For Dummies Excel VBA Programming, 2nd Edition 978-0-470-50369-0 User Manual

In This Chapter

▶ 

Gaining a conceptual overview of VBA

▶ 

Finding out what you can do with VBA

▶ 

Discovering the advantages and disadvantages of using VBA

▶ 

Taking a mini-lesson on the history of Excel

I

f you’re anxious to jump into VBA programming, hold your horses. This 
chapter is completely devoid of any hands-on training material. It does, 

however, contain some essential background information that assists you in 
becoming an Excel programmer. In other words, this chapter paves the way 
for everything else that follows and gives you a feel for how Excel program-
ming fits into the overall scheme of the universe. It’s not as boring as you 
might think.

Okay, So What Is VBA?

VBA, which stands for Visual Basic for Applications, is a programming lan-
guage developed by Microsoft — you know, the company that tries to get you 
to buy a new version of Windows every few years. Excel, along with the other 
members of Microsoft Office, includes the VBA language (at no extra charge). 
In a nutshell, VBA is the tool that people like you and me use to develop pro-
grams that control Excel.

Imagine an intelligent robot that knows all about Excel. This robot can read 
instructions, and it can also operate Excel very fast and accurately. When you 
want the robot to do something in Excel, you write up a set of robot instruc-
tions by using special codes. Tell the robot to follow your instructions, while 
you sit back and drink a glass of lemonade. That’s kind of what VBA is all 
about — a code language for robots. Note, however, that Excel does not 
come with a robot or lemonade.

05_503690-ch01.indd   13

05_503690-ch01.indd   13

4/12/10   11:22 PM

4/12/10   11:22 PM