Book Image

VBA Automation for Excel 2019 Cookbook

By : Mike Van Niekerk
Book Image

VBA Automation for Excel 2019 Cookbook

By: Mike Van Niekerk

Overview of this book

Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) is a programming language developed by Microsoft to automate tasks in MS Office applications. This book will help you to focus on the essential aspects of your role by automating mundane tasks in Excel and other Office applications. With comprehensive coverage of VBA delivered in the form of practice problems and bite-sized recipes, this book will help you to hit the ground running. Unlike most books that assume prior programming experience, this book starts with the fundamentals and gradually progresses to solving bigger problems. You’ll start by becoming familiar with VBA so that you can start recording macros right away. With this foundation in place, you’ll advance to using the full capabilities of the language as you apply loops, functions, and custom dialog boxes to design your own automation programs. You'll also get to grips with embedded macros and other advanced tools to enhance productivity and explore topics relating to app performance and security. Throughout this VBA book, you’ll cover multiple practice projects in Excel, Word, and PowerPoint while exploring tips and best practices to hone your skills. By the end of this book, you’ll have developed the skills you need to use VBA to create your own programs that control MS Office applications.
Table of Contents (20 chapters)

Using events to activate objects

The last element in relation to objects that we need to discuss is events. In simple English, an event is what happens when an object does something, such as open a workbook, close a sheet, or print a file. Events are initiated by a user, for example, by clicking a mouse or pressing a key.

In this recipe, we're going to cover only the most basic principles, since an entire chapter is dedicated to events later in this book.

Getting ready

With Excel open, ensure that a blank workbook is available and active.

How to do it…

The first thing to remember about events is that the code is not stored in a module object, but in the workbook object. Place the code anywhere else and it will simply not work.

The steps for this recipe are as follows:

  1. Press Alt + F11 to activate the VBA Editor.
  2. In the Project window, double-click on the ThisWorkbook object to open the code window.
  3. At the top left of the code window, from...