Something to make the wintrolls happy :p 13406

The Ghost In The Machine

You often have an interesting spin on things, Ghost, and your reasoned neutrality is appreciated by me if no one else.

An Excel macro is exactly what you say: a computer code routine (and generally a short one, because longer macros are hard to record, follow and debug), given a user-defined name and stored with the originating sheet, or in a global module for availability in all sheets. They're no more or less useful than VB routines written by hand - because they are VB routines. faux cola nuts like Bailo can debate the merits of compiled, portable, structured, conditional logic Excel macro programs vs compiled, portable, structured, conditional logic Java programs all day long, but the fact is a scripting language embedded in an office spreadsheet tool is a tremendously useful thing.

People who take the time to record longer macros usually end up delving into the generated VBA code and optimizing it for better control and efficiency. Recording macros and examining them is a good way to familiarize yourself with the Excel Object Model.

I haven't used the Excel macro recorder in quite a while, but I recently wrote VB code to generate a 7-tab Excel sheet, then format it (column alignment based on data type, bolding, colors, merge cells, row height, etc). If you think Linux CLI is tedious, try writing several hundred lines of this junk (for example):

For i = 1 To colCount If Left(objWS.Cells(2, i), 10) = "Submitted:" Then objWS.Cells(1, i) = Mid(objWS.Cells(2, i), 12) objWS.Cells(1, i).Borders.LineStyle = xlDouble Range(objWS.Cells(1, i), objWS.Cells(1, i + 1)).Merge objWS.Cells(2, i) = "Submitted" ElseIf Left(objWS.Cells(2, i), 9) = "Approved:" Then objWS.Cells(2, i) = "Approved" End If Next i

But I have a number wheel in my head that keeps track of the hours I work, and the income, and that got me through the hard times.