Debate Scripts

This is a collection of scripts to extend Verbatim's functionality and provide macros that are useful in competitive debate.

Note that the work is not entirely my own and large amounts of inspiration and certain functions have been taken from other people's implementations of these macros.

Easy Installation

The easiest way to install an up-to-date version of the macros is by installing the version of Debate.dotm that's shipped with each release.

Warning

This will delete all your settings, customizations, keybindings, and custom styles. If you do not want that to happen, follow the steps outlined in the Manual Installation section.

Go to the Releases page. Download the Debate.dotm file attached to the latest release.

Quit Word. Open your Word templates directory.

On Mac, this is

~/Library/Group Containers/UBF8T346G9.Office/User Content/Templates

On Windows, this is

%appdata%\Microsoft\Templates\

Replace the version of Debate.dotm you have in that folder with the file you just downloaded.

Launch Word. Set your keybindings.

Manual Installation

If you wish to have granular control over your installation or want to preserve your other settings, use this approach.

Module Setup

To install scripts in Word you need to add them as a Module in the Visual Basic section of the existing MS Word template that you want them to be available in. For Verbatim scripts, this means opening a Verbatimized document (document with the template applied) and then following the next steps depending on your operating system.

Mac

Go to the menu bar > Tools > Macro > Visual Basic Editor

Windows

Go to the Word home menu > options (bottom) > customize ribbon > in Main Tabs check Developer

You'll now have a developer tab in the Word ribbon. Then,

Go to Developer > Visual Basic

Adding Macros

For convenience, you can add all the macros to the Custom module that Verbatim provides. You can access this by going into the sidebar on the left, expanding Verbatim, and clicking on the Custom module. Then, you should copy and paste each script from the files in this repository into the custom module.

Important

You can generally pick and choose which scripts to add, with the exception that the helper.bas script is always required.

Adding Keybindings

After adding the macros, you also need to add keybindings to trigger them.

Mac

1. Go to the menu bar > Tools > Customize Keyboard
2. Make sure you set Save changes in to Debate.dotm
3. In Categories scroll down and click Macros then find the macro you want to bind
4. Add the keyboard shortcut, then click Save

Windows

To do this in Windows, follow this guide.

Adding Styles

You should add the following two styles to your Verbatim template.

• Analytic¹: for analytic arguments that you want omitted from the doc you send to your opponent.
• Undertag: for brief notes that go below tags which you want omitted from the doc you send to your opponent and also don't want to show up in the sidebar.

To add styles to your template, do the following in some verbatimized document:

1. Open the styles pane
2. Click New Style
3. Name it Analytic / Undertag
4. Check Add to template

For Analytic, go back to your document, select a Tag, right-click the Analytic style in your sidebar, and click Update to match selection.

You can aestheticize the styles as you wish.

Customization

Some of the scripts permit user customization, you can find and customize these values in the helpers.bas file at the bottom.

Scripts

We provide the following scripts:

Zapper

Deletes text which is not to be read in round, like non-highlighted card body.

Function Name	Description
CreateZappedDoc	Creates a new document which is a zapped version of the currently opened doc.
ZapCard	Zaps the card your cursor is in the tag of.

Send Doc

Creates a version of a speech document omitting parts you don't wish to send to your opponent, like analytics and undertags.

Function Name	Description
CreateSendDoc	Deletes the following styles: Analytic, Analytics, Undertag
CreateSendDocNoHeaders	Like CreateSendDoc, but also deletes headers. This deletes all the following styles: Analytic, Analytics, Undertag, Block, Hat, Pocket

For Reference

Changes the highlight color of selected text to gray and converts it to a background fill, preventing it from being affected by standardize highlighting. Also optionally shrinks text size down 2 font sizes.

Function Name	Description
ForReferenceFast	More performant version, which sometimes may remove the boxes around emphasis.
ForReferenceSlow	Does not remove any styles, but less performant.

Card Marker

Allows you to conveniently mark a card at your cursor and then compile all the marked cards in the document at the end for easy reference.

Function Name	Description
MarkCard	Creates a "mark" at the cursor's position in the body of a card, shading the rest of the card body red to indicate it wasn't read during the speech.
CompileMarkedCards	Creates a section at the bottom of the doc with all the cards marked in the current document.

Word Count

Function Name	Description
WordCount	Displays the word count of a document, measuring only the text that you'll read in a round.

Footnotes

1. Some teams have their style for Analytic arguments named as Analytics. In my opinion, this is incorrect. All of the other styles that Verbatim provides are in the singular tense, e.g. Tag, Cite, Hat, etc. and not in the plural tense, e.g. Tags, Cites, etc. Therefore, to maintain consistency with the default Verbatim styles, any added styles should also be in the singular tense. ↩