Excel - Add sequential numbers to cell text based on line breaks - vba

Question

I have a worksheet that contains information on projects. The worksheet contains a column which contains risks for each project. There is a one-to-many relationship between a project and its risks.
Currently the risks for a projects are added to single cell and separated by a line break. I need to add sequential identifiers at the start of each risk. So for example inside a particular cell it should look like this. The sequential number should be bold if at all possible.
1).**Risk 1
2).**Risk 2
3).**Risk 3
etc.
Any suggestions on how to tackle this would be appreciated.

Answer 1

Here's how I'd approach it via UDF:
' Reformats a list from a simple delimitation to a numbered list
' Accepts arrays of strings for inList (allowing array formulas)
' numFormat is a standard Excel-style format string (default "0. ")
' inDelimiter is the delimiter in the input list
' outDelimiter is the delimiter for the output list
Public Function TO_NUMBERED_LIST(inList As Variant, Optional numFormat As Variant, _
Optional inDelimiter As Variant, Optional outDelimiter As Variant) As Variant
Dim i As Integer, j As Integer
' Set default parameters
If IsMissing(numFormat) Then numFormat = "0). "
If IsMissing(inDelimiter) Then inDelimiter = vbNewLine
If IsMissing(outDelimiter) Then outDelimiter = inDelimiter
If IsArray(inList) Then ' Must loop through each entry if using as an array formula
Dim outList() As Variant
ReDim outList(0 To (UBound(inList) - LBound(inList)), 1 To 1)
j = 0
For i = LBound(inList) To UBound(inList)
If IsError(inList(i, 1)) Then
outList(j, 1) = inList(i, 1)
Else
outList(j, 1) = MakeNumbered(CStr(inList(i, 1)), CStr(numFormat), CStr(inDelimiter), CStr(outDelimiter))
End If
j = j + 1
Next
TO_NUMBERED_LIST = outList
Else
TO_NUMBERED_LIST = MakeNumbered(CStr(inList), CStr(numFormat), CStr(inDelimiter), CStr(outDelimiter))
End If
End Function
' Helper function to do the actual work of splitting lists, numbering them, and recombining them
Private Function MakeNumbered(inList As String, Optional numFormat As String, _
Optional inDelimiter As String, Optional outDelimiter As String) As String
Dim i As Integer
Dim tokenArr() As String
tokenArr = Split(inList, inDelimiter)
For i = 0 To UBound(tokenArr)
tokenArr(i) = Format(i + 1, numFormat) & tokenArr(i)
Next
MakeNumbered = Join(tokenArr, outDelimiter)
End Function
I leverage some knowledge from your previous thread, like the fact that the input might be an array (and the whole function might be used in an array formula) but will only ever be 1-dimensional.
I've made this pretty general for reformatting. It can take in lists with any input delimiter (in your case, a newline) and output using any desired delimiter (in your case, still a newline). The numFormat parameter acts using the Format function and supports formats like you would commonly see in Excel. Check the documentation if you need help there.
Default parameters have already been tweaked for your example - newline as delimiter(s) and "0). " as numbering format.

Answer 2

You can use the Split function on each cell value to create an array of risks and then prefix each risk with the sequence id. Then you can use the Join function to put the array back into a single value to update the cell with.
Depending on how the newlines got into the cell you might need to use vbCrLf, or vbNewLine instead of vbLf in the following example code:
Option Explicit
Sub AddRiskSequence()
Dim rngRisks As Range
Dim rngCell As Range
Dim varRisks As Variant
Dim lngIndex As Long
'set range with risk values
Set rngRisks = Sheet2.Range("B2:B4")
'iterate cells in risk column
For Each rngCell In rngRisks
'split cell contents by line feed into array
varRisks = VBA.Split(rngCell.Value, vbLf)
'iterate array and add sequence ids
For lngIndex = 0 To UBound(varRisks)
varRisks(lngIndex) = VBA.CStr(lngIndex + 1) & ") " & varRisks(lngIndex)
Next lngIndex
'rejoin array and update cell value
rngCell.Value = VBA.Join(varRisks, vbLf)
Next rngCell
End Sub
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