Peter Bradley - Excel VBA: A Step-By-Step Tutorial For Beginners To Learn Excel VBA Programming From Scratch

Copyright 2018 by Peter Bradley All rights reserved.

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Introduction

C ongratulations on downloading Excel VBA: A Step-By-Step Tutorial For Beginners To Learn Excel VBA Programming From Scratch

and thank you for doing so. Despite the fact that most people dont know all that much about it, Excel is an extremely useful and versatile tool and taking this first step towards utilizing it to the fullest is sure to pay serious dividends in the future.

In order to ensure you have all the tools you need at your disposal, the following chapters will discuss everything you need to know about VBA, starting with the basics including accessing this feature in modern spreadsheets. Next, you will learn how to make the most of macros by using existing Excel data. You will then learn about the many ways both variables as well as If/Then statements can be used to take your macros to the next level.

From there, you will learn about some more complicated concepts include looping, as well as a number of additional tools that are sure to prove useful from time to time. You will then learn about common errors to watch out for while debugging and some additional tips for success to keep in mind while working with VBA to ensure you get started on the right foot.

There are plenty of books on this subject on the market, thanks again for choosing this one! Every effort was made to ensure it is full of as much useful information as possible, please enjoy!

Chapter 1: VBA Primer

W hile you can manipulate Excel to a fair degree through the use of formulas alone, there are always going to be tasks that require you to move and sort data in ways that are limited through the use of this knowledge alone. In these situations, it will generally be much more efficient time-wise to just create a program that can automate the task you are attempting. In Excel, these programs are known as Macros and Excel offers an easy means of creating your own through its own programming language known as Visual Basic for Applications or VBA for short.

The language operates via Visual Basic 6 which was a programming language in vouge before Microsoft standardized things with the .NET languages. While it was once quite popular, these days VBA is the last place most people will encounter it and even then in newer versions of Excel you have to manually activate the feature to even get a peek at it. If you pursue it, however, you will find that once you get used to it you will be able to easily create macros that will easily complete a wide variety of different functions.

While the language struggles with more complicated actions, as long as you dont push the limits of whats possible you will find that a little bit of studying will help to save a significant amount of time in the long-run. VBA can be found throughout the Microsoft Office suite of programs as well which means your new skill can have a wide variety of uses indeed.

First things first

If you are using a version of Excel from 2010 or later, you will need to enable VBA functionality before you can get started. This is due to the fact that some macros could, hypothetically, lead to security issues so Microsoft puts the responsibility of enabling it on the user. Luckily, the process to do so isnt difficult, all you need to do is go to FILE, then OPTIONS and choose the option for CUSTOMIZE RIBBON. From the resulting screen, you will then want to find the box marked DEVELOPER as doing so will provide a space for developer icons to appear on the main screen.

This wont do you any good on its own, however, as you have to use a separate option to allow Macros to be run within Excel. Specifically, you will want to select FILE, then OPTIONS, then TRUST CENTER and finally TRUST CENTER SETTINGS. From the resulting screen, you will then want to choose the option for MACROS SETTINGS. Finally, you will want to check the box marked ENABLE ALL MACROS.

Assuming you have followed these steps correctly you should now see the space for developer tools on the main screen and also run a program. If you cant do both successfully then you will know that you need to repeat the steps above.

Write your first program

If you have ever programmed something before then you likely know what is coming next. This is due to the fact that programming tradition demands that the first program you write is one that causes the message Hello world to appear on the screen. While this isnt the most useful program to run multiple times, creating it will help to get you used to the basics of VBA while at the same time ensuring you dont get into anything too complex which can make it difficult to determine where any errors might have come from.