Programming Excel with VBA and .NET

The Global Object

As mentioned earlier in this chapter, Excel provides shortcuts into its object hierarchy through properties like ActiveCell and the Sheets collection. Those shortcuts are actually members of the Global object, which is a sort of default object that Excel uses if you omit an object name. This allows you to write code like:

    ActiveCell = 42

rather than:

    Application.ActiveCell = 42

The Global object includes many of the same members as the Application object, as shown in this list:

ActiveCell	ActiveChart	ActiveDialog
ActiveMenuBar	ActivePrinter	ActiveSheet
ActiveWindow	ActiveWorkbook	AddIns
Application	Assistant	Calculate
Cells	Charts	Columns
CommandBars	Creator	DDEAppReturnCode
DDEExecute	DDEInitiate	DDEPoke
DDERequest	DDETerminate	DialogSheets
Equals	Evaluate	Excel4IntlMacroSheets
Excel4MacroSheets	ExecuteExcel4Macro	Intersect
MenuBars	Modules	Names
Parent	Range	Rows
Run	Selection	SendKeys
Sheets	ShortcutMenus	ThisWorkbook
Toolbars	Union	Windows
Workbooks	WorksheetFunction	Worksheets

Many of these members return objects or collections, so they look like absolute references. In reality, they are all members of the Global object (even Application is a property of the Global object). In short, the Global object is the granddaddy of all the Excel objects.

You don’t have to understand the Global object to use Excel’s object library, but knowing something about it helps explain why the same objects turn up at various levels in the Excel object hierarchy. It also helps to explain how the Excel team implemented their objects, which is useful for advanced tasks, such as using the Excel object library from other programming languages, like Visual Basic .NET and C#.