# Visual Basic > Visual Basic FAQs >  [FAQ's: OD] How do I read/write a document's BuiltIn properties?

## RobDog888

The Properties dialog items can be viewed from the menu - "File > Properties > Summary tab" as displayed in Fig. 1 below.


These are the constanst for the available builtin document properties. If you are doing late binding then you can find the constant values in Word Object Browser.
wdPropertyAppNamewdPropertyAuthorwdPropertyByteswdPropertyCategorywdPropertyCharacterswdPropertyCharsWSpaceswdPropertyCommentswdPropertyCompanywdPropertyFormatwdPropertyHiddenSlideswdPropertyHyperlinkBasewdPropertyKeywordswdPropertyLastAuthorwdPropertyLineswdPropertyManagerwdPropertyMMClipswdPropertyNoteswdPropertyPageswdPropertyParaswdPropertyRevisionwdPropertySecuritywdPropertySlideswdPropertySubjectwdPropertyTemplatewdPropertyTimeCreatedwdPropertyTimeLastPrintedwdPropertyTimeLastSavedwdPropertyTitlewdPropertyVBATotalEditwdPropertyWords


*Word 2003 VBA Code Example:*

VB Code:
'READ PROPERTIES
Option Explicit
 Private Sub cmdReadProps_Click()
     Dim iLines As Integer
    iLines = ActiveDocument.BuiltInDocumentProperties(wdPropertyLines)
    MsgBox "There are " & iLines & " lines in the current document.", vbOkOnly + vbInformation
     Dim lWords As Long
    lWords = ActiveDocument.BuiltInDocumentProperties(wdPropertyWords)
    MsgBox "There are " & lWords & " words in the current document.", vbOkOnly
     Dim sWhen As String
    sWhen = ActiveDocument.BuiltInDocumentproperties(wdPropertyTimeLastSaved)
    MsgBox "The last time the current document was saved was " & sWhen, vbOkOnly
     Dim sPrinted As String
    sPrinted = ActiveDocument.BuiltInDocumentProperties(wdPropertyTimeLastPrinted)
    MsgBox "The last time the current document was printed was " & sPrinted, vbOkOnly
 End Sub


VB Code:
'WRITE PROPERTIES
Option Explicit
 Private Sub cmdWriteProps_Click()
     ActiveDocument.BuiltInDocumentProperties(wdPropertyTitle) = "How do I read/write a document's BuiltIn properties?"
    
    ActiveDocument.BuiltInDocumentProperties(wdPropertySubject) = "[FAQ's: OD] Word"
    
    ActiveDocument.BuiltInDocumentProperties(wdPropertyCompany) = "VB/Office Guru"
    
    ActiveDocument.BuiltInDocumentProperties(wdPropertyCategory) = "Office Development - Word"
    
    ActiveDocument.BuiltInDocumentProperties(wdPropertyComments) = "This is a FAQ code example of manipulating Words BuiltIn document properties."
    
    ActiveDocument.BuiltInDocumentProperties(wdPropertyHyperlinkBase) = "http://vbforums.com/forumdisplay.php?f=37"
 End Sub

Fig. 1

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