A Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) code for finding all references (e.g. [42], [2—3, 4]) and increasing their numbers based on the preconfigured N and M values. Useful when inserting a new reference into the beginning of the bibliography of a large DOCX.

enumerate-and-replace.vba

Sub Highlight(Phrase As String)
    Application.ScreenUpdating = False
    With ActiveDocument
      With .Range
        With .Find
          .ClearFormatting
          .replacement.ClearFormatting
          .Format = False
          .Forward = True
          .Wrap = wdFindStop
          .MatchCase = True
          .MatchWholeWord = True
          .Text = Phrase
          .replacement.Text = ""
        End With
        Do While .Find.Execute
          .Text = Replace(Replace(Phrase, "[", "`"), "]", "|")
          .HighlightColorIndex = wdBrightGreen
          .Collapse wdCollapseEnd
        Loop
      End With
    End With
    Application.ScreenUpdating = True
End Sub

Sub HighlightReferences()
    Set regex = CreateObject("VBScript.RegExp")
    regex.Pattern = "\[([1-9][0-9, —-]*)\]"
    regex.IgnoreCase = True
    regex.Global = True
    Set matches = regex.Execute(ActiveDocument.Content.Text)
    For j = matches.Count - 1 To 0 Step -1
        Debug.Print matches(j)
        Highlight (matches(j))
    Next
End Sub

Sub ReplaceReference(Phrase As String, replacement As String)
    pinn = Mid(Phrase, 2, Len(Phrase) - 2)
    rinn = Mid(replacement, 2, Len(replacement) - 2)
    Application.ScreenUpdating = False
    With ActiveDocument
      With .Range
        With .Find
          .ClearFormatting
          .replacement.ClearFormatting
          .Format = False
          .Forward = True
          .Wrap = wdFindStop
          .MatchCase = True
          .MatchWholeWord = True
          .Text = Phrase
          .replacement.Text = ""
        End With
        Do While .Find.Execute
          .Text = replacement
          .HighlightColorIndex = IIf(StrComp(pinn, rinn), wdTurquoise, wdPink)
          .Collapse wdCollapseEnd
        Loop
      End With
    End With
    Application.ScreenUpdating = True
End Sub

Function ComputeReplacement(Reference As String) As String
    M = 208 ' The number of the first newly added reference to the bibliography section.
    N = 1   ' The count of the newly added references to the bibliography section.
    Set regex = CreateObject("VBScript.RegExp")
    regex.Pattern = "[0-9]+"
    regex.IgnoreCase = True
    regex.Global = True
    Value = Replace(Replace(Reference, "`", ""), "|", "")
    Set matches = regex.Execute(Value)
    For j = matches.Count - 1 To 0 Step -1
        match = matches(j)
        Number = CInt(match)
        If Number >= M Then
            Number = Number + N
        End If
        Value = Replace(Value, match, CStr(Number), 1, 1)
    Next
    Value = Replace(Value, "-", "—")
    ComputeReplacement = "[" + Value + "]"
End Function

Sub ReplaceReferences()
    Set regex = CreateObject("VBScript.RegExp")
    regex.Pattern = "\`([1-9][0-9, —-]*)\|"
    regex.IgnoreCase = True
    regex.Global = True
    Set matches = regex.Execute(ActiveDocument.Content.Text)
    For j = matches.Count - 1 To 0 Step -1
        Dim repl As String
        Dim match As String
        match = matches(j)
        repl = ComputeReplacement(match)
        Debug.Print match
        ReplaceReference match, repl
    Next
End Sub

Sub Op()
    HighlightReferences
    ReplaceReferences
End Sub