Use VBA to replace RegEx strings with hyperlinks in Word - regex

Question

I'm trying to search through a word document and replace regex matches with a series of static hyperlinks.
For example, if I get a regex match for "A-1", I want to replace the "A-1" string with a hyperlink with Anchor = "A-1" and Address = "https://www.my_website.com/A-1". My RegEx matches could be "A-1", "A-2", "A-3", etc.
I'm familiar with RegEx but I'm very new to VBA. What I have so far:
Sub FindAndHyperlink()
Dim RegEx As Object
Set RegEx = CreateObject("VBScript.RegExp")
RegEx.Global = True
RegEx.Pattern = "([A][\-])([0-9])"
Set Matches = RegEx.Execute(ActiveDocument.Range.Text)
For Each Match In Matches
ActiveDocument.Range.Text = RegEx.Replace(ActiveDocument.Range.Text, (ActiveDocument.Hyperlinks.Add Anchor:=Match, Address:="https://www.my_website.com/" & Match))
Next
End Sub
This doesn't compile because it's expecting a ) after ActiveDocument.Hyperlinks.Add.
I think the problem is that the RegEx.Replace() method is expecting (String, String) arguments rather than (String, Hyperlink object), but I'm not sure the best way to get around that.
Any help would be appreciated.

Answer 1

Try:
Sub FindAndHyperlink()
Application.ScreenUpdating = False
Const HLnk As String = "https://www.my_website.com/"
With ActiveDocument.Range
With .Find
.ClearFormatting
.Replacement.ClearFormatting
.Text = "A-[0-9]{1,}"
.Replacement.Text = ""
.Forward = True
.Wrap = wdFindStop
.Format = False
.MatchWildcards = True
.Execute
End With
Do While .Find.Found
.Hyperlinks.Add Anchor:=.Duplicate, Address:=HLnk & .Text, TextToDisplay:=.Text
.Start = .Hyperlinks(1).Range.End
.Find.Execute
Loop
End With
Application.ScreenUpdating = True
End Sub

Answer 2

I just tested this and it worked fine for me.
([a-z _:/.A-Z-1-9]+)
Notice the UPPERCASE and lowercase, plus the 1-9 (one through nine, inclusive), as well as the characters such as slash and period.