VBA Macro: Bibliography Sorter for Microsoft Word

This VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) macro will help you renumber the bibliography list in Microsoft Word by the order of cross-reference’s appearance, and update cross-reference fields automatically.

Should you encounter any problem with this tool, please leave a comment below or email me.

How It Works

Warning: Always remember to make a copy of your document before running this macro, in case of any unexpected changes.

For example, if you have a following paragraph:

This is an example paragraph for demonstrating how Bibliography Sorter for Microsoft Word [3] works. This tool is distributed in VBA (Visual Basic for Applications [1]) macro. This tool will help you renumber the bibliography list in Microsoft Word [3] by the order of cross-reference’s [4] appearance, and update cross-reference fields [2] automatically.

… and following bibliography:

[1] Visual Basic for Applications - Wikipedia. Retrieved 4 October 2020, from https://…
[2] Insert, edit, and view fields in Word - Office Support. Retrieved 4 October 2020, from https://…
[3] Microsoft Word - Word Processing Software | Office. Retrieved 4 October 2020, from https://…
[4] Create a cross-reference - Word. Retrieved 4 October 2020, from https://…

This tool will help you renumber the bibliography and thus the resulting paragraph:

This is an example paragraph for demonstrating how Bibliography Sorter for Microsoft Word [1] works. This tool is distributed in VBA (Visual Basic for Applications [2]) macro. This tool will help you renumber the bibliography list in Microsoft Word [1] by the order of cross-reference’s [3] appearance, and update cross-reference fields [4] automatically.

… and the resulting bibliography:

[1] Microsoft Word - Word Processing Software | Office. Retrieved 4 October 2020, from https://…
[2] Visual Basic for Applications - Wikipedia. Retrieved 4 October 2020, from https://…
[3] Create a cross-reference - Word. Retrieved 4 October 2020, from https://…
[4] Insert, edit, and view fields in Word - Office Support. Retrieved 4 October 2020, from https://…

Note: The order of consecutive cross-reference fields may need to be manually updated.

Download

You may follow this YouTube video for how to install VBA macro into your Word.

• VBA Marco: SortBibliographyByAppearance.bas. SHA1: 297957c55c3b015a96a5a0e24289ce6baab93972