Excel Macros 1

Excel Macros

Dave Goody

Course Rules

• Enjoy yourselves !!!

• Ask questions
• Take part, interact and make the course your own
• Coffee and comfort break around halfway through the
course
Excel Macros 2

What is a Macro?
• A Macro is a piece of code that enables the same
processing or key-strokes to be repeated

When to use a Macro?

• If you are creating a one-off spreadsheet that will be
discarded it is unlikely that there will be any benefit from
using a Macro, but if the spreadsheet will be returned to
and contains repetition then obviously it is worth thinking
about using Macros
• This is particularly the case if the spreadsheet will be
used by different people as a Macro can also reduce
human error
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Your first Macro

• To help you to understand Macros a little better, we will
set up a very simple one
• This will introduce us to Recording Macros, which is the
simplest way of creating a Macro

• Use the example workbook “Excel Macros”, which is on

your desktop

Your first Macro

• To create a new Macro, select Tools, Macro, Record
New Macro to display the Record Macro dialog box
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Your first Macro

• Enter a name for the Macro, for example “Filter”

Your first Macro

• As you can see, you can specify a shortcut key to run
this Macro should you wish to
• It is best to avoid using Ctrl+ anything as this can easily
interfere with Windows shortcuts, but by pressing shift
and then a keyboard letter this potential ambiguity is
avoided
• Just to keep everyone the same we'll use Ctrl+Shift+F
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Your first Macro

• It is best to store the Macro in "This Workbook" so that if
you send someone the Workbook they also get the
Macro
• It can be a good idea to have your own Workbook that
only contains Macros like a sort of Macro library, then if
you want to re-use one just copy it to the Workbook that
you are currently building

Your first Macro

• Hit "OK"
• This now brings up the Macro Recording Form to
confirm that you are currently in “record” mode.
"Recording" should also be displayed in the status bar.
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Your first Macro

• Now, turn on the AutoFilter by selecting Data, Filter,
AutoFilter

• Now, stop the recording by clicking the “Stop” button on

the Macro Recording Form

Your first Macro

• You can now try running your Macro
• This can be done in two ways
• By using your specified shortcut (Ctrl+Shift+F)
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Your first Macro

• By selecting Tools, Macros, then selecting the “Filter”
macros and clicking Run

Running Macros
• As well as running Macros as shown before, they can
also be run in various other ways

• From a Button
• Select View, Toolbars, Forms
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Running Macros
• Click on the Button icon and then click on the workbook
to place the button
• Select “Filter” and click OK

Running Macros
• From a Drawing
• Select View, Toolbars, Drawing (if necessary)
• Place any drawing on the workbook
• Right-click the drawing, then choose Assign Macro
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Running Macros
• Select “Filter” and click OK
• You can now run the Macro by clicking on the drawing

The VB Editor
• To access the VB editor, select Tools, Macro, Macros,
then select a Macro and click “Edit”
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The VB Editor
• To access the VB editor, select Tools, Macro, Macros,
then select a Macro and click “Edit”

The VB Editor
• Comments start with an apostrophe (‘)
• Keywords are in blue
• Code is in black
• Errors are in red
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The VB Editor
• Objects, Properties and Methods

• An Object is an object, e.g. a Table

• A Property is something about an object that tells
you about it, e.g. width
• A Method is an action you can apply to an object,
e.g. Wipe

The VB Editor
• Applying a Method to an Object is done as follows:-
• Object.Method
• e.g. Wipe the table is done by: Table.Wipe

• The value of the Property of an Object is set in a similar

way
• Object.Property = value
• e.g. To set the width of Object Table to 10 is done
by: Table.Width = 10
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The VB Editor
• Objects can have objects within them; this is known as a
collection

• e.g. Table.leg.height = 5
• where Leg is an Object within the Table Object

• or even Table.leg(1).height = 5
• where this is leg 1 of the Table Object

• To explain this further, lets create another Macro

The VB Editor
• Create a Macro to turn the spreadsheet Gridlines on and
off (remember how to record a Macro?)
• This is done by selecting Tools, Options, View,
Gridlines
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The VB Editor
• Once you have created your Macro and checked that it
works, have a look at the code (Tools, Macro, Macros,
select the Macro and click “Edit”)

• You can see from this that DisplayGridlines is a Property

of ActiveWindow

The VB Editor
• Unfortunately, you may notice that our Macro only turns
the Gridlines off, but not back on again
• To do this, we will need to add an “if” condition and test
the current value of the Property

• Try running your new Macro

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The VB Editor
• We are now going to create a Macro that enters values
into a cell
• Record a Macro named “Name”, click on cell A13 and
enter your name
• Stop recording and have a look at the code

The VB Editor
• To make this Macro work anywhere, remove the line
• Range(“A13”).Select
• which positions the Active Cell

• We are now going to create a Macro by entering the

code, rather than recording it

• If your VB editor is not active, start it now (Alt+F11 is the

shortcut)
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The VB Editor
• Enter the code as follows:-

• This sets the font name and size, but saves doing
• Selection.font.name = “letter gothic 12”
• Selection.font.size = 15.5
• Try running your new Macros

The VB Editor
• A Macro can also be made to prompt the User for input
• From within the VB Editor, create a new Macro
“InputName” with the following code:-

• When you run this Macro, you should see…

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Moving Around Within The Spreadsheet

• There are two ways of referencing cells within a
spreadsheet…
• Absolute Referencing
• Relative Referencing

• Record a new Macro called “Absolute” and click on cell

A1.
• The Macro you have created should contain the line

• When this Macro is run, the cursor goes to cell A1

Moving Around Within The Spreadsheet

• Now, record a Macro named “Relative”, but before doing
anything, click the “Relative Referencing” button on the
Macro Form

• Now, click on the cell one below the current active cell,
then click the “Relative Referencing” button again,
followed by “Stop”
• Now have a look at the Macro code in the VB Editor
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Moving Around Within The Spreadsheet

• Your code should look something like this

• “ActiveCell.offset(1,0)” moves the cursor down one line

and across zero lines
• In this instance, “Range(“A1”)” does nothing, as we are
using Relative Referencing – it can be left out

• Negative values can be used to navigate up and to the

left on the spreadsheet

Moving Around Within The Spreadsheet

• By using a simple loop, along with relative referencing,
we can create a Macro to find the next available free cell
in a column

• This Macro starts in the current cell and moves down

one line at a time until an empty cell is located
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Moving Around Within The Spreadsheet

• We can now combine two of our Macros together, by
running the FindFree Macro, then the InputName Macro

• This finds the first free cell in the current column, then
prompts for a name to be entered

Error Handling
• We should ensure that if an error occurs when running a
macro, we handle it rather than letting the macro crash
and grind to a halt
• On your “Filter” macro, enter a new first line
• On error goto MyError

• Then add the following before the End Sub

• Exit Sub

• MyError:
• MSGBox(“Pick a cell!”)
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Error Handling
• Try selecting a range of cells outside the data entered,
and run the “Filter” macro
• Rather than getting an error message, you should see
the message you have specified

Auto Open and Auto Close Macros

• There are two reserved macros that run when a
spreadsheet is opened and when it is closed
• These can be used to varying effects – these two
examples are not particularly useful, but they should
give you the idea of what can be achieved

• WARNING – These macros can be used by people who

write viruses, as they run automatically when opening a
macro
• This is why there are macro security settings within
Excel, which often stop macros being run
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Auto Open and Auto Close Macros

• On Sheet2 of your workbook, add a shape and name it
“message” (use the Name Box)
• Then add this new macro via the VB Editor

Auto Open and Auto Close Macros

• Also, enter this new macro

• Save your workbook, close it and then re-open it

Excel Macros 21

Functions
• The VB Editor also gives you the opportunity to write
your own functions
• For instance, you could write one that converts
Centigrade to Fahrenheit, or perhaps to do currency
conversion

• In the VB Editor, enter the following…

Functions
• To use your new function, enter a value into a cell and
then enter your function into another
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Functions
• Functions can have more than one variable passed to
them
• Try creating another function called Exchange

Functions
• You run this in the same way as the Fahrenheit function,
but you pass it two variables
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Further Message Box Options

• The MsgBox can be used to get a response back from
the User

Further Message Box Options

• Look at the various components of your code when the
box is displayed
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Further Message Box Options

• There are many options available for the MsgBox
command – it is best to check the Excel Help to see
what you can do with it
• Position the cursor on the MsgBox command in the
macro code and press F1

Multiple Cell Selection

• If you wish to run a macro against a range or cells, you
need to use a Dim command (dimension)

• Enter some numbers into a range of cells, select the

cells and then run your new macro
Excel Macros 25

Multiple Cell Selection

• When you run the macro, each cell in the selection has
the macro applied to it

The End

Thank you for your time any attention.

Any questions?