VBA script not affecting first cell in a table - vba

Question

I have a VBA script designed to strip non-breaking spaces out of a table in Microsoft Word by searching for NBSPS and then replacing them with regular spaces and then using trim to clean up spaces before and after text. As it stand, the code will work for everything except trimming the first cell in a table (it does however, replace the spaces in the first cell). I was hoping to find out if there are any unique behaviors to Word/VBA that might cause this as I will be making several macros for tables in MS Word.
Sub nbsbCleanupQuick()
' use find and replace to replace all nbsp in the table with regular spaces
' use trim to clean up unwanted spaces
' For some reason this macro will replace nbsp with regular spaces but will not trim in the first cell of a table
' vars for counting
Dim numRows, numCells As Integer
Dim rindex, cindex As Integer
'container for cell contents
Dim container As String
Selection.Tables(1).Select
numRows = Selection.Rows.Count
For rindex = 1 To numRows
numCells = Selection.Tables(1).Rows(rindex).Cells.Count
For cindex = 1 To numCells
container = ""
Selection.Tables(1).Rows(rindex).Cells(cindex).Range.Select
With Selection.Find
.Text = Chr(160)
.Replacement.Text = Chr(32)
.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll, Wrap:=wdFindContinue
End With
If (Len(Selection.Text) - 2 > 0) Then
container = Left(Selection.Text, Len(Selection.Text) - 2)
End If
Selection.Text = Trim(container)
Next
Next
End Sub
Any help would be appreciated :)

Answer 1

Because you are at the beginning of bigger project I'll give you some advices with some more changes of your code. See proposed solution below with some comments explaining reasons for changes inside the code. Obviously this solves the problem you described in your question.
Sub nbsbCleanupQuick()
' use find and replace to replace all nbsp in the table with regular spaces
' use trim to clean up unwanted spaces
' For some reason this macro will replace nbsp with regular spaces but will not trim in the first cell of a table
' vars for counting
Dim numRows, numCells As Integer
Dim rindex, cindex As Integer
'container for cell contents
Dim container As String
Selection.Tables(1).Select
numRows = Selection.Rows.Count
'do replacement once, at the beginning
'it will be more efficient option
ActiveDocument.Tables(1).Select
With Selection.Find
.Text = Chr(160)
.Replacement.Text = Chr(32)
.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll ', Wrap:=wdFindContinue
'keep wrap parameter switch off to do replacement only within table 1
End With
'to iterate through all cells in table use this kind of loop
Dim tblCell As Cell
For Each tblCell In ActiveDocument.Tables(1).Range.Cells
'it's not necessary to select but I didn't want to
'change your solution completly
tblCell.Select
'this check is easier to understand
If (Len(Selection.Text) > 2) Then
container = Left(Selection.Text, Len(Selection.Text) - 2)
End If
Selection.Text = Trim(container)
Next
End Sub