Chapter 1 Unleashing the Power of Excel with VBA

The Power of Excel

VBA: Visual Basic for Application (VBA)

Barriers to Entry

1. Excel’s macro recorder is flawed and does not produce workable code for model.
2. Programming language as BASIC, the syntax of VBA is horribly frustrating.

The Macro Recorder Does Not Work!

Lotus 1-2-3 compared with MS VBA programming language

Knowing Your Tools: The Developer Tab

- Visual Basic- Opens the Visual Basic Editor

- Macros- Display the Macro dialog, where you can choose to run or edit a macro from the list
of macros.
- Record Macro- Begins the process of recording a macro.
- Use Relative References- Toggles between using relative ( Move down 3 cells) or absolute
(cell A4)
- Macro Security- Accesses the Trust Center.

Add-ins : provide icons for managing regular add-ins and COM add-ins.

Understanding Which File Types Allow Macros

- Excel Workbook (.xlsx): Macro cannot be stored in files with an .xlsx extension.
- Excel Macro-Enabled Workbook (xlsm): Allowed.
- Excel Binary Workbook (.xlsb)
- Excel 97-2003 Workbook (.xls)

To avoid having corruption while saving : Save it to (xlsm)

File-Option-Save-Save file format-Select .xlsm extension