How to: Change a Content Control from One Type to Another

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Word Developer Reference

The content controls that you can create in Microsoft Office Word 2007 documents are extremely flexible. In most cases, you can easily switch a content control from one type to another. For example, if you have a date content control, you can change it to be a text content control, or if you have a text content control, you can change it to be a rich-text content control. To do this, you use the Type property and set it to a WdContentControlType constant.

Bb243850.vs_note(en-us,office.12).gif  Note
Depending on the contents of a content control, you may not be able to change the content control type. For example, if you have a rich-text content control that contains formatted text, you may not be able to change the control to be a plain-text content control. In this case, Word raises a run-time error.

The objects used in this sample are:

The following example inserts a new date content control that contains the current date and then changes it to be a text content control.

  Sub ChangeTypeOfControl()
    Dim objCC As ContentControl
    Dim strDate As Date
    
    strDate = Date
    Set objCC = Selection.ContentControls.Add(wdContentControlDate)
    objCC.Range.Text = strDate
    
    objCC.Type = wdContentControlText
End Sub

The following example inserts a drop-down list content control and then changes it to be a rich-text content control.

  Sub ChangeContentControlType()
    Dim objCC As ContentControl
    
    Set objCC = ActiveDocument.ContentControls.Add(Type:=wdContentControlDropdownList)
    objCC.SetPlaceholderText Text:="My Favorite Animal"
    
    'List entries
    objCC.DropdownListEntries.Add "Cat"
    objCC.DropdownListEntries.Add "Dog"
    objCC.DropdownListEntries.Add "Horse"
    objCC.DropdownListEntries.Add "Monkey"
    objCC.DropdownListEntries.Add "Snake"
    objCC.DropdownListEntries.Add "Other"
        
    Stop
    
    ' Switch to view the new content control in the active document.
    ' Notice that the content control is a drop-down list.
    
    objCC.Type = wdContentControlRichText
    
    ' After running the above code, the content control is no longer
    ' a drop-down; it is a text content control.  Only the placeholder 
    ' text remains; Word removes the items in the list.
End Sub