The Idea Behind This Book

Visual basic for applications is, to be sure, a modern object-oriented programming language that offers an incredible number of keywords, but at the same time it offers many difficulties. At the beginning one has no hope of gaining even an overview of VBA. And even after months of programming in VBA the on-line help will remain the most important source of advice on the details of a particular keyword. Therefore, this book attempts to compensate for the shortcomings in the original documentation and the on-line help by providing the following assistance:

• Genuine applications in the form of concrete, realistic examples

• Thematic syntax summaries (for example, all properties and methods for dealing with ranges of cells )

• Detailed information on the use of DLL functions, on ActiveX automation, on the creation of custom on-line help texts , on programming your own add-ins.

• Useful descriptions of all VBA objects and their arrangement in the object hierarchy

• Information on inconsistiencies and errors in VBA

However, there is one attribute that this book does not possess: completeness. There is no point, it seems to me, in filling hundreds of pages with a reference to all keywords when practically the same information can be found in the on-line help. Instead of seeking to give only the appearance of completeness, I have attempted to give preference to the most important topics and to deal with these in full detail.

Formalities

Keyboard shortcuts are given in the form Ctrl+F2 . Menu commands appear as follows : FILEOPEN, CANCEL, or OK. The instruction EDITDELETESHIFT cells left means that you first execute the menu command EDITDELETE and then in the dialog that appears select the button Shift cells left.

VBA keywords as well as variables and procedures are written in italics , for example, " Application object" or " Visible property." Worksheet functions are written in the same type style, but in all uppercase letters , as in IF , for example.

(In international versions of Excel it is necessary to distinguish worksheet functions from VBA keywords: VBA keywords are always in English, while worksheet functions must be given in the local language.) Keywords that appear in the text for the first time with an explanation or that are particularly important are printed in bold italics .