WordBASIC
title: "WordBASIC" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["basic-programming-language-family", "microsoft-office", "programming-languages-created-in-1989", "macro-programming-languages"] topic_path: "technology/programming-languages" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WordBASIC" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::data[format=table title="Infobox programming language"]
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| year | |
| developer | Microsoft |
| influenced_by | QuickBASIC |
| operating_system | Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X |
| license | Commercial proprietary software |
| :: |
| year = | developer = Microsoft | influenced_by = QuickBASIC | operating_system = Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X | license = Commercial proprietary software | wikibooks = WordBASIC was a subset of Microsoft QuickBASIC customized for word-processing in Microsoft Word. It was replaced by Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) when Word 97 was released. Contrarily to VBA, WordBasic was not object-oriented but consisted of a flat list of approximately 900 commands.
Example code
The following code snippets show the difference between WordBasic and VBA with a "Hello, World!" example:
WordBasic: ::code[lang=vbscript] Sub MAIN FormatFont .Name = "Arial", .Points = 10 Insert "Hello, World!" End Sub ::
VBA: ::code[lang=vbscript] Public Sub Main() With Selection.Font .Name = "Arial" .Size = 10 End With Selection.TypeText Text:="Hello, World!" End Sub ::
References
References
- (1997). "Microsoft Word 97 Visual Basic Step by Step". Microsoft Press.
- [https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/aa211963%28v=office.11%29.aspx Conceptual Differences Between WordBasic and Visual Basic], 07/11/2006, Microsoft Docs [https://web.archive.org/web/20181201005818/https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/office/developer/office-2003/aa211963(v=office.11) Archived]
- [https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/aa211926%28v=office.11%29.aspx Converting WordBasic Macros to Visual Basic], 07/11/2006, Microsoft Docs [https://web.archive.org/web/20181201005937/https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/office/developer/office-2003/aa211926(v=office.11) Archived]
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