Visual Basic Macros Made Easy is a downloadable book on how to write macros for Microsoft Excel. Written by a user for users. Easily accessible from Excel whenever you need it, the book is full of practical examples that can be copied directly into Excel. Useful for both new and experienced macro writers.
The initial chapters of the book concentrates on teaching you the basics of writing macros. It shows you how to access the Visual Basic editor from within Excel. And, it provides useful customizations to the VB editor that make writing macros easier. There is an entire chapter focused on walking you through the creation of a useful macro, one that will perform any math action you want on a group of cells. The example starts you out with just a few lines of code and then gradually has you add modifications to learn how to write a macro by doing. And, we intentionally have you make mistakes so you experience such events in a planned way.
Subsequent chapters explain how to use variables, link multiple small macros together, show you useful techniques on writing macros and go over the many useful features of visual basic.
The VB Made Easy book was written by a user for users. Unlike most books which have two sections in a chapter focused on working with cells and ranges, the VB Made Easy book has two chapters 100% focused on working with cells and ranges. And a full chapter on working with just sheets and a full chapter on working with workbooks. There are also full chapters dedicated to creating toolbars and working with the Excel menus and making changes to them, such as adding a menu item to call your macro.
The book has many useful examples. When you find an example that will help you, you don't have to type it into your macro. You just highlight the example and copy it and then paste it into your macro, saving you time and getting it right the first time!
The book is easy to access. Just select the Excel Tools menu and then click on the Macro Systems Add-in Manager and select the book in the list. This opens the help file for immediate access. The help file is actually an enhanced windows help file, with an explorer style window added on the left. The windows lists each of the chapters. And when you click on a chapter, it expands into its topics. Click on a topic, and you are immediately taken to it. And, you can leave the help file open as long as you want!
You can also search for help on any topic and get the related topics instantly. Just click on the search button and type in words related to your need. All topics containing all of those words are displayed. Just click on any one of them to go directly to it. And, the key words are highlighted! No more leafing though paper books to hopefully find a topic.
On topics that you would like to go to the next time you open the book, you can add a bookmark to the help file. Then just click on the bookmark, and the topic is displayed!
