Can you do marcos in excel

Bottom line: Learn 5 ways to use VBA macros to automate Excel tasks you do frequently at work.

Skill level: Beginner

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What Can I Use Macros For in My Job?

This is a question I hear often.  You might have heard you need to learn macros, but you’re not exactly sure how they will help you.  In the video above I explain 5 different ways to use macros to automate tasks in Excel.

We can use VBA macros to automate everything from simple tasks to complex reporting processes with multiple files.  Here are the 5 topics covered in the video, along with the links mentioned to other articles and resources.

1. Data Related Tasks

Data related tasks include everyday Excel tasks to cleanup and format data.  Examples covered in the video include.

• Remove Duplicates – Create a List of Unique Values
• Select or Delete Blank Rows
  
• Create formulas with macros – Percentage Change Formula
• Find the Last Used cell, row, or column in a sheet
• Apply formatting to raw data exports – Format Copier

2. Workbook Tasks

We can also automate tasks across worksheets and workbooks.  This includes things like listing all the sheets, creating a table of contents, hiding specific sheets, opening and closing workbooks, and more.  Here are some examples covered in the video.

• Table of Contents and TOC Gallery
  
• Save and Close All Open Workbooks

3. Pivot Table Tasks

Pivot tables are an amazing tool in Excel.  They can also be time consuming to create, format, update, and maintain.  Fortunately, we can automate just about every property and action with pivot tables using VBA macros.  Here are a few examples from the video.

• Show Details Macro
• Automatic Default Number Formatting in Excel Pivot Tables
  
• Expand and Collapse Entire Pivot Table Fields
• How to Change Date Formatting for Grouped Pivot Table Fields
• The PivotPal Add-in – The entire add-in was built with VBA, and automates many repetitive pivot table tasks.

4. Userforms & Add-ins

Userforms are windows that open over Excel with interactive controls.  They make our spreadsheets easier for other users to use.  The userforms can be created and modified in the VB Editor.

Add-ins are installed on the users computer and usually contain custom ribbon tabs with buttons.  This allows other users to run our macros on any open workbook.  Checkout the Excel Campus Add-ins page for examples.

5. Process Automation

We can also automate more complex processes with macros & VBA.  This includes creating systems to create, update, or modify several Excel files.  I created many systems like this for forecasting and budgeting processes.  Here is a link to an overview video of an application I call the File Manager.  The File Manager allows you to run multiple macros on sets of files.

I explain how to create and use the File Manager step-by-step in module 11 of The VBA Pro Course.

Free Webinar on Macros & VBA

If you are interested in learning more about macros, I’m currently running my free webinar called “The 7 Steps to Getting Started with Macros & VBA”.  It’s running all this week, and it’s absolutely free to register.

During the webinar I explain why you might want to learn VBA, and a lot of the basic coding concepts that will help you get started.  I jump into Excel and the VB Editor and walk through how to write and run our first macro.  Even if you have been using VBA for awhile, I’m sure you will learn some new tips.

Click here to learn more and register for the webinar

What Else Can We Use Macros For?

We can use macros for just about every task we do in Excel.  This video doesn’t even scratch the surface of what’s possible, but hopefully it gets you thinking about some repetitive Excel tasks that you might want to automate.

Please leave a comment below with any questions or suggestions.  Thank you! 🙂

Macros are little programs that run within Excel and help automate common repetitive tasks. Macros are one of Excel’s most powerful, yet underutilized feature. Using macros, you can save hours and boost productivity manifold.

In this blog post, we will learn how to create an ultra-simple macro in Excel 2013 to introduce you to the concept. For a more detailed overview of advanced Excel functions, including creating complicated macros, try the comprehensive Excel training course for beginners and intermediate users.

What is a Macro?

A macro can be defined as the recording of a series of tasks. It’s the simplest form of automation – show a software program the steps you follow to get something done, and the software will follow along. When used right, macros can save you hours by automating simple, repetitive tasks.

Marcos in Excel are written in Excel VBA (Visual Basic for Applications). This is a version of Visual Basic (a prominent Microsoft programming language) developed specifically for use in Office-like applications. Creating simple macros – copy a formula from one cell to another, for instance – is fairly easy. Complicated macros require a bit more work. You’ll need to be quite intimate with Excel VBA to automate the more complex tasks in your workflow. You can learn more about these in this advanced Excel 2010 course.

For this tutorial, we will create a very simple macro to get you up to speed with Excel programming and automation.

Step 1: Activate the Developer Toolbar

To write macros, you will need access to the Developer toolbar in the top ribbon. This is hidden by default. To activate it, go to File -> Options -> Customize Ribbon and check the box next to ‘Developer’.

Press OK. You should now see the Developer toolbar in the ribbon.

Step 2: Enable Macros

Macros are disabled by default in Excel. This is to protect you from malicious macros running automatically in downloaded Excel files.

To use macros, you will have to first enable them from the Trust Center. To do this, go to File -> Options -> Trust Center. Click on the ‘Trust Center Settings’ button in this menu.

In this new window, go to ‘Macro Settings’ and select the ‘Enable all macros’ radio button.

Click OK. You can now start using macros in your Excel spreadsheets.

Step 3: Prepare the Spreadsheet

In this tutorial, we will create a very simple macro to change the color, size and boldness of text.

In your spreadsheet, type in some text in any of the cells. We will later record a macro to change the formatting of this text.

Now that our spreadsheet is ready, we can start creating the macro.

Step 4: Create a New Macro

In the ‘Developer’ tab, click on ‘Record Macro’

A pop-up window will ask you to give a name, storage location, shortcut and description for the macro.

Type in whatever you like over here. It helps to be descriptive with your macro titles. You might end up using dozens of macros in a large spreadsheet. Being able to quickly find individual macros by name will save you hours of frustration later. It’s also a good practice to add a description to remind you what the macro actually does.

Two important considerations here:

• Shortcut Key: The shortcut key gives you quick access to the macro. Using a custom shortcut is highly recommended – you are using macros to save time, after all. A lot of default Excel functions are locked in to use the CTRL + Letter/Number shortcut format. To avoid conflicts with existing shortcuts, add not at least two keys to the shortcut – something like CTRL + SHIFT + A, or CTRL + A + 1

  

• Store Macro in: In this drop down menu, you can decide where to save the macro. If you choose ‘This Workbook’, the macro will be available for use in the existing workbook only. Choosing ‘New Workbook’ will, as you guessed, save the macro in a new workbook. The most powerful option here is to save the macro in ‘Personal Macro Workbook’. Macros stored in this workbook are available across all your workbooks. Think of it as a central repository for every macro that you create. The actual macro workbook file itself will be hidden the Windows AppData folder, but it will load up automatically when you start Excel, giving you complete access to all macros.

For the purpose of this tutorial, we will give our macro a shortcut of CTRL + SHIFT + A and store it within the same workbook.

Not sure how macros work? Try this comprehensive program to learn Excel 2010 from scratch.

Step 5: Record the Macro

Once you’ve entered all the require details, click OK. Your macro is now being recorded.

Select the cell where you entered your text. Switch to the ‘Home’ tab and change its color to red, font size to 18, and font weight to ‘bold’.

When you’re done, click on the ‘Stop Recording’ button in the Developer tab, or hit the small square block at the bottom of the spreadsheet next to ‘Ready’.

You have now successfully recorded an Excel macro!

Step 6: Test the Macro

Now that you’ve recorded your first macro, it’s time to see it live.

Add a few more blocks of text to your spreadsheet, one cell at a time. You might have to change the default formatting back to black font, 11 point font size and normal text.

Once you’ve added the text, simply select any cell and press the shortcut for your macro (CTRL + SHIFT + A). The formatting will immediately change to 18 pt. bold font in red color. You can apply this to each cell at a time, or select multiple cells together.

The formatting changes that would otherwise take you multiple clicks now take just one keystroke.

This is one of the most basic macros you can create. As you can imagine, complex macros can be created to perform very complicated tasks. You can learn more about creating such macros with Excel VBA programming in this Excel training course for advanced topics.

Was this tutorial helpful? We’d love to learn your thoughts and opinions! Share them with us in the comments below.

You might just have completed someone’s home for them!<g>

—

Regards,

RD
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Please keep all correspondence within the Group, so all may benefit !
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Yes rnparikh, all of the «more accomplished» Excel users are able to use
macros, and even some of us «accomplishment challanged» users are able to
muddle through them sometimes.

From one of my previous posts:
A «Macro» is an abbreviation for a set of commands, so instead of typing a
complicated sequence of commands you can simply type the Macro’s name. You
can either think of Macros as new commands in their own right or as
subroutines.
Virtually anything that can be done by hand in Excel, can be written into a
«Macro» so one can only invoke the Macro when they want that particular list
of commands instead of having to type each one each time.

Basically, they are mini-programs that can greatly shorten the time of
completion of repetitive tasks, as well as accomplish some things you can’t
do by hand.

Vaya con Dios,
Chuck, CABGx3

message news:[email protected]

Explore the 40 most popular pages in this section. Below you can find a description of each page. Happy learning!

1 Run Code from a Module: As a beginner to Excel VBA, you might find it difficult to decide where to put your VBA code. This example teaches you how to run code from a module.

2 Macro Recorder: The Macro Recorder, a very useful tool included in Excel VBA, records every task you perform with Excel. All you have to do is record a specific task once. Next, you can execute the task over and over with the click of a button.

3 Add a Macro to the Toolbar: If you use an Excel macro frequently, you can add it to the Quick Access Toolbar. This way you can quickly access your macro.

4 InputBox Function: You can use the InputBox function in Excel VBA to prompt the user to enter a value.

5 Close and Open: The Close and Open Method in Excel VBA can be used to close and open workbooks. Remember, the Workbooks collection contains all the Workbook objects that are currently open.

6 Files in a Directory: Use Excel VBA to loop through all closed workbooks and worksheets in a directory and display all the names.

7 Import Sheets: In this example, we will create a VBA macro that imports sheets from other Excel files into one Excel file.

8 Programming Charts: Use Excel VBA to create two programs. One program loops through all charts on a sheet and changes each chart to a pie chart. The other program changes some properties of the first chart.

9 CurrentRegion: You can use the CurrentRegion property in Excel VBA to return the range bounded by any combination of blank rows and blank columns.

10 Entire Rows and Columns: This example teaches you how to select entire rows and columns in Excel VBA. Are you ready?

11 Offset: The Offset property in Excel VBA takes the range which is a particular number of rows and columns away from a certain range.

12 From Active Cell to Last Entry: This example illustrates the End property of the Range object in Excel VBA. We will use this property to select the range from the Active Cell to the last entry in a column.

13 Background Colors: Changing background colors in Excel VBA is easy. Use the Interior property to return an Interior object. Then use the ColorIndex property of the Interior object to set the background color of a cell.

14 Compare Ranges: Learn how to create a program in Excel VBA that compares randomly selected ranges and highlights cells that are unique.

15 Option Explicit: We strongly recommend to use Option Explicit at the start of your Excel VBA code. Using Option Explicit forces you to declare all your variables.

16 Logical Operators: The three most used logical operators in Excel VBA are: And, Or and Not. As always, we will use easy examples to make things more clear.

17 Select Case: Instead of multiple If Then statements in Excel VBA, you can use the Select Case structure.

18 Mod Operator: The Mod operator in Excel VBA gives the remainder of a division.

19 Delete Blank Cells: In this example, we will create a VBA macro that deletes blank cells. First, we declare two variables of type Integer.

20 Loop through Defined Range: Use Excel VBA to loop through a defined range. For example, when we want to square the numbers in the range A1:A3.

21 Do Until Loop: VBA code placed between Do Until and Loop will be repeated until the part after Do Until is true.

22 Sort Numbers: In this example, we will create a VBA macro that sorts numbers. First, we declare three variables of type Integer and one Range object.

23 Remove Duplicates: Use Excel VBA to remove duplicates. In column A we have 10 numbers. We want to remove the duplicates from these numbers and place the unique numbers in column B.

24 Debugging: This example teaches you how to debug code in Excel VBA.

25 Error Handling: Use Excel VBA to create two programs. One program simply ignores errors. The other program continues execution at a specified line upon hitting an error.

26 Subscript Out of Range: The ‘subscript out of range’ error in Excel VBA occurs when you refer to a nonexistent collection member or a nonexistent array element.

27 Separate Strings: Let’s create a program in Excel VBA that separates strings. Place a command button on your worksheet and add the following code lines.

28 Instr: Use Instr in Excel VBA to find the position of a substring in a string. The Instr function is quite versatile.

29 Compare Dates and Times: This example teaches you how to compare dates and times in Excel VBA.

30 DateDiff Function: The DateDiff function in Excel VBA can be used to get the number of days, weeks, months or years between two dates.

31 Highlight Active Cell: Learn how to create a program in Excel VBA that highlights the row and column of the Active Cell (selected cell). This program will amaze and impress your boss.

32 Dynamic Array: If the size of your array increases and you don’t want to fix the size of the array, you can use the ReDim keyword. Excel VBA then changes the size of the array automatically.

33 User Defined Function: Excel has a large collection of functions. In most situations, those functions are sufficient to get the job done. If not, you can use Excel VBA to create your own function.

34 Read Data from Text File: Use Excel VBA to read data from a text file. This file contains some geographical coordinates we want to import into Excel.

35 Vlookup: Use the WorksheetFunction property in Excel VBA to access the VLOOKUP function. All you need is a single code line.

36 List Box: Use Excel VBA to place a list box on your worksheet. A list box is a list from where a user can select an item.

37 Check Box: A check box is a field which can be checked to store information. To create a check box in Excel VBA, execute the following steps.

38 Loan Calculator: This page teaches you how to create a simple loan calculator in Excel VBA. The worksheet contains the following ActiveX controls: two scrollbars and two option buttons.

39 Currency Converter: Use Excel VBA to create a Userform that converts any amount from one currency into another.

40 Progress Indicator: Learn how to create a progress indicator in Excel VBA. We’ve kept the progress indicator as simple as possible, yet it looks professional. Are you ready?

Check out all 300 examples.