Article · Wikipedia archive · Last revised May 27, 2026

WordBASIC

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.

Last revised
May 27, 2026
Read time
≈ 1 min
Length
147 w
Citations
3
Source
WordBASIC
DeveloperMicrosoft
First appeared1989 (1989)
OSMicrosoft Windows, Mac OS X
LicenseCommercial proprietary software
Influenced by
QuickBASIC

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.1 Contrarily to VBA, WordBasic was not object-oriented but consisted of a flat list of approximately 900 commands.2

Example code

The following code snippets show the difference between WordBasic and VBA with a "Hello, World!" example:3

WordBasic:

Sub MAIN
  FormatFont .Name = "Arial", .Points = 10
  Insert "Hello, World!"
End Sub

VBA:

Public Sub Main()
    With Selection.Font
        .Name = "Arial"
        .Size = 10
    End With
    Selection.TypeText Text:="Hello, World!"
End Sub
References

References

  1. Halvorson, Michael; Kinata, Chris (1997). Microsoft Word 97 Visual Basic Step by Step. Redmond, WA: Microsoft Press. ISBN 1-57231-388-9.
  2. Conceptual Differences Between WordBasic and Visual Basic, 07/11/2006, Microsoft Docs Archived
  3. Converting WordBasic Macros to Visual Basic, 07/11/2006, Microsoft Docs Archived