Introduction to VBA

Mathew Stoessiger

Outline
Setting up Excel and the Visual Basic Editor Recording Macros in Excel Understanding and Editing Macros Limitations on recording Macros Collections and Objects Properties and Methods

Setting up Excel and the VBE

The Excel 2007 Ribbon does not display the Developer tab by default. If you're going to be working with VBA, it's essential that you turn on the Developer tab: Choose Office Excel Options. In the Excel Options dialog box, click the Popular tab. Place a checkmark next to Show Developer Tab in the Ribbon.

Activating the VBE

When you're working in Excel, you can switch to the VBE by using either of the following techniques: Press Alt+F11. Choose Developer Code Visual Basic. Right-click a sheet tab and choose View Code (this takes you to the code module for the sheet).

The VBE

Customizing the VBE Environment

Tools Options

Recording Macros
We'll now look at some examples of how to record macros.

Limitations on recording Macros

You can't undo a macro The Macro recorder creates a lot of unnecessary code Just because it's a repetitive action does not mean that you can record a macro The macro recorder does not record actions that don't happen in Excel

Exercises
Modifying the .bdf files

Objects
When you work with VBA, you must understand the concept of Objects and Excel's Object Model. It helps to think of Objects in terms of a hierarchy. At the top of this model is the Application - in this case, Excel itself. When you open Excel you create a Workbook i.e Book1.xlsx Inside the Workbook there are Worksheets i.e Sheet1 Worksheets Contain Cells (Called Ranges in VBA) i.e Cell A1 Thus to refer to a specific range (such as cell A1) on a worksheet named Sheet1 in a workbook named Book1, you can use the following expression:
Application.Workbooks("Book1").Worksheets("Sheet1").Range("A1")

Objects
Thus 4 Objects were used to specify Cell A1 Application.Workbooks("Book1").Worksheets("Sheet1").Range("A1")

Application Object Workbook Object

Worksheet Object Range Object

Objects
Most of the time, however, you can omit the Application object in your references; it is assumed. If the Book1 object is the active workbook, you can even omit that object reference and use this: Worksheets("Sheet1").Range("A1") And - I think you know where I'm going with this - if Sheet1 is the active worksheet, you can use an even simpler expression: Range("A1")

Collections
Another key concept in VBA programming is collections. A Collection is a group of Objects of the same class, and a collection is itself an Object. For Example: Worksheets is a collection of all Worksheet objects (Sheet1, Sheet2, Sheet3 ect) contained in a particular Workbook (Book1.xls) You can work with an entire collection of objects or with an individual object in a collection for example: Worksheet.Select Selects all the worksheets in the Workbook, while Worksheet(Sheet1).Select Selects only Sheet1

Object Properties
Every Object has Properties. For example, a Range Object has a Property called Value. You can write VBA code to display the Value property or write VBA code to set the Value property to a specific value. Here's a procedure that uses the VBA MsgBox Function to pop up a box that displays the value in cell A1 on Sheet1 of the active workbook:

Sub ShowValue() Msgbox Worksheets("Sheet1").Range("A1").Value End Sub

Try it out!
Object Property

Object Properties
What if you want to change the Value property? The following procedure changes the value displayed in cell A1 by changing the cell's Value property: Sub ChangeValue() Worksheets("Sheet1").Range("A1").Value = 123.45 End Sub

Object Methods
In addition to properties, objects also have methods. A method is an action that you perform with an object. Here's a simple example that uses the Clear method on a Range object. After you execute this procedure, A1:C3 on Sheet1 is empty and all cell formatting is removed: Sub Clear() Worksheets("Sheet1").Range("A1:C3").Clear End Sub
Object Method

Exercises
Did you know that Excel can talk? Excel has a Text to Speech Engine and is able to speak the text entered into a Cell. Can you make Excel talk to you using the Speak Method on a Range Object? In the VBE your macro will look something like: Sub Speak_to_me() Your code goes here End Sub Also can you use the Orientation Property on a Range Object so the text direction in a cell is vertical? The Help in the VBE might be useful if you are stuck!

Useful Properties
Property ActiveCell Object Returned The active cell.

Some commonly used Methods of ActiveCell are:

ActiveCell.Value = 1 and ActiveCell.ClearContents

Try them out for yourself

Properties
Property Object Returned

ActiveSheet
ActiveWorkbook

The active sheet (worksheet or chart).

The active workbook.

The example that follows displays a message that

tells you the name of the active sheet: MsgBox ActiveSheet.Name If you want to know the name and directory path of the active workbook, use a statement like this: MsgBox ActiveWorkbook.FullName

Properties
Property Selection Object Returned The object selected. (It could be a Range object, Shape, ChartObject, and so on.)

If a range on a worksheet is selected, you can fill the

entire range with a value by executing a single statement: Selection.Value = 12

Working with Range Objects

The Range property returns a Range object. If you consult the Help system for the Range property, you learn that this property has two syntaxes: object.Range(cell1) object.Range(cell1, cell2) We have seen previously a statement like: Worksheets("Sheet1").Range("A1").Value = 12.3

Working with Range Objects

The example that follows enters the same value into a range of 20 cells on the active sheet. ActiveSheet.Range("A1:B10").Value = 2 The next example produces exactly the same result as the preceding example: Range("A1", "B10") = 2 And finally, this next example enters the value 4 into five cells: that is, a non-contiguous range. The comma serves as the union operator: Range("A1,A3,A5,A7,A9") = 4

The Cells Property

Another way to reference a range is to use the Cells property. This property is particularly useful when using loops. The syntax is: object.Cells(rowIndex, columnIndex) The first example enters the value 34 into cell A1 on Sheet1 using index number of the row (from 1 to 1,048,576) and the index number of the column (from 1 to 16,384): Worksheets("Sheet1").Cells(1, 1) = 34 Here's an example that enters the value 67 into cell C5 (that is, row 5, column 3) in the active worksheet: ActiveSheet.Cells(5, 3) = 67

Cells Property
You can also use the Cells property on a Range object. When you do so the Cells property is relative to the upper-left cell of the referenced Range. Thus: Range("B3:B10"). Cells(1,1) = 5 Puts the value of 5 into Cell B3 Range("B3:B10"). Cells(2,1) = 5 Puts the value of 5 into Cell B4

What Cell is modified below? Range("B3:C10").Cells(3, 2) = 89

Offset Property
When you record a macro using the relative reference mode, Excel uses the Offset property to reference cells relative to the starting position. The syntax is: object.Offset(rowOffset, columnOffset)

An example would be Sub Offset() ActiveCell.Offset(0, 0) = 1 ActiveCell.Offset(1, 0) = 2 ActiveCell.Offset(2, 0) = 3 End Sub

Outline
Introduction to programming in VBA Variables Data Types Loops Error Checking

Introduction to Programming
We now have learnt about objects, properties, and methods but we havent really done anything very useful with them. We will now look at VBA language elements so we can start writing VBA routines.

Introduction to VBA Programming

The program below calculates the value of 1 x 2 x 3 x 4 x 5. Sub Factorial() 'Calculates the factorial of 5 Dim Total As Integer, i As Integer Total = 1 For i = 1 To 5 Total = Total * i Next i MsgBox Total End Sub

Introduction to VBA Programming

The accepted practice is to use one instruction per line as it looks neater Each line can be as long as you like; for readability VBA's line continuation sequence is a space followed by an underscore Dim Total As Integer, _ i As Integer Continuation Sequence VBA variable names are not case-sensitive VBA scans the instruction for syntax errors. If VBA finds an error, it changes the color of the line and might display a message describing the problem

Comments
A comment is descriptive text embedded within your code and ignored by VBA. It's a good idea to use comments liberally to describe what you're doing because an instruction's purpose is not always obvious. You can use a complete line for your comment, or you can insert a comment after an instruction on the same line. A comment is indicated by an apostrophe. VBA ignores any text that follows an apostrophe

Variables
A variable is simply a named storage location in your computer's memory. Variables can accommodate a wide variety of data types - from simple Boolean values (True or False) to large, double-precision values. You assign a value to a variables using the equal sign operator. Some examples of variable assignments are: x=1 Pressure = 0.075 Lift_Coefficient = 0.65 Counter = Counter + 1 UserName = "Mathew" DateStarted = #12/14/2006#

Data Types
VBA makes life easy for programmers because it can automatically handle all the details involved in dealing with data Data type refers to how data is stored in memory - as integers, real numbers, strings, and so on

Main Data Types

Data type Boolean Integer Long (long integer) Double (double-precision floating-point) Date String (variable-length) Variant Range True or False -32,768 to 32,767 -2,147,483,648 to 2,147,483,647

+/-1.79769313486231 E308
January 1, 100 to December 31, 9999 0 to approximately 2 billion Same as for Double and String

Generally the Double and String data types are the most often used.

Data Types
It's good practice to define data types The main advantage of defining data types is to increase the speed of programs dealing with a lot of data. When using Arrays the Variant Data Type allows VBA to automatically determine the Data Type To force yourself to declare all the variables that you use, include the following as the first instruction in your VBA module: Option Explicit When this statement is present, VBA will not even execute a procedure if it contains an undeclared variable name.

Constants
You declare constants with the Const statement. Here are some examples: Const UltimateFactor as Double = 1.5 Const MaxG = 4.0, FlightTime = 12

Using Predefined Constants

Excel and VBA make available many predefined constants, which you can use without declaring. In fact, you don't even need to know the value of these constants to use them. The macro recorder generally uses constants rather than actual values. The following procedure uses a built-in constant (xlLandscape) to set the page orientation to landscape for the active sheet Sub SetToLandscape() ActiveSheet.PageSetup.Orientation = xlLandscape End Sub

Logical Operators
Operator Not And Or What It Does Performs a logical negation on an expression Performs a logical conjunction on two expressions Performs a logical disjunction on two expressions

The following will display a message box with the word true if either Sheet1 or Sheet2 is the active sheet.
MsgBox ActiveSheet.Name = "Sheet1" Or ActiveSheet.Name = "Sheet2"

Other operators are also valid such as < > * +

Arrays
An array is a group of elements of the same type that have a common name. You refer to a specific element in the array by using the array name and an index number. You declare an array with a Dim statement, just as you declare a regular variable You can also specify the number of elements in the array. You do so by specifying the first index number, the keyword To, and the last index number - all inside parentheses Dim MyArray(1 To 10) As Integer

Arrays
To refer to a specific element in an array, you need to specify an index number Here's how you can assign a value to an element in the array MyArray(3) = 125

Arrays
Create an array yourself containing 3 integers and print them in cells A1 to A3. Your code will look something like this: Sub TestArray() Dim MyArray(1 To 3) As Integer MyArray(1) = 11 MyArray(2) = ...... .............. Range("A1") = MyArray(1) Range("A2") = ..... ....... End Sub

Dynamic Arrays
A dynamic array doesn't have a preset number of elements. You declare a dynamic array with a blank set of parentheses: Dim MyArray() As Integer

Before you can use a dynamic array in your code, however, you must use the ReDim statement to tell VBA how many elements are in the array. This is often done by using a variable, the value of which isn't known until the procedure is executing
ReDim MyArray (1 to x)

Loops
Often you need to control the flow of your routines by skipping over some statements, executing some statements multiple times, and testing conditions to determine what the routine does next.

For Next Loops

The factorial program we looked at earlier contains a For Next loop Sub Factorial() 'Calculates the factorial of 5 Dim Total As Integer, i As Integer Total = 1 For i = 1 To 5 Total = Total * i MsgBox "The value of i = " & i & " and Total = " & Total Next i MsgBox "The factorial of 5 is " & Total End Sub

For Each Next Loop

A variation on the For Next Loop is very powerful and allows you to perform actions on Objects in a Collection. A common use for the For Each-Next construct is to loop through all cells in a range

For Each Next Loop

The code we used before for the arrays can be modified to take advantage of the For Each Next loop
Sub OutPut() Dim MyArray(1 To 3) As Integer Dim Cell As Range Dim Counter As Integer MyArray(1) = 11 : MyArray(2) = 12 : MyArray(3) = 13 Counter = 1 Range("A1:A3").Select For Each Cell In Selection Cell.Value = MyArray(Counter) Counter = Counter + 1 Next Cell End Sub

Exercise: Can you reverse this code to take the values in Cells A1 to A3 and place them in an Array? Try using MsgBox MyArray(1) to check the contents of your array

For Each Next Loop

This is what your code could look like

Sub InPutArray() Dim MyArray(1 To 3) As Integer Dim Cell As Range Dim Counter As Integer Counter = 1 Range("A1:A3").Select For Each Cell In Selection MyArray(Counter) = Cell.Value MsgBox MyArray(Counter) Counter = Counter + 1 Next Cell End Sub

Transferring Arrays to Worksheets

Looping through the cells in a range is not the fastest way to transfer an Array to a worksheet you can also do this:
Sub ArrayTest() Dim MyArray(1 To 3, 1 To 1) As Integer MyArray(1, 1) = 1: MyArray(2, 1) = 2: MyArray(3, 1) = 3 Range("B2:B4").Value = MyArray End Sub

Solving Errors
This code works as expected: Sub ArrayTest() Dim MyArray(1 To 3, 1 To 1) As Integer MyArray(1, 1) = 1: MyArray(2, 1) = 2: MyArray(3, 1) = 3 Range("B2:B4").Value = MyArray End Sub Test this code and see if you can explain the error? Sub ArrayTest() Dim MyArray(1 To 3) As Integer MyArray(1) = 1: MyArray(2) = 2: MyArray(3) = 3 Range("B2:B4").Value = MyArray End Sub

If - Then Construct
The basic syntax of the If-Then construct is: If condition Then true_instructions [Else false_instructions] The following procedure demonstrates an If-Then structure without an Else clause. The example deals with time, and VBA uses a dateand-time serial number system similar to Excel's. The time of day is expressed as a fractional value - for example, noon is represented as .5: Sub GreetMe1() If Time < 0.5 Then MsgBox "Good Morning" End If End Sub

If - Then Construct
An If Then Else construct could be used to add an afternoon greeting: Sub GreetMe2() If Time < 0.5 Then MsgBox "Good Morning" Else MsgBox "Good Afternoon" End If End Sub

If - Then Construct
You can also use nested If Then loops if required: Sub GreetMe3() If Time < 0.5 Then MsgBox "Good Morning" Else If Time >= 0.5 And Time < 0.75 Then MsgBox "Good Afternoon" Else If Time >= 0.75 Then MsgBox "Good Evening" End If End If End If End Sub