Excel VBA Programming For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer Tech))

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 408 pages
• Published by: For Dummies
• Edition: 1st Edition August 20, 2004
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0764574124
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0764574122
• Book Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.2 x 1 inches
• Weighs: 1.1 pounds

Book Description
Having Excel and just using it for standard spreadsheets is a little like getting the ultimate cable system and a 50” flat panel plasma HDTV and using it exclusively to watch Lawrence Welk reruns. With Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) programming, you can take advantage of numerous Excel options such as: creating new worksheet functions; automating tasks and operations; creating new appearances, toolbars, and menus; designing custom dialog boxes and add-ins; and much more.

This guide is not for rank Excel amateurs. It’s for intermediate to advanced Excel users who want to learn VBA programming (or whose bosses want them to learn VBA programming). You need to know your way around Excel before you start creating customized short cuts or systems for speeding through Excel functions. If you’re an intermediate or advanced Excel user, Excel VBA For Dummies helps you take your skills (and your spreadsheets) to the next level. It includes:

• An introduction to the VBA language
• A hands-on, guided, step-by-step walk through developing a useful VBA macro, including recording, testing, and changing it, and testing it
• The essential foundation, including the Visual Basic Editor (VBE) and its components, modules, Excel object model, subroutines and functions, and the Excel macro recorder
• The essential VBA language elements, including comments, variables and constants, and labels
• Working with Range objects and discovering useful Range objective properties and methods
• Using VBA and worksheet functions, including a list and examples
• Programming constructions, including the GoTo statement, the If-Then structure, Select Case, For-Next loop, Do-While loop, and Do-Until loop
• Automatic procedures and Workbook events, including a table and event-handler procedures
• Error-handling and bug extermination techniques, and using the Excel debugging tools
• Creating custom dialog boxes, also known as UserForms, with a table of the toolbox controls and their capabilities, how-to for the dialog box controls, and UserForm techniques and tricks
• Customizing the Excel toolbars
• Using VBA code to modify the Excel menu system
• Creating worksheet functions and working with various types of arguments
• Creating Excel add-ins such as new worksheet functions you can use in formulas or new commands or utilities

Author John Walkenbach is a leading authority on spreadsheet software and the author of more than forty spreadsheet books including Excel 2003 Bible and Excel 2003 Power Programming with VBA. While this guide includes tons of examples and screenshots, Walkenbach knows there’s no substitute for hands-on learning. The book is complete with:

• A dedicated companion Web site that includes bonus chapters plus all sample programs to save you a lot of typing and let you play around and experiment with various changes
• Information to help you make the most of Excel’s built-in Help system so you can find out other stuff you may need to know

What are you waiting for? Sure, learning to do VBA programming takes a little effort, but it’s a Very Big Accomplishment.

Download Description

Shows ordinary users how to harness the power of Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) and create custom Excel applications

This book introduces people to a wide array of new Excel options, including creating new worksheet functions, automating tasks and operations, creating new toolbars and menus, designing custom dialog boxes and add-ins, and much more

Begins with the most important tools and operations for the Visual Basic Editor, then provides an overview of the essential elements and concepts for programming with Excel

John Walkenbach, a.k.a. "Mr. Spreadsheet," runs a popular Web site (www.j-walk.com) on Excel techniques and is the author of many bestselling books on Excel

Reader Reviews
I needed to quickly do a macro for a large Excel workbook. Although I have programmed off and on for thirty years, I have done little with VBA. One night with this book was all that it took to learn the basics; and I completed the project the following day with only brief use of one other VBA reference book. As noted by another, Wallenbach is the best-known author of books on VBA for Excel and writes with a pleasant style - friendly enough but little of the silliness of some introductory books. The book is written for those with good familiarity with Excel but with little or no prior programming experience. It seems also to be a good quick-start or overview for those with more experience. Code samples are quite short and can be downloaded from the web. There is no CD. You must have Excel 2000 or later. (The book itself was published in 2004. VBA for Excel has changed little since the Excel 2000 version.) You may want Wallenbach's 1018-page "Excel 2003 Power Programming with VBA" or other general reference for heavy-duty VBA work, although of course the on-line Microsoft documentation for VBA is very, very extensive. VBA is of course very similar to its big-brother, the general-purpose language, VB.NET. If you are new to programming and enjoy this book, you can move on to VB.NET easily. Hey, you're not writing macros with VBA, you're programming!! Comment | | (Report this)