Excel 2010 Made Simple

Chapter 11

Automating Your Work with Macros

In the course of your work with Excel you may find yourself having to carry out the same data entry tasks repeatedly, such as entering your company's name and address at the top of many of your spreadsheets. Rather than having to perform that recurring (and irritating) chore over and over again, you can compose a macro instead to enter that information.

A macro is a little program saved to your spreadsheet, one that automatically executes a set of Excel commands at your instruction and thus spares you the need to execute them. At the click of a mouse or the tap of a keyboard shortcut, the commands play themselves out—and do so far more swiftly than you could type or click them.

For example, you may ...