How To Create A Vba Macro In Excel

Contextures

How t0 Add Code to Excel Workbook

How to copy Excel macro VBA code to your workbook, from website or sample file. Different types of code, where to paste it. Step-by-step videos, written steps.

Copy Excel VBA Code to a Regular Module

To see the steps for pasting a macro into a workbook, and running the macro, please watch this short video tutorial. The written instructions are below the video.

Copy Excel VBA Code to a Regular Module

Instead of starting from scratch, if you need an Excel macro, you can often find sample code at reputable sites on the internet. To copy that code, and add it to one of your workbooks, follow these steps:

Copy the sample code that you want to use
Open the workbook in which you want to add the code
Hold the Alt key, and press the F11 key, to open the Visual Basic Editor
Choose Insert | Module
Where the cursor is flashing, choose Edit | Paste

regular code module

To run the code:

On the Excel Ribbon, click the View tab
At the far right, click Macros
Select a macro in the list, and click the Run button

Copy Excel VBA Code to a Worksheet Module

Another type of Excel code is Event code, which runs automatically when something specific occurs in the workbook. For example, if you enter a number in a cell, or select an entry in a cell's drop down list, the worksheet has been changed. This could trigger the Worksheet_Change event.

Worksheet event code is stored on a worksheet module. To add worksheet event code to your worksheet, do the following:

Copy the code that you want to use
Select the worksheet in which you the code to run
Right click on the sheet tab and click View Code, to open the Visual Basic Editor.
Where the cursor is flashing, choose Edit | Paste

Copy Excel VBA Code to a Workbook Module

Another type of code is Workbook Event code, which should be added to the workbook code module:

Copy the code that you want to use
Select the workbook in which you want to store the code
Hold the Alt key, and press the F11 key, to open the Visual Basic Editor
In the Project Explorer, find your workbook, and open the list of Microsoft Excel Objects
Right-click on the ThisWorkbook object, and choose View Code
Where the cursor is flashing, choose Edit | Paste

workbook code module

Copy Excel VBA Code From a Different Workbook

To see the steps for copying a macro from one workbook to another, in any version of Excel, please watch this short video tutorial. The written instructions are below the video.

Copy Excel VBA Code From a Different Workbook

You may find code in a sample workbook online, and decide to add it to one of your workbooks. You can copy all the code in a module by doing the following:

Open both workbooks
Hold the Alt key, and press the F11 key, to open the Visual Basic Editor
In the Project Explorer, find your workbook, and the workbook with the code that you want to copy. The screenshot at the right, the code is in VBACodeCopy.xls and will be copied to MyForm.xlsm
In the workbook with the code, click the + sign to view the list of Modules
Click on the module that you want to copy, and drag it over the project where you'd like the copy placed.
Release the mouse button, and a copy of the module will appear in the workbook.

copy code module from different workbook

To run the code:

On the Excel Ribbon, click the View tab
At the far right, click Macros
Select a macro in the list, and click the Run button

Allow Macros to Run in Your Workbook

To use macros in Excel, you might need to enable them when the file opens. If you are using macros for the first time on your current computer, you might also need to adjust the macro security settings.

Follow the instructions below, to make these changes.

Enable Macros When Opening the File

When you open a workbook that contains macros, you might see a security warning, at the top of the worksheet, above the Formula Bar.

Click the Options button.
Click Enable This Content, to allow the workbook's macros to run, and click OK.

Check Your Macro Security Settings

If you haven't run macros before, you might need to change your macro security level. (You may have to clear this with your IT department.)

On the Ribbon, click the Developer tab, and in the Code group, click Macro Security.

NOTE: If the Developer tab is not visible, follow the steps here to display it.

In the Macro Settings category, under Macro Settings, click Disable all macros with notification
Click OK.
If you changed the setting, close the workbook, and then reopen it

Run an Excel Macro

After you copy a macro to a regular module, follow the steps below, to run the macro. If the macro does not run, check your macro settings.

To run an Excel macro:

Copy the macro code to a regular code module in your file.
Then, on the Ribbon's View tab, click the top part of the Macro button, to open the Macro window
In the list of macros, click on the macro that you want to run
Click the Run button

run an Excel macro

Create a Worksheet Event Macro

To see the steps for creating an Excel Worksheet Change Event macro, watch this short video.

There are written steps on the Contextures Blog, and you can download the sample file used in this video.

Modify Copied Excel VBA Code

If you copy VBA code into your Excel file, you might need to make changes to the object names, or other settings, so that the code works correctly in your file. Here are three things to check, before you try to run the code in your file:

Check the Sheet Names and Ranges
Add and Name Objects
Specify the Target Columns or Rows

Check the Sheet Names and Ranges

If there are sheet names or range references in the code, you can modify them, to match your workbook.

In the code, look for references to "Worksheets" to "Sheets", and change those to the sheet names in your workbook.
Also look for "Range" references, such as Range("A1:G100"), and adjust those to match the location of your data.

These references might be at the top of the procedure, in a Set statement:

Set ws = Worksheets("SalesData")

or elsewhere in the code.

If you run the code without modifying the reference, you might see an error message: Run-time error '9': Subscript out of range

run-time error 9

To see where the problem is, click the Debug button, and a line of code will be highlighted in yellow.

highlighted code

To stop the code, click the Run menu, then click Reset.

vba run reset

Change the sheet name in the line that was highlighted, save the changes, and try the code again.

Add and Name Objects

If the code refers to objects on the worksheet, be sure to add those objects in your workbook, and use the correct object name in the code.

For example, in the code for the Data Validation Combo Box, you'll need to add a combo box to the worksheet, and name it as TempCombo. Or, if your combo box has a different name, change the code references to match.

vba run reset

Specify the Target Columns or Rows

Some code is designed to run when a cell in a specific row or column is changed. For example, in the sample code shown below, there is a red dot on the line that says column 3 is the only one where the change will occur.

target column 3

NOTE: In all of these examples, you could use Row instead of Column, to limit the target to specific rows.

A) In your workbook, if you want the code to run when a cell in column E is changed, you could change the 3 to a 5.

          If Target.Column = 5 Then

B) Or, add more columns in the code. For example:

If Target.Column = 3 _     Or Target.Column = 5 _     Or Target.Column = 6 Then

C) If you don't want to limit the code to a specific column, you could delete the two rows (If...End If) that are marked with red circles. In that case, the code will run for a change in every column.

D) If you want code to run on any column EXCEPT a specific column, use the Not Equal To operator -- <> -- instead of the equal sign. For example:

          If Target.Column <> 3 Then

Get the Sample File

To see examples of workbook modules, worksheet modules and regular code modules, download the Add Code to a Workbook sample file. The zipped file is in xlsm format, and contains macros. Be sure to enable macros when you open the file, if you want to test the macros.