Chapter 21: Macros and VBA

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I don’t intend to teach you Visual Basic for Applications in this book. However, if you become a little bit familiar with what macros are and learn your way around the Visual Basic Editor window, perhaps it’ll spark your interest in automating your tasks. I figure if you’re lazy, you’ll LOVE macros!

What is a Macro?

Macros are used to create a set of commands or tasks to be performed automatically. When you have repetitive tasks, you can create a macro that automatically runs a small “program” to perform those tasks for you.

Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) is a mini-version of Visual Basic that is used within the Microsoft Office suite and certain other programs, like Visio. When you record a macro, the VBA code required to repeat those steps is recorded for you. Many tasks that you would like to perform cannot be recorded, but may be written in VBA; many tasks that you would like to perform all at once might need to be written by a VBA programmer.

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