Excel 2013 Power Programming with VBA

Chapter 1: Excel in a Nutshell

In This Chapter

• Introducing Excel's object orientation

• Gaining a conceptual overview of Excel, including a description of its major features

• Discovering the new features in Excel 2013

• Taking advantage of helpful tips and techniques

About Excel

Excel is, by far, the most commonly used spreadsheet product in the world. Because you're reading this book, you are probably familiar with Excel and have used the product for several years. But even a veteran user sometimes needs a refresher course — especially if your experience is mostly with Excel 2003 or earlier versions.

In this chapter, I provide a quick overview of Excel and introduce the concept of objects — an essential component in mastering VBA programming.

Thinking in Terms of Objects

When you're developing applications with Excel (especially when you're dabbling with Visual Basic for Applications — VBA), it's helpful to think in terms of objects, or Excel elements that you can manipulate manually or via a macro. Here are some examples of Excel objects:

• The Excel application

• An Excel workbook

• A worksheet in a workbook

• A range or a table in a worksheet

• A ListBox control on a UserForm (a custom dialog box)

• A chart embedded in a worksheet

• A chart series in a chart

• A particular data point in a chart

You may notice that an object hierarchy exists here: The Excel object contains workbook objects, which contain worksheet objects, which contain range objects. This hierarchy makes ...