Starting to play with Excel VBA

Introduction to Excel VBA Part 1

This article is aimed at users who have a basic knowledge of Excel VBA.

Microsoft Excel is a very powerful application, allowing us to add, manipulate, analyse and report on data with ease. However at times we all wish tasks could be completed that little bit quicker. That’s where VBA comes in, writing a few lines of code can be the difference between a task taking 2 minutes or 2 hours.

Selecting a Cell
Selecting a Range of Cells
Adding Data to a Cell
Formatting Data

Below are just a few lines to help introduce you to VBA.

Selecting a Cell

Sub SelectCell()

    Range("A1").Select
    
End Sub

(Picture 1)

Selecting a Range of Cells

Sub SelectCellRange()

    Range("A1:C5").Select
    
End Sub

(Picture 2)

Adding Data to a Cell

Sub AddData()

    Range("A1") = "Course Name"
    Range("B1") = "September"
    Range("C1") = "October"
    Range("D1") = "November"
    Range("E1") = "December"
    Range("A2") = "Excel VBA"
    Range("B2") = "1-2"
    Range("C2") = "27-28"
    Range("D2") = ""
    Range("E2") = "22-23"

End Sub

(Picture 3)

You can see that the data has been added, but could do with some formatting, so I have added a few lines of formatting code on to the end below.

Formatting Data

Sub AddDataWithFormatting()

    Range("A1") = "Course Name"
    Range("B1") = "September"
    Range("C1") = "October"
    Range("D1") = "November"
    Range("E1") = "December"
    Range("A2") = "Excel VBA"
    Range("B2") = "1-2"
    Range("C2") = "27-28"
    Range("D2") = ""
    Range("E2") = "22-23"
    
    Range("A1:E1").Font.Bold = True
    
    With Columns("A:E")
            .AutoFit
            .HorizontalAlignment = xlCenter
    End With

End Sub

(Picture 4)

You can see that the code above has made the heading row bold, and autofitted & Centralised columns A to E. 

If you would like to learn more about Microsoft Excel VBA, keep an eye out for Part 2, and take a look at our Excel VBA Training Courses.