What s New in Excel 2000 and 2002?
Preface
Excel offers right out of the box an
enormous
variety of
functions. So why does one need VBA macros? With VBA you can
accomplish wonders:
-
You can program your own worksheet functions that are easier to
use than complicated formulas.
-
You can configure Excel to suit your requirements and in this
way achieve greater simplicity and efficiency.
-
You can structure and simplify complex processes such as filling
out forms by means of "smart" forms (templates).
-
You can automate processes that are used frequently. This is
particularly useful in dealing repeatedly with large data sets that
must be
processed
,
analyzed
, and graphically displayed.
-
You can create freestanding Excel programs that display their
own
menus
, dialogs, and
toolbars
. This makes it possible to
simplify an Excel application to the point where those unfamiliar
with Excel can run the program correctly.
What's New in Excel 2000 and 2002?
With Excel 97, the VBA programming model and the most important
object libraries became
fairly
stable. Excel 2000 and 2002
introduced a host of new objects, but in practice these are seldom
used (if for no other reason than to make VBA applications backward
compatible with the widely distributed Excel 97). The most
important innovations are the Scripting and ADO libraries, both of
which have been available since Excel 2000, simplifying access to
files, directories, and external databases.
Excel and .NET
In connection with Microsoft's .NET offensive, it should be
mentioned that Office 2000 and 2002 are not yet .NET compatible.
Even the forthcoming Office edition scheduled for release sometime
in 2003 will not be based on .NET, according to current word from
Microsoft. But that is no reason for tears. If Microsoft were
someday to decide actually to convert the Office suite to .NET and
the new programming language VB.NET, then there would be a great
number of compatibility problems built into Excel.
An important function of .NET, namely, the so-called web
services, can already be used with Excel 2000 and 2002 without
compatibility problems. The Web Services Toolkit, a simple and
freely
distributed extension of the VBA development environment,
makes this possible. (Details on the use of this toolkit appear in
Chapter 14.)
Why This Book?
The real problem in VBA programming is not VBA itself. The
formulation of a loop or test, the use of
methods
and properties,
are easily
understood
as in any programming language and will cause
you no trouble after a couple of days. The problem is to get a
handle on the complex object libraries within Excel, with their
more than a thousand keywords, and to use them
efficiently
. The
focus of this book and the examples presented herein is to explain
these object libraries.
In contrast to Excel's Help, the goal of this book is not to
offer merely a referenceoften one that says
next
to nothingof key words. It is our purpose
to show the connections among the
numerous
objects and to
demonstrate
their use with concrete application examples as they
appear in the real world. We do not hesitate to point out problems
with Excel where they exist, in order to spare you, the reader,
from a fruitless search for errors of which you were not the
cause.
Enjoy!
The examples of this book show just how far one can go with
Excel programming. The possibilities are truly endless. This book
will help you to become acquainted quickly with Excel's object
model, and once you have gotten over that
hurdle
(figure one or two
weeks), you will find that VBA programming is a lot of fun.
Therefore, I wish you great success and plenty of fun and enjoyment
in your Excel programming.
Michael Kofler, May 2003
http://www.kofler.cc