PoshBytes: Fixing Word Formatting with PowerShell

Three blank pages at the end of a Word document that refuse to disappear. Instead of fighting Word’s formatting ghosts, we use PowerShell to surgically fix everything.

This post is a companion for the video embedded below. Scroll down to see the code from the video.

https://youtube.com/shorts/IbDPqxVkCXA

Example of something

Open Word and the document

$Word = New-Object -ComObject Word.Application
$Word.Visible = $true
$Doc = $Word.Documents.Open(".\MyWordDocument.docx")

Loop through each paragraph

foreach($Paragraph in $Doc.Paragraphs) {
    "--new---"
    $Paragraph.Range.Text
}

Once we hit the last real paragraph, delete everything after it

$kill = $false
foreach($Paragraph in $Doc.Paragraphs) {
    if($kill) {
        $Paragraph.Range.Delete()
    }
    elseif ($Paragraph.Range.Text -match "Someone who cursed the entire unit") {
        $kill = $true
    }
}

Save and clean up

$Doc.Save()
$Doc.Close()
$Word.Quit()

Wrap Up

• Word formatting can create blank pages that refuse to delete
• PowerShell can automate Word through the COM object
• Loop through $Doc.Paragraphs to inspect document content
• Use a flag to delete everything after the last real paragraph
• Automation beats fighting formatting every time