XL: Running a Microsoft Access Macro from Microsoft Excel

ID: Q131921

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Excel for Windows, versions 5.0, 5.0c
Microsoft Excel for Windows 95, version 7.0
Microsoft Access, versions 1.0, 2.0
Microsoft Access for Windows 95, version 7.0

SUMMARY

This article contains an example to demonstrate how Microsoft Excel can run a Microsoft Access macro using Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) and Visual Basic, Applications Edition, code.

MORE INFORMATION

This example starts Microsoft Access, loads a database and then runs a macro in the Microsoft Access database.

Microsoft provides examples of Visual Basic procedures for illustration only, without warranty either expressed or implied, including but not limited to the implied warranties of merchantability and/or fitness for a particular purpose. This Visual Basic procedure is provided 'as is' and Microsoft does not guarantee that it can be used in all situations. Microsoft does not support modifications of this procedure to suit customer requirements for a particular purpose. Note that a line that is preceded by an apostrophe introduces a comment in the code--comments are provided to explain what the code is doing at a particular point in the procedure. Note also that an underscore character (_) indicates that code continues from one line to the next. You can type lines that contain this character as one logical line or you can divide the lines of code and include the line continuation character. For more information about Visual Basic for Applications programming style, see the "Programming Style in This Manual" section in the "Document Conventions" section of the "Visual Basic User's Guide."

1. In Microsoft Excel, choose New from the File menu.

2. From the Insert menu, choose Macro, and then choose Module.

3. Enter the following information into the Module sheet (you will need

   to alter the macro to specify the appropriate locations for the files
   on your computer):

      Sub Run_Access_Macro()

         'Opens Microsoft Access and the file nwind.mdb
            Shell("c:\access\msaccess.exe c:\access\sampapps\nwind.mdb")
         'Initiates a DDE channel to Microsoft Access
            Chan = DDEInitiate("MSACCESS", "system")
         'Activates Microsoft Access
             Application.ActivateMicrosoftApp xlMicrosoftAccess
         'Runs the macro "Sample AutoExec" from the NWIND.MDB file
             Application.DDEExecute Chan, "Sample AutoExec"
         'Terminates the DDE channel
          Application.DDETerminate Chan

      End Sub

4. To run the macro, choose Macro from the Tools menu. Select the

    appropriate macro name and then click the Run button.

The macro shown above will also work between Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Access for Windows 95 if you change the initial Shell command so that it includes the correct path to the Microsoft Access executable (MSACCESS.EXE).

For additional information on communicating between Microsoft Access and Microsoft Excel using Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE), please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

   ARTICLE-ID: Q99845
   TITLE     : Excel:  Communication Between Excel and Access Using DDE

REFERENCES

Microsoft Access README.TXT

Additional query words:

Keywords          : kbcode kbinterop xlwin 
Version           : 5.0 5.0c 7.0
Platform          : WINDOWS

Last Reviewed: September 4, 1997