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How to find and highlight duplicate paragraphs in Word document?

Supposing, you have a large Word document which may have hundreds of pages, now, you want to check if there are duplicate paragraphs and then highlight to make them outstanding, so that you can deal with the duplicate sentences. How could you find and highlight the duplicate paragraphs quickly and easily in Word document?

Find and highlight the duplicate paragraphs in Word document with VBA code

Find and highlight the duplicate paragraphs in Word document with VBA code

To find and highlight the duplicate paragraphs in a Word document, the following VBA code can do you a favor, please do as this:

1. Hold down the ALT + F11 keys to open the Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications window.

2. And then, click Insert > Module, copy and paste below code into the opened blank module:

VBA code: Find and highlight the duplicate paragraphs in Word document:

Sub highlightdup()
    Dim I, J As Long
    Dim xRngFind, xRng As Range
    Dim xStrFind, xStr As String
    Options.DefaultHighlightColorIndex = wdYellow
    Application.ScreenUpdating = False
    With ActiveDocument
        For I = 1 To .Paragraphs.Count - 1
            Set xRngFind = .Paragraphs(I).Range
            If xRngFind.HighlightColorIndex <> wdYellow Then
                For J = I + 1 To .Paragraphs.Count
                    Set xRng = .Paragraphs(J).Range
                    If xRngFind.Text = xRng.Text Then
                        xRngFind.HighlightColorIndex = wdBrightGreen
                        xRng.HighlightColorIndex = wdYellow
                    End If
                Next
            End If
        Next
    End With
End Sub

3. And then press F5 key to run this code, all the duplicate sentences are highlighted at once, the first displayed duplicate paragraphs are highlighted with green color, and other duplicates are highlighted with yellow color, see screenshot:

doc highlight dup sentences 1

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Comments (15)
Rated 4.5 out of 5 · 1 ratings
Destini Brodi
Destini Brodi
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Can you help me it is not working can you helphttps://1drv.ms/w/s!Aja8bo-tfhqb-FVWcGUyvYPv07cX?e=lgJ4i1
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Vicky
Vicky
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Hi, mình chạy đoạn code trên nhưng không thấy ra kết quả giống bài viết, mình dùng word 2019, Ad support giúp mình nhé 
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Harsh
Harsh
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Hi, can anyone please suggest me to prepare a macro in ms word for finding error in paragraph.
Like:- "and or" "that that" "of the of the" "Sentence end without dot (.)" "New Sentence start with initial caps without ending the sending".
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Deitsa
Deitsa
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Thanks so much.A very valuable article, helped me with my duplicate copies and paste paragraphs!You are awesome.
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Tom
Tom
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Tried this for my book in MS Word. First, it would not work because I had bullet points. I removed them and then it only found 2 instances "blank page" and "table of contents". I purposely have several sentences repeated, and this macro did not find them. Thank you for trying, but I would say this doesn't work.
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Peter
Peter
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I had a very long document to process, the code above would take at least 100 days to finish and blocked everything while working at it. The main culprit is the "Set xRng = .Paragraphs(J).Range" which is very slow. I did an alternative version which ran in just 4 hours and presents a continuous report on the processing status and time to end. (To see the report in real time you have to open the "immediate window" by pressing Ctrl+G in the Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications window.) The code works well, except that it predicts a longer time to end than is actually the case (depends on the document). The code is as follows:

Sub highlightdup()
Dim StartTime, SecondsElapsed As Date
Dim secondsPerComparison As Double
Dim I, J, PC, totalComparisons, comparisonsDone, C, secondsToFinish As Long
Dim xRngFind, xRng As Range
Dim xStrg, minutesToFinish As String
Dim currentParag, nextParag As Paragraph
'Options.DefaultHighlightColorIndex = wdYellow
Application.ScreenUpdating = False
With ActiveDocument
StartTime = Now()
C = 0
PC = .Paragraphs.Count
totalComparisons = CLng((PC * (PC + 1)) / 2)
Set currentParag = .Paragraphs(1)
For I = 1 To PC - 1
'Debug.Print "processing paragraph " & I & " of a total of " & PC & " " & currentParag.Range.Text
'Debug.Print Len(currentParag) & currentParag
If currentParag.Range.HighlightColorIndex <> wdYellow Then
If currentParag.Range.HighlightColorIndex <> wdBrightGreen Then
Set nextParag = currentParag
For J = I + 1 To PC
Set nextParag = nextParag.Next
If currentParag.Range.Text = nextParag.Range.Text Then
currentParag.Range.HighlightColorIndex = wdBrightGreen
nextParag.Range.HighlightColorIndex = wdYellow
Debug.Print "found one!! " & " I = " & I & " J = " & J & nextParag.Range.Text
End If
Next
End If
End If
DoEvents
comparisonsDone = PC * (I - 1) + (J - I)
SecondsElapsed = DateDiff("s", StartTime, Now())
secondsPerComparison = CLng(SecondsElapsed) / comparisonsDone
secondsToFinish = CLng(secondsPerComparison * (totalComparisons - comparisonsDone))
minutesToFinish = Format(secondsToFinish / 86400, "hh:mm:ss")
elapsedTime = Format(SecondsElapsed / 86400, "hh:mm:ss")
Debug.Print "Finished procesing paragraph " & I & " of " & PC & ". Elapsed time = " & elapsedTime & ". Time to finish = " & minutesToFinish
Set currentParag = currentParag.Next
Next
End With
End Sub
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Emilia B
Emilia B     Peter
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Hi there! Thank you so much for this code. When I first tried to use it there was a syntax error that kept popping up. But, upon looking at the above code and this code I found a way to make it work and I figured it might help someone else: (Just follow the instructions above but copy and paste this instead) if you're finding yours is having a Syntax error like mine.

PC = .Paragraphs.Count
totalComparisons = CLng((PC * (PC + 1)) / 2)
Set currentParag = .Paragraphs(1)
For I = 1 To PC - 1
'Debug.Print "processing paragraph " & I & " of a total of " & PC & " " & currentParag.Range.Text
'Debug.Print Len(currentParag) & currentParag
If currentParag.Range.HighlightColorIndex <> wdYellow Then
If currentParag.Range.HighlightColorIndex <> wdBrightGreen Then
Set nextParag = currentParag
For J = I + 1 To PC
Set nextParag = nextParag.Next
If currentParag.Range.Text = nextParag.Range.Text Then
currentParag.Range.HighlightColorIndex = wdBrightGreen
nextParag.Range.HighlightColorIndex = wdYellow
Debug.Print "found one!! " & amp; " I = " & amp; I & amp; " J = " & amp; J & amp; nextParag.Range.Text
End If
Next
End If
End If
DoEvents
comparisonsDone = PC * (I - 1) + (J - I)
SecondsElapsed = DateDiff("s", StartTime, Now())
secondsPerComparison = CLng(SecondsElapsed) / comparisonsDone
secondsToFinish = CLng(secondsPerComparison * (totalComparisons - comparisonsDone))
minutesToFinish = Format(secondsToFinish / 86400, "hh:mm:ss")
elapsedTime = Format(SecondsElapsed / 86400, "hh:mm:ss")
Debug.Print "Finished procesing paragraph " & amp; I & amp; " of " & amp; PC & amp; ". Elapsed time = " & amp; elapsedTime & amp; ". Time to finish = " & amp; minutesToFinish
Set currentParag = currentParag.Next
Next
End With
End Sub
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Rated 4.5 out of 5
dideku
dideku     Peter
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Thank you, you saved my day already twice. This work like magic.
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masque de chair
masque de chair     Peter
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thank you very much, it works perfectly and very quickly !

Paul (from France)
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Emmanouil
Emmanouil     Peter
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Sir, kindly thank you and please have good winds in your life.
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helin
helin
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Hello



Thank you for the helping



But how can I find the same sentences in my text?



Regards
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Helin
Helin
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Hello

Thank you for the helping

But how can I find the same sentences in my text?

Regards
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Alex
Alex
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It throws Compile error: Syntax error, the code is 100% as the example.
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dvid
dvid
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I tried, and it works fine!
I just wanted to know - could I do the same thing - but not a whole paragraph, but a sentence with a few words I'd set up - like 10 words?
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