Capturing coordinates

Making macros user-friendly : Providing user interaction for macros : Capturing coordinates

Capturing coordinates

When capturing mouse actions, or when developing a complex macro solution, you may want to convert between screen coordinates and document coordinates. This conversion is done with the methods ScreenToDocument and DocumentToScreen of the Window class.

The following VBA example converts a set of screen coordinates into a point in the document that is visible in the active window:

Dim docX As Double, docY As Double

ActiveDocument.Unit = cdrMillimeter

ActiveWindow.ScreenToDocument 440, 500, docX, docY

The following VBA example returns the screen coordinates of a point in the document as it appears on the screen:

Dim screenX As Long, screenY As Long

ActiveDocument.Unit = cdrMillimeter

ActiveWindow.DocumentToScreen 40, 60, screenX, screenY

In both examples, the converted coordinates are returned in the last two parameters.

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Screen coordinates start from the upper-left corner of the screen, so positive y-values are down the screen, whereas negative y-values are up the screen.

You can test whether a set of coordinates (that is, a point) is inside, outside, or on the outline of a curve by using the Shape.IsOnShape method. For a set of document coordinates, this method returns one of the following:

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cdrInsideShape — if the coordinate is inside the shape

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cdrOutsideShape — if the coordinate is outside the shape

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cdrOnMarginOfShape — if the coordinate is on or near the outline of the shape

For example, the following VBA code tests where the point (4, 6) is in relation to the active shape:

Dim onShape As Long

ActiveDocument.Unit = cdrInch

onShape = ActiveShape.IsOnShape(4, 6)