Writing Excel Macros with VBA

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Writing Excel Macros with VBA, Second Edition

By Steven Roman, Ph.D.
June 2002
Pages: 570
ISBN 10: 0-596-00359-5 | ISBN 13: 9780596003593
(Average of 7 Customer Reviews)

Description

To achieve the maximum control and flexibility from Microsoft® Excel often requires careful custom programming using the VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) language. Writing Excel Macros with VBA, 2nd Edition offers a solid introduction to writing VBA macros and programs, and will show you how to get more power at the programming level: focusing on programming languages, the Visual Basic Editor, handling code, and the Excel object model.
Full Description

Newly updated for Excel 2002, Writing Excel Macros with VBA, 2nd Edition provides Excel power-users, as well as programmers who are unfamiliar with the Excel object model, with a solid introduction to writing Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) macros and programs for Excel. In particular, the book focuses on:

The Visual Basic Editor and the Excel VBA programming environment. Excel features a complete, state-of-the-art integrated development environment for writing, running, testing, and debugging VBA macros.

The VBA programming language, the same programming language used by the other applications in Microsoft Office XP and 2000, as well as by the retail editions of Visual Basic 6.0. The Excel object model, including new objects and new members of existing objects in Excel 2002. Excel exposes nearly all of its functionality through its object model, which is the means by which Excel can be controlled programmatically using VBA. While the Excel object model, with 192 objects, is the second largest among the Office applications, you need to be familiar with only a handful of objects to write effective macros. Writing Excel Macros focuses on these essential objects, but includes a discussion of many more objects as well. Writing Excel Macros with VBA, 2nd Edition is written in a terse, no-nonsense manner that is characteristic of Steven Roman's straightforward, practical approach. Instead of a slow-paced tutorial with a lot of handholding, Roman offers the essential information about Excel VBA that you must master to write macros effectively. This tutorial is reinforced by interesting and useful examples that solve common problems you're sure to have encountered. Writing Excel Macros with VBA, 2nd Edition is the book you need to delve into the basics of Excel VBA programming, enabling you to increase your power and productivity.

Featured customer reviews

One of the greats!, August 16 2008

Rating:

Submitted by April067 [Respond | View]

Writing Excel Macros w/ VBA is an great book that with just a little work anyone can master the information presented. If your looking for the lazy man's books that requires no thinking this book is not for you. On the other hand if you want to unlock the true power of Excel there isn't another book in print currently that can hold a candle to this one!

Excellent book, December 13 2007

Rating:

Submitted by Erik [Respond | View]

I can honestly say, that with my rather small programming background, and this book, I have not only increased my value to a company, but I have also been able to get a much better job. You do not need to be a hard-core programmer to find this book useful, but you still do need some basic programming background. If you do have the background, and you work in Excel to any degree, this really is a must-have.

Great overview for Excel object model, January 02 2007

Rating:

Submitted by cp [Respond | View]

Writing Excel Macros w/ VBA is an excellent book if you already have some structured programming experience. Only the first 100 pages or so of the book cover programming -- the remaining 400 pages focuses on Excel collections, properties and methods.
The sections on custom menus, pivot tables and charts are excellent, as is the focus on how Excel interprets what you put in. I especially appreciate Steven Roman's notation of what is the default choice within each method.
More importantly, although this book's 2nd edition was published in 2002, the object model hasn't changed all that much, and the tools learned here can be applied to any version.
As a result of using this book, my code is tighter, much faster and easier to read.

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Very Useful, August 29 2006

Rating:

Submitted by Janis [Respond | View]

I liked this book. It has only the most important subjects and are presented logically. I think the author expects you will have some common sense or some other db or programming experience. Your time isn't wasted on stuff that isn't useful. You can get all the basics and look things up easily. I also used Oreilly books on Unix and AWK and SED. I liked this book also.

not what it appears, July 18 2004

Rating:

Submitted by Anonymous Reader [Respond | View]

Sorely disappointed in this book (disappointed enough to write my first review!). I had hoped, expected, that as an O'Reilly book I could trust it as I have done many times in the based with Unix books, SED, AWK, etc. The title says "Writing Excel Macros" and I expected how to examples, step-by-step process, building actual macros from start to finish. Yet chapter after chapter is just more detail on Excel objects, without anything that puts this information into useful context. If anything, the title should be "Reference book for Excel Objects" and it would have hit the mark. I just wasted $40.

Writing Excel Macros with VBA, 2nd Edition Review, June 26 2003

Rating:

Submitted by Rob Nichols [Respond | View]

This book provided a straight forward step into VBA programming. I had used Excel a lot and was used to using compound If statements and conditional formatting to achieve the results I wanted. Using VBA moved me on to a higher level and allowed me to develop Excel spreadsheets that worked the way I wanted them to rather than me having to work to the way my spreadsheet was demanding.

What marks this book as very good is that not only did I find it good to start with, but it continues to be a useful guide. I read the first quarter and that gave me enough to take on most of the tasks I needed to do at the time. However after I became more familiar with VBA, I found I needed more in depth knowledge and I was able to return to the book and progress further.

Recently I have brought "VB & VBA in a Nutshell" and this complements this book very well.

Writing Excel Macros with VBA, 2nd Edition Review, May 20 2003

Rating:

Submitted by Excel user who is programmer [Respond | View]

Very clear examples in a book on an uncommon (or uncommon to be totally devoted) topic.

Media reviews "This is a very specialized book with a very specialized core audience and this text does what it says it does--teach you how to write Excel Macros using VBA... Any user would want a book that helps them complete their task at hand and this book gets my seal of approval in helping to do just that."
--Daniel J. McKinnon, Amazon.com review, June 2005

"If you want to learn VBA for Excel, the best resource is Steven Roman's Writing Excel Macros."
--Major Keary, Book News, 2005:1

"Steven Roman has done an excellent job of making the power of VBA accessible to the Excel user who is willing to work a bit. Spend a little time with Excel and this book and you'll find you have a powerful analytical environment at your fingertips."
--John Bollinger, John Bollinger's Capital Growth Letter, 20 September 2002

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