title: VBA to parse multiple text files?
body: <p>I'm trying to do some crude parsing of a bunch of text files.  Basically, I'm looking to remove characters like <code>(){}[]"'</code>, then replace colons with semicolons then replace strings with better looking strings.</p>
  
  <p>The kicker is that I have about 1,500 files that need to have this done to them.  If I merge all the files, first, then try to do the parsing, the app stops responding.<br>
  I have been using windows macros to do this, and it works on each of the files individually, but I don't know how to have it do it to all the files in that directory.</p>
  
  <p>Example of the code I'm using:</p>
  
  <pre><code>Selection.Find.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll
  With Selection.Find
      .Text = "["
      .Replacement.Text = ""
      .Forward = True
      .Wrap = wdFindContinue
      .Format = False
      .MatchCase = False
      .MatchWholeWord = False
      .MatchWildcards = False
      .MatchSoundsLike = False
      .MatchAllWordForms = False
  End With
  Selection.Find.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll
  With Selection.Find
      .Text = "]"
      .Replacement.Text = ""
      .Forward = True
      .Wrap = wdFindContinue
      .Format = False
      .MatchCase = False
      .MatchWholeWord = False
      .MatchWildcards = False
      .MatchSoundsLike = False
      .MatchAllWordForms = False
  End With
  Selection.Find.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll
  With Selection.Find
      .Text = ","
      .Replacement.Text = ""
      .Forward = True
      .Wrap = wdFindContinue
      .Format = False
      .MatchCase = False
      .MatchWholeWord = False
      .MatchWildcards = False
      .MatchSoundsLike = False
      .MatchAllWordForms = False
  End With
  Selection.Find.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll
  With Selection.Find
      .Text = """"
      .Replacement.Text = ""
      .Forward = True
      .Wrap = wdFindContinue
      .Format = False
      .MatchCase = False
      .MatchWholeWord = False
      .MatchWildcards = False
      .MatchSoundsLike = False
      .MatchAllWordForms = False
  End With
  </code></pre>