Chapter 24: Creating Project 2002 Macros

Overview

Microsoft Project is more than just the application and templates you install from a CD. In earlier chapters, you saw some of the flexibility built into Project. You can customize reports, views, and the application interface; then there is the most powerful Project customization tool of all—its programmability. As with other Microsoft Office applications, Project enables you to customize your existing software by telling Project exactly how you want it to work.

Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) is the engine that drives all programming in Project. There are essentially two ways to create VBA programs. The simplest method available in Project (as well as in Office applications such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint) is to record macros—VBA programs that run within a host application—using a utility called the Macro Recorder. If you’re already familiar with Visual Basic, you can create Project macros by opening a programming module and typing line after line of code.

You’ll learn about Visual Basic and Visual Basic for Applications in Chapters 26 and 27, but you don’t have to know how to program in Visual Basic (or even desire that knowledge) to be able to create macros in Microsoft Project. We’ll begin our work with VBA using the Macro Recorder, and sneak up on the programming stuff in later chapters.

This chapter covers the following topics:

• Creating macros using the Macro Recorder

• Running macros manually

• Editing macro code

• Deleting macros

• Adding macros to menus and toolbars

• Protecting against macro viruses