VBA

(Visual Basic for Applications)

Session 1
Visual Basic Editor
Record a Macro
Write a VBA Macro
Declaring a Variable
Visual Basic Editor
Go to ‘Visual Basic’ in ‘Developer’ tab

When you click on it, a new Window will

open which is the Visual Basic Editor
Visual Basic Editor Components
Menu and Tool Bar
These bars consists of various commands that you can use to do things in VBA.

Project Window/Project Explorer

The top right section gives details like which all files are open and within those files how many sheets are present.
For each sheet, workbook, you have different code modules. It is beneficial to write programs in Modules rather
than individual sheets as long as the macros are not just for that particular sheet - modules can be exported
imported to other workbooks; deleting a sheet deletes the corresponding macros.
Write macros in Sheet modules or ‘ThisWorkbook’ in cases of event handler codes which we will study later.
Recording a macro
Refer cell(s)
Using Range
Examples:
Range("A1:B6")
Range("A1:B6,D5:M8")
Range("A:E"), for entire columns
Range("1:3"), for entire rows

Using Cells - Cells(rownumber, columnnumber)

Examples:
Cells(2,4) is same as Range(“D2”)

Ranges and Cells can also be used together

Example:
Range(Cells(1,1), Cells(4,4)) is same as Range(“A1:D4")
Selecting cell(s)

Selecting one cell:

Range(“cellname”).Select

Selecting multiple cells:

Range(“cellname1:cellname2”).Select

If the row number is dynamic:

Range(“columnname” & rownumber).Select

If the column number is dynamic:

Range(columnname &“rownumber”).Select
Procedures/VBA Macros/Sub Routines
Sub keyword is used to start the macro program and this keyword is followed by the name of the
macro. In the parenthesis following macro name, a list of parameters can be supplied and if there are
no parameters to be passed, it is kept blank.

The statements that should be executed by the macro follow the sub declaration and the macro ends
with an End Sub statement/keyword.

The following shows the declaration of a macro:

Sub MacroName()
[Statements]
End Sub
Objects, Properties & Methods
VBA is an Object Oriented Language – combination of different projects like Workbook, Worksheet,
Ranges, Charts, Pivots etc.

Object Model
Whenever you use Objects – you need to do so in an orderly manner.
For ex: If there is no workbook, a worksheet cannot exist, similarly, if there is no worksheet, a pivot
table or a graph cannot exist.

Workbook
Worksheet Object Model
Ranges/Pivots/Charts

A group of similar objects is called Collection. For ex: Collection of all workbook objects is referred
to as Workbook collections – similarly collection of all worksheet collections is referred to as
Worksheet collection
Objects, Properties & Methods contd..
All Objects have properties – a property can be thought of as a setting or an attribute. For ex:
Chart object has properties like ChartTitle, ChartType, Legend

Similarly, Range has properties like Value, Count –

Value Property – Using this property, we can set a value of a particular cell or can read the value
from a particular cell to a new variable

Examples:
New1 = Application.Workbooks("VBA File.xlsm").Worksheets("Sheet1"). Range("A1").Value
Worksheets("Sheet1").Range("A2").Value = New2

Count property: The number of cells in a range can be counted as

Examples:
Range(“A1:A10").Count,
Range(“A1:A100").Rows.Count
Range(“A1:D100").Columns.Count
Objects, Properties & Methods contd..
Just like all Objects have properties, they have Methods as well – a method is an action that is
performed using an object.

For ex: for the Range object we have Methods like ClearContents, Delete

For Charts we have Methods like Activate, Select, BeforeDoubleClick etc..

Declare a Variable
Variables are declared using ‘Dim’ –
Dim Population As Long
Dim My_Name As String
Dim Age As Integer

‘Option Explicit’ should be used as it forces the user to declare all the variables beforehand
Rules –
Should not exceed 40 characters
No space
No special characters

Advantages –
Good Programing Standards
Removes chances of unexpected results by letting VBA know what a variable type is
Makes code more readable for other users
Type Range of Values
Integer -32,768 to 32,767
Long -2,147,483,648 to 2,147,483,648
Single -3.402823E+38 to -1.401298E-45 for negative values
1.401298E-45 to 3.402823E+38 for positive values
Double -1.79769313486232e+308 to -4.94065645841247E-324 for negative values
4.94065645841247E-324 to 1.79769313486232e+308 for positive values
Currency -922,337,203,685,477.5808 to 922,337,203,685,477.5807
Decimal +/- 79,228,162,514,264,337,593,543,950,335 if no decimal is use
+/- 7.9228162514264337593543950335 (28 decimal places)
Byte 0 to 255
String 1 to 65,400 characters
Date January 1, 100 to December 31, 9999
Boolean True or False
Some codes attached

Codes for Building Blocks session.txt