Visual basic for application excel что это

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Приветствую всех.

В этом посте я расскажу, что такое VBA и как с ним работать в Microsoft Excel 2007/2010 (для более старых версий изменяется лишь интерфейс — код, скорее всего, будет таким же) для автоматизации различной рутины.

VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) — это упрощенная версия Visual Basic, встроенная в множество продуктов линейки Microsoft Office. Она позволяет писать программы прямо в файле конкретного документа. Вам не требуется устанавливать различные IDE — всё, включая отладчик, уже есть в Excel.

Еще при помощи Visual Studio Tools for Office можно писать макросы на C# и также встраивать их. Спасибо, FireStorm.

Сразу скажу — писать на других языках (C++/Delphi/PHP) также возможно, но требуется научится читать, изменять и писать файлы офиса — встраивать в документы не получится. А интерфейсы Microsoft работают через COM. Чтобы вы поняли весь ужас, вот Hello World с использованием COM.

Поэтому, увы, будем учить Visual Basic.

Чуть-чуть подготовки и постановка задачи

Итак, поехали. Открываем Excel.

Для начала давайте добавим в Ribbon панель «Разработчик». В ней находятся кнопки, текстовые поля и пр. элементы для конструирования форм.

Появилась вкладка.

Теперь давайте подумаем, на каком примере мы будем изучать VBA. Недавно мне потребовалось красиво оформить прайс-лист, выглядевший, как таблица. Идём в гугл, набираем «прайс-лист» и качаем любой, который оформлен примерно так (не сочтите за рекламу, пожалуйста):

То есть требуется, чтобы было как минимум две группы, по которым можно объединить товары (в нашем случае это будут Тип и Производитель — в таком порядке). Для того, чтобы предложенный мною алгоритм работал корректно, отсортируйте товары так, чтобы товары из одной группы стояли подряд (сначала по Типу, потом по Производителю).

Результат, которого хотим добиться, выглядит примерно так:

Разумеется, если смотреть прайс только на компьютере, то можно добавить фильтры и будет гораздо удобнее искать нужный товар. Однако мы хотим научится кодить и задача вполне подходящая, не так ли?

Кодим

Для начала требуется создать кнопку, при нажатии на которую будет вызываться наша програма. Кнопки находятся в панели «Разработчик» и появляются по кнопке «Вставить». Вам нужен компонент формы «Кнопка». Нажали, поставили на любое место в листе. Далее, если не появилось окно назначения макроса, надо нажать правой кнопкой и выбрать пункт «Назначить макрос». Назовём его FormatPrice. Важно, чтобы перед именем макроса ничего не было — иначе он создастся в отдельном модуле, а не в пространстве имен книги. В этому случае вам будет недоступно быстрое обращение к выделенному листу. Нажимаем кнопку «Новый».

И вот мы в среде разработки VB. Также её можно вызвать из контекстного меню командой «Исходный текст»/«View code».

Перед вами окно с заглушкой процедуры. Можете его развернуть. Код должен выглядеть примерно так:

Sub FormatPrice()End Sub

Напишем Hello World:

Sub FormatPrice()
    MsgBox "Hello World!"
End Sub

И запустим либо щелкнув по кнопке (предварительно сняв с неё выделение), либо клавишей F5 прямо из редактора.

Тут, пожалуй, следует отвлечься на небольшой ликбез по поводу синтаксиса VB. Кто его знает — может смело пропустить этот раздел до конца. Основное отличие Visual Basic от Pascal/C/Java в том, что команды разделяются не ;, а переносом строки или двоеточием (:), если очень хочется написать несколько команд в одну строку. Чтобы понять основные правила синтаксиса, приведу абстрактный код.

Примеры синтаксиса

' Процедура. Ничего не возвращает
' Перегрузка в VBA отсутствует
Sub foo(a As String, b As String)
    ' Exit Sub ' Это значит "выйти из процедуры"
    MsgBox a + ";" + b
End Sub' Функция. Вовращает Integer
Function LengthSqr(x As Integer, y As Integer) As Integer
    ' Exit Function
    LengthSqr = x * x + y * y
End FunctionSub FormatPrice()
    Dim s1 As String, s2 As String
    s1 = "str1"
    s2 = "str2"
    If s1 <> s2 Then
        foo "123", "456" ' Скобки при вызове процедур запрещены
    End IfDim res As sTRING ' Регистр в VB не важен. Впрочем, редактор Вас поправит
    Dim i As Integer
    ' Цикл всегда состоит из нескольких строк
    For i = 1 To 10
        res = res + CStr(i) ' Конвертация чего угодно в String
        If i = 5 Then Exit For
    Next iDim x As Double
    x = Val("1.234") ' Парсинг чисел
    x = x + 10
    MsgBox xOn Error Resume Next ' Обработка ошибок - игнорировать все ошибки
    x = 5 / 0
    MsgBox xOn Error GoTo Err ' При ошибке перейти к метке Err
    x = 5 / 0
    MsgBox "OK!"
    GoTo ne

Err:
    MsgBox 

"Err!"

ne:

On Error GoTo 0 ' Отключаем обработку ошибок

    ' Циклы бывает, какие захотите
    Do While True
        Exit DoLoop 'While True
    Do 'Until False
        Exit Do
    Loop Until False
    ' А вот при вызове функций, от которых хотим получить значение, скобки нужны.
    ' Val также умеет возвращать Integer
    Select Case LengthSqr(Len("abc"), Val("4"))
    Case 24
        MsgBox "0"
    Case 25
        MsgBox "1"
    Case 26
        MsgBox "2"
    End Select' Двухмерный массив.
    ' Можно также менять размеры командой ReDim (Preserve) - см. google
    Dim arr(1 to 10, 5 to 6) As Integer
    arr(1, 6) = 8Dim coll As New Collection
    Dim coll2 As Collection
    coll.Add "item", "key"
    Set coll2 = coll ' Все присваивания объектов должны производится командой Set
    MsgBox coll2("key")
    Set coll2 = New Collection
    MsgBox coll2.Count
End Sub

Грабли-1. При копировании кода из IDE (в английском Excel) есь текст конвертируется в 1252 Latin-1. Поэтому, если хотите сохранить русские комментарии — надо сохранить крокозябры как Latin-1, а потом открыть в 1251.

Грабли-2. Т.к. VB позволяет использовать необъявленные переменные, я всегда в начале кода (перед всеми процедурами) ставлю строчку Option Explicit. Эта директива запрещает интерпретатору заводить переменные самостоятельно.

Грабли-3. Глобальные переменные можно объявлять только до первой функции/процедуры. Локальные — в любом месте процедуры/функции.

Еще немного дополнительных функций, которые могут пригодится: InPos, Mid, Trim, LBound, UBound. Также ответы на все вопросы по поводу работы функций/их параметров можно получить в MSDN.

Надеюсь, что этого Вам хватит, чтобы не пугаться кода и самостоятельно написать какое-нибудь домашнее задание по информатике. По ходу поста я буду ненавязчиво знакомить Вас с новыми конструкциями.

Кодим много и под Excel

В этой части мы уже начнём кодить нечто, что умеет работать с нашими листами в Excel. Для начала создадим отдельный лист с именем result (лист с данными назовём data). Теперь, наверное, нужно этот лист очистить от того, что на нём есть. Также мы «выделим» лист с данными, чтобы каждый раз не писать длинное обращение к массиву с листами.

Sub FormatPrice()
    Sheets("result").Cells.Clear
    Sheets("data").Activate
End Sub

Работа с диапазонами ячеек

Вся работа в Excel VBA производится с диапазонами ячеек. Они создаются функцией Range и возвращают объект типа Range. У него есть всё необходимое для работы с данными и/или оформлением. Кстати сказать, свойство Cells листа — это тоже Range.

Примеры работы с Range

Sheets("result").Activate
Dim r As Range
Set r = Range("A1")
r.Value = "123"
Set r = Range("A3,A5")
r.Font.Color = vbRed
r.Value = "456"
Set r = Range("A6:A7")
r.Value = "=A1+A3"

Теперь давайте поймем алгоритм работы нашего кода. Итак, у каждой строчки листа data, начиная со второй, есть некоторые данные, которые нас не интересуют (ID, название и цена) и есть две вложенные группы, к которым она принадлежит (тип и производитель). Более того, эти строки отсортированы. Пока мы забудем про пропуски перед началом новой группы — так будет проще. Я предлагаю такой алгоритм:

1. Считали группы из очередной строки.
2. Пробегаемся по всем группам в порядке приоритета (вначале более крупные)
   1. Если текущая группа не совпадает, вызываем процедуру AddGroup(i, name), где i — номер группы (от номера текущей до максимума), name — её имя. Несколько вызовов необходимы, чтобы создать не только наш заголовок, но и всё более мелкие.
3. После отрисовки всех необходимых заголовков делаем еще одну строку и заполняем её данными.

Для упрощения работы рекомендую определить следующие функции-сокращения:

Function GetCol(Col As Integer) As String
    GetCol = Chr(Asc("A") + Col)
End FunctionFunction GetCellS(Sheet As String, Col As Integer, Row As Integer) As Range
    Set GetCellS = Sheets(Sheet).Range(GetCol(Col) + CStr(Row))
End FunctionFunction GetCell(Col As Integer, Row As Integer) As Range
    Set GetCell = Range(GetCol(Col) + CStr(Row))
End Function

Далее определим глобальную переменную «текущая строчка»: Dim CurRow As Integer. В начале процедуры её следует сделать равной единице. Еще нам потребуется переменная-«текущая строка в data», массив с именами групп текущей предыдущей строк. Потом можно написать цикл «пока первая ячейка в строке непуста».

Глобальные переменные

Option Explicit ' про эту строчку я уже рассказывал
Dim CurRow As Integer
Const GroupsCount As Integer = 2
Const DataCount As Integer = 3

FormatPrice

Sub FormatPrice()
    Dim I As Integer ' строка в data
    CurRow = 1
    Dim Groups(1 To GroupsCount) As String
    Dim PrGroups(1 To GroupsCount) As String

    Sheets(

"data").Activate
    I = 2
    Do While True
        If GetCell(0, I).Value = "" Then Exit Do
        ' ...
        I = I + 1
    Loop
End Sub

Теперь надо заполнить массив Groups:

На месте многоточия

Dim I2 As Integer
For I2 = 1 To GroupsCount
    Groups(I2) = GetCell(I2, I)
Next I2
' ...
For I2 = 1 To GroupsCount ' VB не умеет копировать массивы
    PrGroups(I2) = Groups(I2)
Next I2
I =  I + 1

И создать заголовки:

На месте многоточия в предыдущем куске

For I2 = 1 To GroupsCount
    If Groups(I2) <> PrGroups(I2) Then
        Dim I3 As Integer
        For I3 = I2 To GroupsCount
            AddHeader I3, Groups(I3)
        Next I3
        Exit For
    End If
Next I2

Не забудем про процедуру AddHeader:

Перед FormatPrice

Sub AddHeader(Ty As Integer, Name As String)
    GetCellS("result", 1, CurRow).Value = Name
    CurRow = CurRow + 1
End Sub

Теперь надо перенести всякую информацию в result

For I2 = 0 To DataCount - 1
    GetCellS("result", I2, CurRow).Value = GetCell(I2, I)
Next I2

Подогнать столбцы по ширине и выбрать лист result для показа результата

После цикла в конце FormatPrice

Sheets("Result").Activate
Columns.AutoFit

Всё. Можно любоваться первой версией.

Некрасиво, но похоже. Давайте разбираться с форматированием. Сначала изменим процедуру AddHeader:

Sub AddHeader(Ty As Integer, Name As String)
    Sheets("result").Range("A" + CStr(CurRow) + ":C" + CStr(CurRow)).Merge
    ' Чтобы не заводить переменную и не писать каждый раз длинный вызов
    ' можно воспользоваться блоком With
    With GetCellS("result", 0, CurRow)
        .Value = Name
        .Font.Italic = True
        .Font.Name = "Cambria"
        Select Case Ty
        Case 1 ' Тип
            .Font.Bold = True
            .Font.Size = 16
        Case 2 ' Производитель
            .Font.Size = 12
        End Select
        .HorizontalAlignment = xlCenter
    End With
    CurRow = CurRow + 1
End Sub

Уже лучше:

Осталось только сделать границы. Тут уже нам требуется работать со всеми объединёнными ячейками, иначе бордюр будет только у одной:

Поэтому чуть-чуть меняем код с добавлением стиля границ:

Sub AddHeader(Ty As Integer, Name As String)
    With Sheets("result").Range("A" + CStr(CurRow) + ":C" + CStr(CurRow))
        .Merge
        .Value = Name
        .Font.Italic = True
        .Font.Name = "Cambria"
        .HorizontalAlignment = xlCenterSelect Case Ty
        Case 1 ' Тип
            .Font.Bold = True
            .Font.Size = 16
            .Borders(xlTop).Weight = xlThick
        Case 2 ' Производитель
            .Font.Size = 12
            .Borders(xlTop).Weight = xlMedium
        End Select
        .Borders(xlBottom).Weight = xlMedium ' По убыванию: xlThick, xlMedium, xlThin, xlHairline
    End With
    CurRow = CurRow + 1
End Sub

Осталось лишь добится пропусков перед началом новой группы. Это легко:

В начале FormatPrice

Dim I As Integer ' строка в  data
CurRow = 0 ' чтобы не было пропуска в самом начале
Dim Groups(1 To GroupsCount) As String

В цикле расстановки заголовков

If Groups(I2) <> PrGroups(I2) Then
    CurRow = CurRow + 1
    Dim I3 As Integer

В точности то, что и хотели.

Надеюсь, что эта статья помогла вам немного освоится с программированием для Excel на VBA. Домашнее задание — добавить заголовки «ID, Название, Цена» в результат. Подсказка: CurRow = 0 CurRow = 1.

Файл можно скачать тут (min.us) или тут (Dropbox). Не забудьте разрешить исполнение макросов. Если кто-нибудь подскажет человеческих файлохостинг, залью туда.

Спасибо за внимание.

Буду рад конструктивной критике в комментариях.

UPD: Перезалил пример на Dropbox и min.us.

UPD2: На самом деле, при вызове процедуры с одним параметром скобки можно поставить. Либо использовать конструкцию Call Foo(«bar», 1, 2, 3) — тут скобки нужны постоянно.

Introduction

This is a tutorial about writing code in Excel spreadsheets using Visual Basic for Applications (VBA).

Excel is one of Microsoft’s most popular products. In 2016, the CEO of Microsoft said  «Think about a world without Excel. That’s just impossible for me.” Well, maybe the world can’t think without Excel.

• In 1996, there were over 30 million users of Microsoft Excel (source).
• Today, there are an estimated 750 million users of Microsoft Excel. That’s a little more than the population of Europe and 25x more users than there were in 1996.

We’re one big happy family!

In this tutorial, you’ll learn about VBA and how to write code in an Excel spreadsheet using Visual Basic.

Prerequisites

You don’t need any prior programming experience to understand this tutorial. However, you will need:

• Basic to intermediate familiarity with Microsoft Excel
• If you want to follow along with the VBA examples in this article, you will need access to Microsoft Excel, preferably the latest version (2019) but Excel 2016 and Excel 2013 will work just fine.
• A willingness to try new things

Learning Objectives

Over the course of this article, you will learn:

1. What VBA is
2. Why you would use VBA
3. How to get set up in Excel to write VBA
4. How to solve some real-world problems with VBA

Important Concepts

Here are some important concepts that you should be familiar with to fully understand this tutorial.

Objects: Excel is object-oriented, which means everything is an object — the Excel window, the workbook, a sheet, a chart, a cell. VBA allows users to manipulate and perform actions with objects in Excel.

If you don’t have any experience with object-oriented programming and this is a brand new concept, take a second to let that sink in!

Procedures: a procedure is a chunk of VBA code, written in the Visual Basic Editor, that accomplishes a task. Sometimes, this is also referred to as a macro (more on macros below). There are two types of procedures:

• Subroutines: a group of VBA statements that performs one or more actions
• Functions: a group of VBA statements that performs one or more actions and returns one or more values

Note: you can have functions operating inside of subroutines. You’ll see later.

Macros: If you’ve spent any time learning more advanced Excel functionality, you’ve probably encountered the concept of a “macro.” Excel users can record macros, consisting of user commands/keystrokes/clicks, and play them back at lightning speed to accomplish repetitive tasks. Recorded macros generate VBA code, which you can then examine. It’s actually quite fun to record a simple macro and then look at the VBA code.

Please keep in mind that sometimes it may be easier and faster to record a macro rather than hand-code a VBA procedure.

For example, maybe you work in project management. Once a week, you have to turn a raw exported report from your project management system into a beautifully formatted, clean report for leadership. You need to format the names of the over-budget projects in bold red text. You could record the formatting changes as a macro and run that whenever you need to make the change.

What is VBA?

Visual Basic for Applications is a programming language developed by Microsoft. Each software program in the Microsoft Office suite is bundled with the VBA language at no extra cost. VBA allows Microsoft Office users to create small programs that operate within Microsoft Office software programs.

Think of VBA like a pizza oven within a restaurant. Excel is the restaurant. The kitchen comes with standard commercial appliances, like large refrigerators, stoves, and regular ole’ ovens — those are all of Excel’s standard features.

But what if you want to make wood-fired pizza? Can’t do that in a standard commercial baking oven. VBA is the pizza oven.

Yum.

Why use VBA in Excel?

Because wood-fired pizza is the best!

But seriously.

A lot of people spend a lot of time in Excel as a part of their jobs. Time in Excel moves differently, too. Depending on the circumstances, 10 minutes in Excel can feel like eternity if you’re not able to do what you need, or 10 hours can go by very quickly if everything is going great. Which is when you should ask yourself, why on earth am I spending 10 hours in Excel?

Sometimes, those days are inevitable. But if you’re spending 8-10 hours everyday in Excel doing repetitive tasks, repeating a lot of the same processes, trying to clean up after other users of the file, or even updating other files after changes are made to the Excel file, a VBA procedure just might be the solution for you.

You should consider using VBA if you need to:

• Automate repetitive tasks
• Create easy ways for users to interact with your spreadsheets
• Manipulate large amounts of data

Getting Set Up to Write VBA in Excel

Developer Tab

To write VBA, you’ll need to add the Developer tab to the ribbon, so you’ll see the ribbon like this.

To add the Developer tab to the ribbon:

1. On the File tab, go to Options > Customize Ribbon.
2. Under Customize the Ribbon and under Main Tabs, select the Developer check box.

After you show the tab, the Developer tab stays visible, unless you clear the check box or have to reinstall Excel. For more information, see Microsoft help documentation.

VBA Editor

Navigate to the Developer Tab, and click the Visual Basic button. A new window will pop up — this is the Visual Basic Editor. For the purposes of this tutorial, you just need to be familiar with the Project Explorer pane and the Property Properties pane.

Excel VBA Examples

First, let’s create a file for us to play around in.

1. Open a new Excel file
2. Save it as a macro-enabled workbook (. xlsm)
3. Select the Developer tab
4. Open the VBA Editor

Let’s rock and roll with some easy examples to get you writing code in a spreadsheet using Visual Basic.

Example #1: Display a Message when Users Open the Excel Workbook

In the VBA Editor, select Insert -> New Module

Write this code in the Module window (don’t paste!):

Sub Auto_Open()
MsgBox («Welcome to the XYZ Workbook.»)
End Sub

Save, close the workbook, and reopen the workbook. This dialog should display.

Ta da!

How is it doing that?

Depending on your familiarity with programming, you may have some guesses. It’s not particularly complex, but there’s quite a lot going on:

• Sub (short for “Subroutine): remember from the beginning, “a group of VBA statements that performs one or more actions.”
• Auto_Open: this is the specific subroutine. It automatically runs your code when the Excel file opens — this is the event that triggers the procedure. Auto_Open will only run when the workbook is opened manually; it will not run if the workbook is opened via code from another workbook (Workbook_Open will do that, learn more about the difference between the two).
• By default, a subroutine’s access is public. This means any other module can use this subroutine. All examples in this tutorial will be public subroutines. If needed, you can declare subroutines as private. This may be needed in some situations. Learn more about subroutine access modifiers.
• msgBox: this is a function — a group of VBA statements that performs one or more actions and returns a value. The returned value is the message “Welcome to the XYZ Workbook.”

In short, this is a simple subroutine that contains a function.

When could I use this?

Maybe you have a very important file that is accessed infrequently (say, once a quarter), but automatically updated daily by another VBA procedure. When it is accessed, it’s by many people in multiple departments, all across the company.

• Problem: Most of the time when users access the file, they are confused about the purpose of this file (why it exists), how it is updated so often, who maintains it, and how they should interact with it. New hires always have tons of questions, and you have to field these questions over and over and over again.
• Solution: create a user message that contains a concise answer to each of these frequently answered questions.

Real World Examples

• Use the MsgBox function to display a message when there is any event: user closes an Excel workbook, user prints, a new sheet is added to the workbook, etc.
• Use the MsgBox function to display a message when a user needs to fulfill a condition before closing an Excel workbook
• Use the InputBox function to get information from the user

Example #2: Allow User to Execute another Procedure

In the VBA Editor, select Insert -> New Module

Write this code in the Module window (don’t paste!):

Sub UserReportQuery()
Dim UserInput As Long
Dim Answer As Integer
UserInput = vbYesNo
Answer = MsgBox(«Process the XYZ Report?», UserInput)
If Answer = vbYes Then ProcessReport
End Sub

Sub ProcessReport()
MsgBox («Thanks for processing the XYZ Report.»)
End Sub

Save and navigate back to the Developer tab of Excel and select the “Button” option. Click on a cell and assign the UserReportQuery macro to the button.

Now click the button. This message should display:

Click “yes” or hit Enter.

Once again, tada!

Please note that the secondary subroutine, ProcessReport, could be anything. I’ll demonstrate more possibilities in example #3. But first…

How is it doing that?

This example builds on the previous example and has quite a few new elements. Let’s go over the new stuff:

• Dim UserInput As Long: Dim is short for “dimension” and allows you to declare variable names. In this case, UserInput is the variable name and Long is the data type. In plain English, this line means “Here’s a variable called “UserInput”, and it’s a Long variable type.”
• Dim Answer As Integer: declares another variable called “Answer,” with a data type of Integer. Learn more about data types here.
• UserInput = vbYesNo: assigns a value to the variable. In this case, vbYesNo, which displays Yes and No buttons. There are many button types, learn more here.
• Answer = MsgBox(“Process the XYZ Report?”, UserInput): assigns the value of the variable Answer to be a MsgBox function and the UserInput variable. Yes, a variable within a variable.
• If Answer = vbYes Then ProcessReport: this is an “If statement,” a conditional statement, which allows us to say if x is true, then do y. In this case, if the user has selected “Yes,” then execute the ProcessReport subroutine.

When could I use this?

This could be used in many, many ways. The value and versatility of this functionality is more so defined by what the secondary subroutine does.

For example, maybe you have a file that is used to generate 3 different weekly reports. These reports are formatted in dramatically different ways.

• Problem: Each time one of these reports needs to be generated, a user opens the file and changes formatting and charts; so on and so forth. This file is being edited extensively at least 3 times per week, and it takes at least 30 minutes each time it’s edited.
• Solution: create 1 button per report type, which automatically reformats the necessary components of the reports and generates the necessary charts.

Real World Examples

• Create a dialog box for user to automatically populate certain information across multiple sheets
• Use the InputBox function to get information from the user, which is then populated across multiple sheets

Example #3: Add Numbers to a Range with a For-Next Loop

For loops are very useful if you need to perform repetitive tasks on a specific range of values — arrays or cell ranges. In plain English, a loop says “for each x, do y.”

In the VBA Editor, select Insert -> New Module

Write this code in the Module window (don’t paste!):

Sub LoopExample()
Dim X As Integer
For X = 1 To 100
Range(«A» & X).Value = X
Next X
End Sub

Save and navigate back to the Developer tab of Excel and select the Macros button. Run the LoopExample macro.

This should happen:

Etc, until the 100th row.

How is it doing that?

• Dim X As Integer: declares the variable X as a data type of Integer.
• For X = 1 To 100: this is the start of the For loop. Simply put, it tells the loop to keep repeating until X = 100. X is the counter. The loop will keep executing until X = 100, execute one last time, and then stop.
• Range(«A» & X).Value = X: this declares the range of the loop and what to put in that range. Since X = 1 initially, the first cell will be A1, at which point the loop will put X into that cell.
• Next X: this tells the loop to run again

When could I use this?

The For-Next loop is one of the most powerful functionalities of VBA; there are numerous potential use cases. This is a more complex example that would require multiple layers of logic, but it communicates the world of possibilities in For-Next loops.

Maybe you have a list of all products sold at your bakery in Column A, the type of product in Column B (cakes, donuts, or muffins), the cost of ingredients in Column C, and the market average cost of each product type in another sheet.

You need to figure out what should be the retail price of each product. You’re thinking it should be the cost of ingredients plus 20%, but also 1.2% under market average if possible. A For-Next loop would allow you to do this type of calculation.

Real World Examples

• Use a loop with a nested if statement to add specific values to a separate array only if they meet certain conditions
• Perform mathematical calculations on each value in a range, e.g. calculate additional charges and add them to the value
• Loop through each character in a string and extract all numbers
• Randomly select a number of values from an array

Conclusion

Now that we’ve talked about pizza and muffins and oh-yeah, how to write VBA code in Excel spreadsheets, let’s do a learning check. See if you can answer these questions.

• What is VBA?
• How do I get set up to start using VBA in Excel?
• Why and when would you use VBA?
• What are some problems I could solve with VBA?

If you have a fair idea of how to you could answer these questions, then this was successful.

Whether you’re an occasional user or a power user, I hope this tutorial provided useful information about what can be accomplished with just a bit of code in your Excel spreadsheets.

Happy coding!

Learning Resources

• Excel VBA Programming for Dummies, John Walkenbach
• Get Started with VBA, Microsoft Documentation
• Learning VBA in Excel, Lynda

A bit about me

I’m Chloe Tucker, an artist and developer in Portland, Oregon. As a former educator, I’m continuously searching for the intersection of learning and teaching, or technology and art. Reach out to me on Twitter @_chloetucker and check out my website at chloe.dev.

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Visual Basic for Applications

Paradigm	Multi-paradigm
Developer	Microsoft
First appeared	1993; 30 years ago
Stable release	7.1 (Office 2021)
Typing discipline	Static/Dynamic Hybrid, Strong/Weak Hybrid
OS	Microsoft Windows, macOS
License	Commercial proprietary software
Influenced by
QuickBASIC, Visual Basic

Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) is an implementation of Microsoft’s event-driven programming language Visual Basic 6.0 built into most desktop Microsoft Office applications. Although based on pre-.NET Visual Basic, which is no longer supported or updated by Microsoft, the VBA implementation in Office continues to be updated to support new Office features.^[1][2] VBA is used for professional and end-user development due to its perceived ease-of-use, Office’s vast installed userbase, and extensive legacy in business.

Visual Basic for Applications enables building user-defined functions (UDFs), automating processes and accessing Windows API and other low-level functionality through dynamic-link libraries (DLLs). It supersedes and expands on the abilities of earlier application-specific macro programming languages such as Word’s WordBASIC. It can be used to control many aspects of the host application, including manipulating user interface features, such as menus and toolbars, and working with custom user forms or dialog boxes.

As its name suggests, VBA is closely related to Visual Basic and uses the Visual Basic Runtime Library. However, VBA code normally can only run within a host application, rather than as a standalone program. VBA can, however, control one application from another using OLE Automation. For example, VBA can automatically create a Microsoft Word report from Microsoft Excel data that Excel collects automatically from polled sensors. VBA can use, but not create, ActiveX/COM DLLs, and later versions add support for class modules.

VBA is built into most Microsoft Office applications, including Office for Mac OS X (except version 2008), and other Microsoft applications, including Microsoft MapPoint and Microsoft Visio. VBA is also implemented, at least partially, in applications published by companies other than Microsoft, including ArcGIS, AutoCAD, CorelDraw, Kingsoft Office, LibreOffice,^[3] Reflection,^[4] SolidWorks,^[5] WordPerfect, and UNICOM System Architect (which supports VBA 7.1).

Design[edit]

Code written in VBA is compiled^[6] to Microsoft P-Code (pseudo-code), a proprietary intermediate language, which the host applications (Access, Excel, Word, Outlook, and PowerPoint) store as a separate stream in COM Structured Storage files (e.g., .doc or .xls) independent of the document streams. The intermediate code is then executed^[6] by a virtual machine (hosted by the host application). Despite its resemblance to many old BASIC dialects (particularly Microsoft BASIC, from which it is indirectly derived), VBA is incompatible with any of them except Visual Basic, where source code of VBA modules and classes can be directly imported, and which shares the same library and virtual machine. Compatibility ends with Visual Basic version 6; VBA is incompatible with Visual Basic .NET (VB.NET). VBA is proprietary to Microsoft and, apart from the COM interface, is not an open standard.

Automation[edit]

Interaction with the host application uses OLE Automation. Typically, the host application provides a type library and application programming interface (API) documentation which document how VBA programs can interact with the application. This documentation can be examined from inside the VBA development environment using its Object Browser.

Visual Basic for Applications programs which are written to use the OLE Automation interface of one application cannot be used to automate a different application, even if that application hosts the Visual Basic runtime, because the OLE Automation interfaces will be different. For example, a VBA program written to automate Microsoft Word cannot be used with a different word processor, even if that word processor hosts VBA.

Conversely, multiple applications can be automated from the one host by creating Application objects within the VBA code. References to the different libraries must be created within the VBA client before any of the methods, objects, etc. become available to use in the application. This is achieved through what is referred to as Early or Late Binding. These application objects create the OLE link to the application when they are first created. Commands to the different applications must be done explicitly through these application objects in order to work correctly.

As an example, VBA code written in Microsoft Access can establish references to the Excel, Word and Outlook libraries; this allows creating an application that – for instance – runs a query in Access, exports the results to Excel and analyzes them, and then formats the output as tables in a Word document or sends them as an Outlook email.

VBA programs can be attached to a menu button, a macro, a keyboard shortcut, or an OLE/COM event, such as the opening of a document in the application. The language provides a user interface in the form of UserForms, which can host ActiveX controls for added functionality.

Inter-process communication automation includes the Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) and RealTimeData (RTD) which allows calling a Component Object Model (COM) automation server for dynamic or realtime financial or scientific data.^[7]

Security concerns[edit]

As with any common programming language, VBA macros can be created with malicious intent. Using VBA, most of the security features lie in the hands of the user, not the author. The VBA host application options are accessible to the user. The user who runs any document containing VBA macros can preset the software with user preferences. End-users can protect themselves from attack by disabling macros from running in an application or by granting permission for a document to run VBA code only if they are sure that the source of the document can be trusted.

In February 2022, Microsoft announced its plan to block VBA macros in files downloaded from the Internet by default in a variety of Office apps due to their widespread use to spread malware.^[8]

Version history[edit]

• VBA was first launched with MS Excel 5.0 in 1993. It became an instant success among developers to create corporate solutions using Excel. Inclusion of VBA with Microsoft Project, Access and Word replacing Access BASIC and Word BASIC respectively made it more popular.
• VBA 4.0 is the next famous release with a totally upgraded version compared to previous one. Released in 1996, it is written in C++ and became an object oriented language.
• VBA 5.0 was launched in 1997 along with all of MS Office 97 products. The only exception for this was Outlook 97 which used VBScript.
• VBA 6.0 and VBA 6.1 were launched in 1999, notably with support for COM add-ins in Office 2000. VBA 6.2 was released alongside Office 2000 SR-1.
• VBA 6.3 was released after Office XP, VBA 6.4 followed Office 2003 and VBA 6.5 was released with Office 2007.
• Office 2010 includes VBA 7.0. There are no new features in VBA 7 for developers compared to VBA 6.5 except for 64-bit support. However, after VBA 6.5/Office 2007, Microsoft stopped licensing VBA for other applications.
• Office 2013, Office 2016, Office 2019 and Office 2021 include VBA 7.1.

Development[edit]

As of July 1, 2007, Microsoft no longer offers VBA distribution licenses to new customers. Microsoft intended to add .NET-based languages to the current version of VBA ever since the release of the .NET Framework,^[9] of which versions 1.0 and 1.1 included a scripting runtime technology named Script for the .NET Framework.^[10] Visual Studio .NET 2002 and 2003 SDK contained a separate scripting IDE called Visual Studio for Applications (VSA) that supported VB.NET.^[11][12][13] One of its significant features was that the interfaces to the technology were available via Active Scripting (VBScript and JScript), allowing even .NET-unaware applications to be scripted via .NET languages. However, VSA was deprecated in version 2.0 of the .NET Framework,^[13] leaving no clear upgrade path for applications desiring Active Scripting support (although «scripts» can be created in C#, VBScript, and other .NET languages, which can be compiled and executed at run-time via libraries installed as part of the standard .NET runtime).

Microsoft dropped VBA support for Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac.^[14][15] VBA was restored in Microsoft Office for Mac 2011. Microsoft said that it has no plan to remove VBA from the Windows version of Office.^[16][17]

With Office 2010, Microsoft introduced VBA7, which contains a true pointer data type: LongPtr. This allows referencing 64-bit address space. The 64-bit install of Office 2010 does not support common controls of MSComCtl (TabStrip, Toolbar, StatusBar, ProgressBar, TreeView, ListViews, ImageList, Slider, ImageComboBox) or MSComCt2 (Animation, UpDown, MonthView, DateTimePicker, FlatScrollBar), so legacy 32-bit code ported to 64-bit VBA code that depends on these common controls will not function. This did not affect the 32-bit version Office 2010.^[18] Microsoft eventually released a 64-bit version of MSComCtl with the July 27th, 2017 update to Office 2016.^[19]

See also[edit]

• Visual Studio Tools for Applications
• Visual Studio Tools for Office
• Microsoft Visual Studio
• Microsoft FrontPage
• OpenOffice Basic
• LotusScript
• Microsoft Power Fx

References[edit]