HOWTO: Create and Call an Excel Macro Programmatically From VB

• Microsoft Visual Basic Learning, Professional, and Enterprise Editions for Windows, versions 5.0, 6.0
• Microsoft Office 2000 Developer
• Microsoft Excel 2000
• Microsoft Excel 97 for Windows

SUMMARY

This article demonstrates how you can create a Microsoft Excel VBA macro programmatically from Microsoft Visual Basic, call it, and associate it with a toolbar button.

MORE INFORMATION

Follow the steps below to create the sample application:

1. Create a Standard EXE project in Visual Basic. Form1 is created by default.



2. Click References from the Project menu and check "Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications Extensibility."



3. Add a CommandButton to Form1.



4. Copy and paste the following code to the form's code window:

   
         Private Sub Command1_Click()
          ' Start Excel
          Dim xlapp As Object 'Excel.Application
          Set xlapp = CreateObject("Excel.Application")
   
          ' Make it visible...
          xlapp.Visible = True
   
          ' Add a new workbook
          Dim xlbook As Object 'Excel.Workbook
          Set xlbook = xlapp.Workbooks.Add
   
          ' Add a module
          Dim xlmodule As Object 'VBComponent
          Set xlmodule = xlbook.VBProject.VBComponents.Add(vbext_ct_StdModule)
   
          ' Add a macro to the module...
          Dim strCode As String
          strCode = _
             "sub MyMacro()" & vbCr & _
             "   msgbox ""Inside generated macro!!!"" " & vbCr & _
             "end sub"
          xlmodule.CodeModule.AddFromString strCode
   
          ' Run the new macro!
          xlapp.Run "MyMacro"
   
          ' ** Create a new toolbar with a button to fire macro...
          ' Add a new toolbar...
          Dim cbs As Object 'CommandBars
          Dim cb As Object 'CommandBar
          Set cbs = xlapp.CommandBars
          Set cb = cbs.Add("MyCommandBar", 1, , True) '1=msoBarTop
          cb.Visible = True
   
          ' Make it visible & add a button...
          Dim cbc As Object 'CommandBarControl
          Set cbc = cb.Controls.Add(1) '1=msoControlButton
   
          ' Assign our button to our macro
          cbc.OnAction = "MyMacro"
   
          ' Set text...
          cbc.Caption = "Call MyMacro()"
   
          ' Set Face image...
          ' 51 = white hand
          ' 25 = glasses
          ' 34 = ink dipper
          ' etc...
          cbc.FaceId = 51
   
          ' Pause so you can inspect results...
          MsgBox "All done, click me to continue...", vbMsgBoxSetForeground
   
          ' Remember to release module
          Set xlmodule = Nothing
   
          ' Clean up
          xlbook.Saved = True
          xlapp.Quit
         End Sub 




5. Run the application. You should see Microsoft Excel launch, followed by a message box saying "Inside generated macro!!!." At this point, you are executing code inside your generated macro. Click OK to dismiss this dialog box and you should then see a dialog box reporting "All done, click me to continue." Leave this up, and switch to Excel. There should be a new toolbar visible, with a button with a white-hand icon. The Visual Basic code above associated this button with your macro, MyMacro(), via the OnAction property. When you click this button, MyMacro() gets called. Click it once to see it work. Click back to the form in Visual Basic and click OK on the "All done, click me to continue" message box.

© Microsoft Corporation 1999, All Rights Reserved.
Contributions by Joe Crump, Microsoft Corporation

Additional query words:

Keywords          : kbActiveX kbAppToolBar kbAutomation kbCOMt kbExcel KbVBA kbVBp kbVBp500 kbVBp600 kbGrpDSO kbOffice2000 kbexcel2000 
Version           : WINDOWS:2000,5.0,6.0,97; :
Platform          : WINDOWS 
Issue type        : kbhowto 

Last Reviewed: June 3, 1999