FileDialogFilter Object

Represents a file filter in a file dialog box displayed through the FileDialog object. Each file filter determines which files are displayed in the file dialog box.

Using the FileDialogFilter object

Use the Item method with the FileDialogFilters collection to return a FileDialogFilter object. Use the Add method to add a FileDialogFilter object to the FileDialogFilters collection. You can return the extensions that a FileDialogFilter object uses to filter files with the Extensions property and you can return the description of the filter with the Description property; however, both of these properties are read-only. If you want to set the extension or description you must use the Add method.

The following example iterates through the default filters of the SaveAs dialog box and displays the description of each filter that includes a Microsoft Excel file.

Sub Main()

    'Declare a variable as a FileDialogFilters collection.
    Dim fdfs As FileDialogFilters

    'Declare a variable as a FileDialogFilter object.
    Dim fdf As FileDialogFilter

    'Set the FileDialogFilters collection variable to
    'the FileDialogFilters collection of the SaveAs dialog box.
    Set fdfs = Application.FileDialog(msoFileDialogSaveAs).Filters

    'Iterate through the description and extensions of each
    'default filter in the SaveAs dialog box.
    For Each fdf In fdfs

        'Display the description of filters that include
        'Microsoft Excel files.
        If InStr(1, fdf.Extensions, "xls", vbTextCompare) > 0 Then
            MsgBox "Description of filter: " & fdf.Description
        End If
    Next fdf
End Sub