1 to 100 in 6.18 seconds, speed running with Microsoft Word

Speed Running, a gamers pastime has come to Microsoft Word.  Finding ways to type the numbers 1 to 100 in the fastest time.

If you’re unfamiliar with speed running, as we were, it’s playing and recording a pass through a game aiming to complete as fast as possible.

Someone came up with the idea of a speed run contest in Microsoft Word with some base rules

1. Type the numbers 1 through 100 as fast as possible.
2. Start with an empty clipboard (no Ctrl V clipboard cheating)
3. A default blank document in Microsoft Word.
4. All the numbers must be visible on one page.
5. No scripts or macros outside of Microsoft Word

As the competition developed it split into two camps:

• Number Pad only aka NumPad
• Any key aka  Any%

NumberPad only

The current manual number pad champ is ‘Thomas’ with a fast hand on the number pad and a finger on the spacebar to type all the numbers in 30 seconds.

Any key from 1 to 100

Using any key opens up many other Word features to speed up the ‘typing’.

‘Zaszthecroc’ got the time down to 16.08 seconds.  He created a table of 100 rows, added numbered list then copy/paste as unformatted text.  Finally some replaces to remove the fullstop/period after the numbered items.

[WR] Microsoft Word any% 1-100 in 16.08s by zaszthecroc from speedrun

The winner at 6.18 seconds

The current champ VostoKx uses fast hands and a clever touch of VBA for an astonishing time of 6.18 seconds.

The ‘rules’ allow for macros, but they have to be typed from scratch once the clock starts. The Immediate window in the VBA editor lets you type in code and run it immediately.  It’s normally used for testing and debugging.

1. Alt + F11 starts the VBA Editor in Word
2. Ctrl + G opens the Immediate window.
3. Type:
   for i = 1 to 100:selection.InsertAfter i & " ":next
4. Press Enter to run the code.

The colons separate commands on a single line. The code would normally look like this

For i = 1 to 100

    selection.InsertAfter i & " "

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