2/17/2012

Lecture 16: Excel VBA

Introduction to Computer
Programming for Engineering

Lecture 16: Excel VBA

ESSENTIAL CONCEPTS
ABOUT OBJECTS

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Objects have unique properties and

methods

 Each object has its own set of properties

and methods.

 Some objects, however, share some

properties (for example, Name) and some
methods (such as Delete).

You can manipulate objects

without selecting them.

 This idea may be contrary to how you

normally think about manipulating objects
in Excel.

 The fact is that it’s usually more efficient

to perform actions on objects without
selecting them first.

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It’s important that you understand the

concept of collections.
 Most of the time, you refer to an object indirectly
by referring to the collection that it’s in.

 For example, to access a Workbook object named

Myfile, reference the Workbooks collection as
follows:

◦ Workbooks(“Myfile.xlsx”)

 This reference returns an object, which is the

workbook with which you’re concerned.

Properties can return a

reference to another object.

 For example, in the following statement,

the Font property returns a Font object
contained in a Range object. Bold is a
property of the Font object, not the
Range object.

◦ Range(“A1”).Font.Bold = True

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You can refer to the same

object in many different ways.
 For example, you can refer to the sheet in
any of the following ways:

◦ Workbooks(“Sales.xlsx”).Worksheets(“Summary
”)
◦ Workbooks(1).Worksheets(1)
◦ Workbooks(1).Sheets(1)
◦ Application.ActiveWorkbook.ActiveSheet
◦ ActiveWorkbook.ActiveSheet
◦ ActiveSheet