How to get cursor position in word using c++, without hidden chars

[Kristian de Lichtenberg]

Okay,so first of all, sorry if this is the wrong forum. If anyone can direct
me to a better one, I'll swiftly remove the thread the best I can

Anyway, heres the thing.

I work on a program that reads text from word for handicapped school
children. Since it also reads from other programs, it keeps the text of each
line in a buffer, and reads from where the cursor is.

Now, to the question.

In word, I can call Selection.Range.Start in the word api, but this returns
the position of the cursor with hidden chars. This confuses my program and I
need the cursor position wihout the hidden text, since they will not be read
anyway.

Now, as I can get the text without the hidden chars, I thought I'd just get
the text before the cursor, and count the length of it. This however I have
not been able to, as all calls to setrange have failed.

So to repeat the key question here: How do I get the number of chars on the
current line before the cursor, not including hidden chars.

Oh and in C++ without MFC and without word.h

I suppose there is a simple solution, but screaming and kicking and yelling
at the screen so far produced very little tangible results..

Here's an example. Its called with start of current text line, and current
position with hidden chars. The point was then to extract the text between
these (as I can get text withouht hidden chars) and then count the length.
However, setrange doesn't work...

int CAppHandler::getRangeTextLength(int start, int end, int previousend){
int res=-1;

//VARIANT vtParam; VariantInit(&vtParam);
VARIANT vtResult; VariantInit(&vtResult);
//VARIANT vtResult1; VariantInit(&vtResult1);
VARIANT vtSelection; VariantInit(&vtSelection);
//VARIANT vtActiveWindow; VariantInit(&vtActiveWindow);

VARIANT varStart, varEnd;

VariantInit(&varStart);
VariantInit(&varEnd);

String text="";

HRESULT hr;

AuxLog::log(T("getting range"));

hr = getPropertyPath(T("ActiveDocument.Range"), &vtSelection);
if (FAILED(hr)) goto cleanup;

LPDISPATCH rangePtr2 = vtSelection.pdispVal;
AuxLog::log(T("getting range - duplicating: "));

hr = GetProperty(rangePtr2,L"Duplicate" ,&vtSelection);
if (FAILED(hr)) goto cleanup;
LPDISPATCH rangePtr = vtSelection.pdispVal;

varStart.lVal = start;
varEnd.lVal = end;

AuxLog::log(T("getting range - setting range: "))
hr=autoWrap(rangePtr,T("ActiveDocument.Range.SetRange"),DISPATCH_METHOD,&vtResult,2,varEnd, varStart);
if (FAILED(hr)) goto cleanup;

AuxLog::log(T("getting range - getting text: "));
text = getPropertyString("text",rangePtr);
res = text.length();


varStart.lVal = end;
varEnd.lVal = previousend;

hr=autoWrap(rangePtr,T("SetRange"),DISPATCH_METHOD,&vtResult,2,varStart,varEnd);
if (FAILED(hr)) goto cleanup;

cleanup:
VariantClear(&vtSelection);
//VariantClear(&vtParam);
VariantClear(&vtResult);
VariantClear(&varStart);
VariantClear(&varEnd);
//VariantClear(&vtActiveWindow);
return res;
}