pane

CommandBars("Menu Bar").Controls("File").Controls("New...").Execute

End Sub

Function StripHTML(str As String) As String

Dim re As Object
Dim k As Long
On Error Resume Next
Set re = GetObject(Class:="VBScript.RegExp")
If Err.Number = 429 Then
Set re = CreateObject(Class:="VBScript.RegExp")
Err.Clear
ElseIf Err.Number <> 0 Then
MsgBox Err.Number & vbCr & Err.Description
End If

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HACK
Google from Word #63

' Check for common character entities by ASCII value

For k = 33 To 255
re.Pattern = "&#" & k & ";"
str = re.Replace(str, Chr$(k))
Next k

' Remove common HTML tags

re.Pattern = "<[^>]+?>|&[^;]+?;"
re.Global = True
str = re.Replace(str, vbNullString)
StripHTML = str
End Function

This hack uses two parts of the Google search results: the URLs and titles.
Google formats the search result title as HTML, but you can only put plain
text in the Task Pane. The StripHTML function uses a few simple VBScript Reg-
ular Expressions to strip out common HTML tags (such as <b>) and replace
character entities (such as &#64;) with their ASCII character equivalents.
It can be tricky to remove files from the Task Pane using VBA unless you
know their exact name. This macro, however, stores the search results in a
plain-text .ini file. The next time you do a search, you can easily remove the
previous results. The macro uses a file named C:\google_taskpane.ini, which
is defined in the GoogleToTaskPane procedure.

Running the Hack

After you insert the code, switch back to Word. Next, select Tools ➝ Macro
➝ Macros, choose GoogleToTaskPane, and click the Run button to display
the dialog shown in Figure 5-22.

Figure 5-22. Entering a Google search that will display in the Task Pane

Enter your search terms and click the OK button. The New Document Task
Pane appears and displays the search results, as shown in Figure 5-23. Hover
your mouse over any of the entries to display the URL. Click a URL to open
the site in your web browser.

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Figure 5-23. Google results displayed in the Task Pane

Every time you run a search, the macro removes the previous results from
the Task Pane. If you want to remove the previous results without display-
ing new ones, click the Cancel button in the dialog box shown in
Figure 5-22.

To make sure this handy macro loads automatically when

Word starts, put GoogleTools.dot into your Startup folder,
typically C:\Documents and Setting\<username>\Application
Data\Microsoft\Word\STARTUP\.

Hacking the Hack

To take this hack one step further, you can modify it to use the currently
selected text as the search text, rather than displaying an input box and
entering text.
The following macro, named GoogleSelectionToTaskPane, does a Google
search of the currently selected text and displays the results in the Task
Pane. The modified code is shown in bold.
Sub GoogleSelectionToTaskPane( )
Dim vSearchResults As Variant
Dim v As Variant

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HACK
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Dim sResults As String

Dim sEntryName As String
Dim sEntryURL As String
Dim sLogFile As String
Dim sSearchDisplayTitle As String
Dim sSearchURL As String
Dim i As Integer

' Google API variables

Dim sGoogleAPIKey As String
Dim sSearchQuery As String
Dim lStart As Long
Dim lMaxResults As Long
Dim bFilter As Boolean
Dim sRestrict As String
Dim bSafeSearch As Boolean
Dim sLanguageRestrict As String
Dim sInputEncoding As String
Dim sOutputEncoding As String
Dim google_search As New clsws_GoogleSearchService

' Initialize variables

sLogFile = "C:\google_taskpane.ini"
sGoogleAPIKey = your_key_here
lStart = 1
lMaxResults = 10
bFilter = True
sRestrict = ""
bSafeSearch = False
sLanguageRestrict = ""
sInputEncoding = "UTF-8"
sOutputEncoding = "UTF-8"

' Hide the Task Pane

Application.CommandBars("Task Pane").Visible = False

' Remove existing items from New Document Task Pane

For i = 0 To 9
sEntryURL = System.PrivateProfileString( _
FileName:=sLogFile, _
Section:="GoogleTaskPane", _
Key:="URLName" & CStr(i))
sEntryName = System.PrivateProfileString( _
FileName:=sLogFile, _
Section:="GoogleTaskPane", _
Key:="EntryName" & CStr(i))
If Len(sEntryURL) > 0 Then
Application.NewDocument.Remove _
FileName:=sEntryURL, _
Section:=msoBottomSection, _
DisplayName:=sEntryName, _
Action:=msoOpenFile
End If

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Next i

' Move ends of selection to exclude spaces

' and paragraph marks
Selection.MoveStartWhile cset:=Chr$(32) & Chr$(19), _
Count:=Selection.Characters.Count
Selection.MoveEndWhile cset:=Chr$(32) & Chr$(19), _
Count:=-Selection.Characters.Count

' Get selection text for search

sSearchQuery = Selection.Text
If Len(sSearchQuery) = 0 Then Exit Sub

' Get search results

vSearchResults = google_search.wsm_doGoogleSearch( _
str_key:=sGoogleAPIKey, _
str_q:=sSearchQuery, _
lng_start:=lStart, _
lng_maxResults:=lMaxResults, _
bln_filter:=bFilter, _
str_restrict:=sRestrict, _
bln_safeSearch:=bSafeSearch, _
str_lr:=sLanguageRestrict, _
str_ie:=sInputEncoding, _
str_oe:=sOutputEncoding).resultElements

' Check for no results

On Error Resume Next
v = UBound(vSearchResults)
If Err.Number = 9 Then
MsgBox "No results found"
Exit Sub
ElseIf Err.Number <> 0 Then
MsgBox "An error has occurred: " & _
Err.Number & vbCr & _
Err.Description
Exit Sub
End If

' Add each result to the task pane

' and to the log file
i = 0
For Each v In vSearchResults
sSearchURL = v.URL
sSearchDisplayTitle = StripHTML(v.title)
Application.NewDocument.Add _
FileName:=sSearchURL, _
Section:=msoBottomSection, _
DisplayName:=sSearchDisplayTitle, _
Action:=msoOpenFile

System.PrivateProfileString( _
FileName:=sLogFile, _

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Google from Word #63

Section:="GoogleTaskPane", _
Key:="URLName" & CStr(i)) = sSearchURL
System.PrivateProfileString( _
FileName:=sLogFile, _
Section:="GoogleTaskPane", _
Key:="EntryName" & CStr(i)) = sSearchDisplayTitle
i = i + 1
Next v

' Show the New Document Task Pane

CommandBars("Menu Bar").Controls("File").Controls("New...").Execute

End Sub

To help ensure a good Google search, the following two lines collapse two
ends of the selection if they contain spaces or a paragraph mark:
Selection.MoveStartWhile cset:=Chr$(32) & Chr$(19), _
Count:=Selection.Characters.Count
Selection.MoveEndWhile cset:=Chr$(32) & Chr$(19), _
Count:=-Selection.Characters.Count

—Andrew Savikas

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