can I setup a custom collection in Word VBA to add vocabulary definitions to a Word document?

Hello @Edward Evans ,

You can store vocabulary entries (term + definition + document position) in a VBA Collection.

A Word Range itself is not typically used directly as the collection “key”. In VBA, the Key argument of Collection.Add is a unique string expression, so a common approach is to store Range.Start/Range.End with the item and if you want a key, build a string like "Start:End".

Also, a VBA collection does not self-sort like endnotes appear to. Endnotes/footnotes are a Word feature that Word manages and orders automatically. (See: Insert footnotes and endnotes in Word.)

Placing definitions on the exact facing page is a separate Word page-layout/pagination problem (page breaks can change as the document is edited), so it helps to understand how Word handles page breaks and pagination.

I made a small lab to test like this:

Class Module

Option Explicit

Public Term As String
Public Definition As String
Public StartPos As Long
Public EndPos As Long
Public Key As String

Module

Option Explicit

Public VocabCollection As Collection

Sub InitVocabCollection()
    Set VocabCollection = New Collection
End Sub

Sub AddSelectedWordToCollection()
    Dim rng As Range
    Dim item As VocabItem
    Dim defText As String
    If VocabCollection Is Nothing Then Set VocabCollection = New Collection
    If Selection.Range.Start = Selection.Range.End Then Exit Sub
    Set rng = Selection.Range
    defText = InputBox("Enter definition for: " & Trim$(rng.Text))
    If defText = "" Then Exit Sub
    Set item = New VocabItem
    item.Term = Trim$(rng.Text)
    item.Definition = defText
    item.StartPos = rng.Start
    item.EndPos = rng.End
    item.Key = CStr(item.StartPos) & ":" & CStr(item.EndPos)
    VocabCollection.Add item, item.Key
End Sub

Sub ShowCollectionItems()
    Dim i As Long, item As VocabItem, msg As String
    For i = 1 To VocabCollection.Count
        Set item = VocabCollection(i)
        msg = msg & i & ". " & item.Term & " (Start=" & item.StartPos & ")" & vbCrLf
    Next i
    MsgBox msg
End Sub

Sub ShowItemsSortedByPosition()
    Dim items() As VocabItem
    Dim i As Long, j As Long
    Dim tmp As VocabItem
    Dim msg As String
    ReDim items(1 To VocabCollection.Count)
    For i = 1 To VocabCollection.Count
        Set items(i) = VocabCollection(i)
    Next i
    For i = 1 To UBound(items) - 1
        For j = i + 1 To UBound(items)
            If items(j).StartPos < items(i).StartPos Then
                Set tmp = items(i)
                Set items(i) = items(j)
                Set items(j) = tmp
            End If
        Next j
    Next i
    For i = 1 To UBound(items)
        msg = msg & i & ". " & items(i).Term & " (Start=" & items(i).StartPos & ")" & vbCrLf
    Next i
    MsgBox msg
End Sub

In my test,

I added the terms in this order: Cherry, then Apple, then Banana. When I ran ShowCollectionItems(), the collection displayed the items as Cherry -> Apple -> Banana, which confirms it keeps insertion order.

After I manually sorted the items by StartPos, ShowItemsSortedByPosition() displayed Apple -> Banana -> Cherry, which matches the document order.

Hope this clarifies your question. If you found my answer helpful, please follow this guide to give feedback.

Thank you.