Application.OnTime stops firing after changing the active document - vba

Question

I am trying to implement an autosave function for all documents created from a certain template. In this template I have created the following for tests:
Dim doc As Document
Dim count As Integer
Private Sub Document_Open()
count = 1
Set doc = ActiveDocument
SaveTime
End Sub
Sub SaveTime()
Application.OnTime When:=Now + TimeValue("00:00:15"), _
name:="DoSave"
End Sub
Sub DoSave()
doc.SaveAs2 "c:\test\testsave" & count & ".docx"
count = count + 1
SaveTime
End Sub
Now if I open a document thats created by this template the autosaving works every 15 seconds as intended (15sec + the counter with different name is just for testing).
BUT as soon as I create a new document in Word or open another file the autosaving in the first document stops working and also doesnt come back if I continue to work in the document.
How can I make the autosave work no matter of which document is active? Like this the feature would only work if only one Document is open at a time, which I can not garantuee of course.

Answer 1

Shot in the dark here, but you are dimming doc within the scope of the module (from what I can tell). It is possible that opening the new document causes this to go out of scope. It would be best to just pass the document between routines.
Something like this:
' This will declare count within the scope of the module
Private count As Integer
Private Sub Document_Open()
count = 1
SaveTime ActiveDocument
End Sub
Sub SaveTime(doc as Document)
Application.OnTime When:=Now + TimeValue("00:00:15"), "'DoSave doc'"
End Sub
Sub DoSave(doc as Document)
doc.SaveAs2 "c:\test\testsave" & count & ".docx"
count = count + 1
SaveTime
End Sub
I haven't used OnTime much, so if the syntax above doesnt allow arguments to be passed, here is a version using a Private doc variable.
' This will declare count and doc within the scope of the module
Private count As Integer
Private doc as Document
Private Sub Document_Open()
count = 1
SaveTime
End Sub
Sub SaveTime()
Application.OnTime When:=Now + TimeValue("00:00:15"), "DoSave"
End Sub
Sub DoSave()
doc.SaveAs2 "c:\test\testsave" & count & ".docx"
count = count + 1
SaveTime
End Sub
I hope this helps. I mostly work within Excel for VBA so I apologize if I am way off the mark here.
EDIT:
I figured it out. What is happening is every time your save event fires it is saving the active document as a new file, but it is not creating a new instance. For example, if test is your first document then:
Test Opens > Event Fires > Test becomes Test2.docx ( Event Fires > Test2 becomes Test3 etc.
Since the code is still stored in memory somehow (this is the part I dont fully understand, but it is, from what I can tell, is what's happening) the event still fires. The problem is, opening a new document somehow refreshes this and the event cancels.
There is a simple workaround, see below:
Option Explicit
Private doc As Document
Private count As Integer
Private Sub Document_Open()
count = 1
Set doc = ActiveDocument
SaveTime
End Sub
Sub SaveTime()
Application.OnTime Now + TimeValue("00:00:15"), "DoSave"
End Sub
Sub DoSave()
doc.Save
Application.Documents.Add doc.FullName
ActiveDocument.SaveAs2 "c:\test\testsave" & count & ".docx"
ActiveDocument.Close
count = count + 1
SaveTime
End Sub
This creates a new instance of the document, saves this new instance, and then closes it. This leaves the old instance in-tact and running.
I hope that all makes sense. Admittedly, I am not clear on why the code remains in memory even when the document holding the code no longer exists.