Creating psychedelic images with word and VBA

The Shape object of MS-Word can be used to insert pictures into word documents with VBA. If I insert a small picture and blow it up to use the entire page size, it creates a cool, almost psychedelic effect.

Here's the image: Its size is 20x30 pixels, approximately the aspect ratio of an A4 document.

The function, named main needs a parameter, path, that points to the location of the image:

sub main(path)

First, we declare a variable for the image (background_image), which is a shape), then load an image and assign it to the variable:

dim background_image as shape set background_image = activeDocument.shapes.addPicture( _ fileName := path & "\background.png", _ linkToFile := false)

Then, we need to place the image's top left corner on the page's top left corner:

background_image.relativeVerticalPosition = _ wdRelativeVerticalPositionPage background_image.top = 0 background_image.relativeHorizontalPosition = _ wdRelativeHorizontalPositionPage background_image.left = 0

Finally, we want the image to be behind the text in case we're going to write on it:

background_image.zOrder msoSendBehindText

This VBA program should be saved into a file, for example backgroundImage.bas. It can then be executed with a

runVBAFilesInOffice.vbs -word backgroundImage -c main %CD%

.

The resulting word (or image) then looks like

Links

See this link for runVBAFilesInOffice.vbs.

Source code on github