What is excel and visual basic

What is Excel VBA, and how can you use it?

You’ve probably heard of VBA (or Visual Basic for Applications, to give the programming language its full name), but what is it? And how can it help you?

I’m aware that there are ways to accomplish the task set out below without using macros, but that’s not the point of this blog!

Our Example — Copying, Pasting and Formatting Information

To see how VBA could help you, suppose that you are a data entry clerk for a major talent show on national TV. Every time there’s a vote, the scores are entered into a spreadsheet:

Whenever a vote is taken, the judges type their scores onto this spreadsheet

From here, your task is to copy the results faithfully into a results sheet:

You have to type in a row for the new contestant’s scores

There are two main problems with this:

1. It takes ages — with all the copying/pasting and formatting involved, at least 20 mouse clicks for each contestant.
2. It’s prone to error — you’ve noticed that you start making mistakes when you’re tired.

You start dreaming — wouldn’t it be fantastic if you could just click on a button to copy the results across:

The magical button (if only you knew how to create it) .

This blog shows you how to automate tasks like the one above using Visual Basic for Applications! But first, what is VBA?

The VBA Programming Language

You don’t really need to know this, but it’s good background .

All computer programs are written using a programming language (examples are Fortran, C#, C, Pascal and Visual Basic). The Visual Basic language — VB to its friends — is particularly favoured by Microsoft, and is used by millions of programmers around the world. Here’s a bit of VB:

‘if no menu (eg search page), hide

Title = «Search results»

Title = «Problem with page»

You can see that the language looks half like English and half like meaningless computer gibberish.

Microsoft have included a cut-down version of this language within each Office application (Word, Access, Excel, PowerPoint, SharePoint, Outlook and Visio all include variants of VBA). This language is called Visual Basic for Applications, or VBA, because it’s Visual Basic running within an application. Here’s an example of VBA from Excel, taken from a hangman game:

‘each part of the gallows

Dim Limb As Shape

‘ checks all the shapes on the worksheet and makes one of them visible

‘ has a shape been made visible in this function call?

Dim MadeVisible As Boolean

‘ assume no shapes have been made visible in this function call

‘ loop through all shapes

For Each Limb In ActiveSheet.Shapes

‘ if the current shape is invisble and we havn’t already made one visible

If Limb.Visible = msoFalse And MadeVisible = False Then

‘ …make it visible

‘ and make sure we leave the rest of them alone!

Fortunately for you (and everyone else), you don’t have to know how to write macros — you can just record them.

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What is VBA? The Excel Macro Language

If you’ve ever used macros in Excel, you’ve used Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). VBA is human-readable (and editable) programming code that gets generated when you record a macro. When you run a macro it’s this code that Excel reads to replay your actions.

The following is a series of frequently asked questions about VBA, with answers for both newcomers to Excel macros and seasoned programmers.

What is VBA used for in Excel?

VBA is used to write macros, which automate simple and complex tasks in Excel.

Users of Microsoft Excel will often find themselves repeating the same series of tasks over and over again. Sometimes these are minor tasks like copy-pasting subsets of data to different sheets, and sometimes the tasks are more complex like uploading data to a website. With VBA, macros can be programmed to automate tasks like these, turning a series of manual operations into a single button click.

How do I start with VBA in Excel?

The easiest way to get started with macros is to record them using the Macro Recorder built into Excel. The macro recorder generates VBA code which you can read and edit, giving you a stepping-stone to learn how to code your own macros from scratch.

For more information, see the article “How to Record a Macro”.

How can I access VBA code?

The VBA editor can be opened at any time by pressing the ALT+F11 keyboard shortcut. From here, you can access the code for all open workbooks.

You can double-click any workbook, sheet, or module object in the Project window to show the VBA code contained in it. Recorded macros will always appear in modules, which is where you’ll typically want to write your own macros too.

For more information about editing macros, see the article “Editing Excel VBA Macros“.

What can VBA do?

First of all: if there’s something you can do in Excel, you can write VBA code to do the same thing. If you learn the commands (using the macro recorder or online resources), you can string together several actions together in a single macro.

Second: you can use VBA to write user-defined functions for use in worksheet formulas – much like the “=SUM()” function, for example. Although Excel already packs a large variety of functions, if you find yourself wanting a function that’s more specific to your industry or workplace, you can add it with VBA.

Third: you can use VBA to add logic (If statements) and loops (repeat actions) to your macros. This means that a macro can be more than a recording of actions – it can be a real program with smart repetition and decision-making.

Fourth: VBA allows you to build user interfaces, giving users an easier way to interact with your macros. These interfaces can be simple buttons on a worksheet, or complex UserForms with rich controls like TreeViews and FlexGrids.

Fifth but not finally: VBA allows you to harness almost any resource your computer or the internet by using external DLL libraries. You can automate a lot more than Excel this way, like accessing web services and databases, parsing XML files, interoperating with other Microsoft Office applications, and much, much more.

Are VB and VBA the same?

The VBA language is identical to Visual Basic 6.0. If you have experience writing VB6 code, you can write VBA.

The VB Editor in Excel is a stripped-down version of the VB6 editor, with similar debugging capabilities and components like the ‘Project’ and ‘Properties’ windows. The Form editor is also very similar, although it has some limitations (like the inability to create control arrays).

Less similar to VBA is Visual Basic .NET. Although these languages share many of the same keywords and syntaxes, the code between these languages is less interoperable. You wouldn’t have to re-write much (if anything) to port a procedure from VB6 to VBA, but you couldn’t do the same from VB.NET.

What is the difference between a macro and VBA?

VBA is just the language that macros are written with. If your macro is a story, VBA is the grammar and dictionary it’s written with.

VBA Coding Made Easy

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What is the difference between a macro and a script?

Scripts use a limited subset of the Visual Basic language and are used for different purposes.

Macros are stored inside Excel workbook files and can only be run from inside Excel. They’re typically used to automate various Excel functions and add extra functionality to workbooks.

Scripts are stored in text files using the .VBS extension and can be run from inside Windows or executed by other programs. Sysadmins will use scripts to automate certain administrative tasks on a computer or network.

What does a VBA Developer do?

Often, people who create macros aren’t developers – they’re analysts, traders, accountants, or scientists, who have had training in programming and use VBA on more of an ad-hoc basis.

People who focus on VBA development tend to create more refined tools – they create Add-ins, user interfaces with Forms, interactive dashboards, report generators, and more.

Why is VBA important?

VBA is included as standard in all Microsoft Office applications, including Excel. Excel is one of the most popular programs in the world and finds use in a wide variety of fields and workplaces, all with their own unique workflows and use-cases.

By not using automation, countless work-hours are wasted every week performing boring, repetitive tasks at a human speed. Automation with VBA can perform the same tasks at the computer’s lightning-quick pace, letting users focus on the important aspects of their work, being more productive – and maybe getting out of the office a little earlier!

Is VBA a good programming language?

VBA has the typical programming elements like variables, arrays, functions, decisions and loops. It has a syntax that’s easy to read, and can harness a lot of power from Windows and other services.

On the downside, error-handling isn’t very elegant in VBA. While other languages use “try-catch-finally” code blocks, VBA uses “On Error” statements to modify how macros behave when an error occurs.

Additionally, VBA can’t be used to create standalone programs, web sites or services, and it can’t interface with newer programming APIs like the .NET platform.

Is VBA object-oriented?

VBA has some limited support for some object-oriented concepts:

• Encapsulation: VBA supports data hiding using classes
• Polymorphism: the Implements keyword allows programmers to use other classes as interfaces

In the strict sense though, VBA is not object-oriented. It notably lacks the concept of inheritance, which severely limits the ability to extend the functionality of existing types.

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What is Excel VBA? : Excel VBA Basics 001

Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) in Excel, is a powerful and sophisticated built-in programming language that allows you to write your own functions or commands in an Excel spreadsheet.

These custom functions or commands, can help to ease your tasks and thus by using Excel VBA you can do almost any imaginable thing in Excel.

Now, before we dive deep into Excel VBA, let’s first try to understand what VBA is.

Table of Contents

What is VBA?

In most simple terms you can also say that, VBA is the language that Office Applications like Excel, Word, PowerPoint, etc. understand. So, all the programming that we are going to do in Excel or in other office application has to be done in VBA.

But technically, VBA is an implementation of Microsoft’s event-driven programming language i.e. VB6 and its associated integrated development environment (IDE).

VBA is an extensible programming language that is made up of a core set of commands and extended on a per-application basis to be able to work directly with objects in that application. And because of this it is sometimes also called as a hosted language.

Visual Basic for Applications is bundled with office applications (host application) so that it can be used as medium for accessing and interacting with the host applications object model. This means that, Excel VBA, knows about things like workbooks, worksheets, cells and charts, but Word VBA doesn’t knows about such things. Instead Word VBA understand terms like documents, bookmarks etc., things that are more related to Microsoft Word.

Is there any difference between a VBA Program and Macro?

I have seen many people confusing between VBA and Macro language. But a Macro language is very much different from a VBA. Macros were used with the older versions of office applications and they could only be used for automating instructions.

In fact, the first spreadsheet macro programs were just shortcuts for the user interface commands. For example, if in the user interface you typed R (for “Range”), N (for “Name”), and C (for “Create”), you would enter RNC into the macro to automate the process.

This approach was intuitive, but it also had integral weaknesses. Because of such weaknesses, VBA later in 1993 replaced this Macro Language, and hence there is still a misconception among people to call VBA as macro language.

Visual Basic for Applications when compared to traditional Macro Language is more powerful and sophisticated and hence it was an instant success.

Why learning Excel VBA is so important?

As you become familiar with Excel, you will notice that although Excel provides you large number of tools, but still it doesn’t have everything that you need to perform your daily tasks. Such tasks may include creating custom functions, repetitive instructions, automating tasks etc.

And hence Microsoft has provided VBA as a gap filler; that allows users to write their own methods or commands to perform their tasks.

After having enough experience with VBA programming in Excel you will never ever get stuck during your tasks due to a lack of built-in tools. Using Visual Basic for Applications you will be able to write your own function and commands whenever you feel the need to write one.

What all you can do with Excel VBA?

With Excel VBA you can do a lot of things in Excel. I have enlisted few of them below:

• You can automate the tasks that you have to do frequently.
• You can create a custom command in excel.
• You can repeat a set of instructions multiple times.
• You can create custom function popularly called as User Defined Function (UDF)
• You can create a custom add in in Excel.

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Everybody in this country should learn how to program a computer... because it teaches you how to think." -Steve Jobs

I wish to extend the wise words of Steve Jobs and say everyone in the world should learn how to program a computer. You may not necessary end up working as a programmer or writing programs at all but it will teach you how to think.

In this VBA tutorial, we are going to cover the following topics.

• What is Visual Basic for Applications (VBA)?
• Why VBA?
• Personal & Business Applications of VBA in Excel
• Introduction to Visual Basic for Applications
• Step by step example of creating a simple EMI calculator in Excel
• How to use VBA in Excel Example

Before we go into further details, let’s look at what computer programming is in a layman’s language. Assume you have a maid. If you want the maid to clean the house and do the laundry. You tell her what to do using let’s say English and she does the work for you. As you work with a computer, you will want to perform certain tasks. Just like you told the maid to do the house chores, you can also tell the computer to do the tasks for you.

The process of telling the computer what you want it to do for you is what is known as computer programming. Just as you used English to tell the maid what to do, you can also use English like statements to tell the computer what to do. The English like statements fall in the category of high level languages. VBA is a high level language that you can use to bend excel to your all powerful will.

VBA is actually a sub set of Visual Basic 6.0 BASIC stands for Beginners All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code.

Personal & Business Applications of VBA in Excel

For personal use, you can use it for simple macros that will automate most of your routine tasks. Read the article on Macros for more information on how you can achieve this.

For business use, you can create complete powerful programs powered by excel and VBA. The advantage of this approach is you can leverage the powerful features of excel in your own custom programs.

Introduction to Visual Basic for Applications

Before we can write any code, we need to know the basics first. The following basics will help you get started.

• Variable – in high school we learnt about algebra. Find (x + 2y) where x = 1 and y = 3. In this expression, x and y are variables. They can be assigned any numbers i.e. 1 and 3 respective as in this example. They can also be changed to say 4 and 2 respectively. Variables in short are memory locations. As you work with VBA Excel, you will be required to declare variables too just like in algebra classes

• Rules for creating variables

  • Don’t use reserved words – if you work as a student, you cannot use the title lecturer or principal. These titles are reserved for the lecturers and the school authority. Reserved words are those words that have special meaning in Excel VBA and as such, you cannot use them as variable names.
  • Variable names cannot contain spaces – you cannot define a variable named first number. You can use firstNumber or first_number.
  • Use descriptive names – it’s very tempting to name a variable after yourself but avoid this. Use descriptive names i.e. quantity, price, subtotal etc. this will make your Excel VBA code easy to read

• Arithmetic operators – The rules of Brackets of Division Multiplication Addition and Subtraction (BODMAS) apply so remember to apply them when working with expressions that use multiple different arithmetic operators. Just like in excel, you can use

  • + for addition
  • – for subtraction
  • * for multiplication
  • / for division.

• Logical operators – The concept of logical operators covered in the earlier tutorials also apply when working with VBA. These include

  • If statements
  • OR
  • NOT
  • AND
  • TRUE
  • FALSE

VBA Hello World!

Now we will demonstrate how to program in VBA programming language. All program in VBA has to start with “Sub” and end with “End sub”. Here the name is the name you want to assign to your program. While sub stands for a subroutine which we will learn in the later part of the tutorial.

Sub name()
.
.
. 
End Sub

We will create a basic VBA program that displays an input box to ask for the user’s name then display a greeting message

This tutorial assumes you have completed the tutorial on Macros in excel and have enabled the DEVELOPER tab in excel.

• Create a new work book
• Save it in an excel macro enabled worksheet format *.xlsm
• Click on the DEVELOPER tab
• Click on INSERT drop down box under controls ribbon bar
• Select a command button as shown in the image below

Draw the command button anywhere on the worksheet

You will get the following dialogue window

• Rename the macro name to btnHelloWorld_Click
• Click on new button
• You will get the following VBA code window

Enter the following instruction codes

Dim name As String
name = InputBox("Enter your name")
MsgBox "Hello " + name

HERE,

• “Dim name as String” creates a variable called name. The variable will accept text, numeric and other characters because we defined it as a string
• “name = InputBox(“Enter your name”)” calls the built in function InputBox that displays a window with the caption Enter your name. The entered name is then stored in the name variable.
• “MsgBox “Hello ” + name” calls the built in function MsgBox that display Hello and the entered name.

Your complete code window should now look as follows

• Close the code window
• Right click on button 1 and select edit text
• Enter Say hello

• Click on Say Hello
• You will get the following input box

• Enter your name i.e. Jordan
• You will get the following message box

Congratulations, you just created your first VBA program in excel

Step by step example of creating a simple EMI calculator in Excel

In this tutorial exercise, we are going to create a simple program that calculates the EMI. EMI is the acronym for Equated Monthly Instalment. It’s the monthly amount that you repay when you get a loan. The following image shows the formula for calculating EMI.

The above formula is complex and can be written in excel. The good news is excel already took care of the above problem. You can use the PMT function to compute the above.

The PMT function works as follows

=PMT(rate,nper,pv)

HERE,

• “rate” this is the monthly rate. It’s the interest rate divided by the number of payments per year
• “nper” it is the total number of payments. It’s the loan term multiplied by number of payments per year
• “pv” present value. It’s the actual loan amount

Create the GUI using excel cells as shown below

Add a command button between rows 7 and 8

Give the button macro name btnCalculateEMI_Click

Click on edit button

Enter the following code

Dim monthly_rate As Single, loan_amount As Double, number_of_periods As Single, emi As Double
monthly_rate = Range("B6").Value / Range("B5").Value
loan_amount = Range("B3").Value
number_of_periods = Range("B4").Value * Range("B5").Value 
emi = WorksheetFunction.Pmt(monthly_rate, number_of_periods, -loan_amount)
Range("B9").Value = emi

HERE,

• “Dim monthly_rate As Single,…” Dim is the keyword that is used to define variables in VBA, monthly_rate is the variable name, Single is the data type that means the variable will accept number.
• “monthly_rate = Range(“B6”).Value / Range(“B5″).Value” Range is the function used to access excel cells from VBA, Range(“B6”).Value makes reference to the value in B6
• “WorksheetFunction.Pmt(…)” WorksheetFunction is the function used to access all the functions in excel

The following image shows the complete source code

• Click on save and close the code window
• Test your program as shown in the animated image below

How to use VBA in Excel Example

Following steps will explain how to use VBA in Excel.

Step 1) Open your VBA editor

Under Developer tab from the main menu, click on “Visual Basic” icon it will open your VBA editor.

Step 2) Select the Excel sheet & Double click on the worksheet

It will open a VBA editor, from where you can select the Excel sheet where you want to run the code. To open VBA editor double click on the worksheet.

It will open a VBA editor on the right-hand side of the folder. It will appear like a white space.

Step 3) Write anything you want to display in the MsgBox

In this step we are going to see our first VBA program. To read and display our program we need an object. In VBA that object or medium in a MsgBox.

• First, write “Sub” and then your “program name” (Guru99)
• Write anything you want to display in the MsgBox (guru99-learning is fun)
• End the program by End Sub

Step 4) Click on the green run button on top of the editor

In next step you have to run this code by clicking on the green run button on top of the editor menu.

Step 5) Select the sheet and click on “Run” button

When you run the code, another window will pops out. Here you have to select the sheet where you want to display the program and click on “Run” button

Step 6) Display the msg in MsgBox

When you click on Run button, the program will get executed. It will display the msg in MsgBox.

Download the above Excel Code

Summary

VBA Full Form : Visual Basic for Application. It’s a sub component of visual basic programming language that you can use to create applications in excel. With VBA, you can still take advantage of the powerful features of excel and use them in VBA.