Books on VBA

[mcp6453]

Since I haven't asked this question in a couple of years, I'll ask now.
Are there any good books on VBA for Word?

 

[Mark Tangard]

See item 3 on this page:

http://word.mvps.org/tutorials/Books/index.htm

and also:

http://www.microsoft.com/officedev/articles/Opg/toc/FULLTOC.htm

which is the Office '97 VBA Programmers' Guide. Yes, 97. Despite being 7 years
old, the '97 guide is still useful, and is approximately 4,837 times easier to
read, understand, navigate, and print than the later guide (listed in the page
at the first link above). That could be why it's still online. The later guide
is one of the most example-free "resources" I've ever seen, and at times feels
like little more than a sea of pointers elsewhere, separated by 'introductions.'

For the purposes of the beginning user, the '97 guide is not really dated at
all, since most changes in VBA between '97 and now aren't in areas central to
learning its fundamentals. I keep meaning to go & download it all before some
clueless bureaucrat blithely erases it based on its date.

 

[mcp6453]

See item 3 on this page:

http://word.mvps.org/tutorials/Books/index.htm

and also:

http://www.microsoft.com/officedev/articles/Opg/toc/FULLTOC.htm

which is the Office '97 VBA Programmers' Guide. Yes, 97. Despite being 7 years
old, the '97 guide is still useful, and is approximately 4,837 times easier to
read, understand, navigate, and print than the later guide (listed in the page
at the first link above). That could be why it's still online. The later guide
is one of the most example-free "resources" I've ever seen, and at times feels
like little more than a sea of pointers elsewhere, separated by 'introductions.'

For the purposes of the beginning user, the '97 guide is not really dated at
all, since most changes in VBA between '97 and now aren't in areas central to
learning its fundamentals. I keep meaning to go & download it all before some
clueless bureaucrat blithely erases it based on its date.

Thanks, Mark. I thought I had the '97 book, but I don't. I have the Word
6 book, but I also have Microsoft Word 97 Visual Basic Step by Step. Do
you think that book would be helpful for Word 2000?

Also, the top links on the
http://word.mvps.org/tutorials/Books/index.htm page are broken. Is the
full book online at
http://www.microsoft.com/officedev/articles/Opg/toc/FULLTOC.htm, or are
those pages just a summary? The purchase link on Microsoft's web site is
broken.

Thanks for the recommendations.

 

[Mark Tangard]

Actually I wasn't aware there was an actual book version of the '97 guide. But
last I checked (a while ago, granted), this was the full guide, nothing skipped,
and it printed nicely (in browsers other than Netscape...). If MS has a
purchase link, I'm not surprised it doesn't lead anywhere, since such a book
would almost surely be out of print. You might try a search on eBay. Or just
do what I did -- print it all and staple it into small sections that you can
carry around with you to read when the opportunity presents itself.

I've heard decent reviews of some of the Step By Step books but have never seen
one. I do feel the '97 OPG is extremely well done and a great start for a VBA
beginner. And in my experience, someone with the guts to get past the initial
learning curve on VBA concepts often then becomes too impatient to deal with a
book approach, and benefits more from cruising the newsgroups every day, trying
out snippets they find interesting, and generally just osmosing what they need.

VBA is so extensive that 'teaching' it in a structured way after the concepts
are mastered is a daunting prospect. And now that I think of it, this may be
why most people don't usually read past the first one-third of the enormous
books that clog the typical store. It's probably also why so many books are
badly done -- i.e., authors & publishers "want" them to be 1000-page books,
because a book on mastering the concepts might be only 100 pages (I doubt the
OPG ends up much larger all printed) and the profit on such an item would be
piddling; so the last half or 2/3 of many books end up purporting to 'teach'
piles of stuff that anyone who's mastered the concepts can already figure out.

Just my $0.02.

Re broken link: Please notify to the site webmaster at (e-mail address removed). Thanks.

 

[mcp6453]

Actually I wasn't aware there was an actual book version of the '97 guide. But
last I checked (a while ago, granted), this was the full guide, nothing skipped,
and it printed nicely (in browsers other than Netscape...). If MS has a
purchase link, I'm not surprised it doesn't lead anywhere, since such a book
would almost surely be out of print. You might try a search on eBay. Or just
do what I did -- print it all and staple it into small sections that you can
carry around with you to read when the opportunity presents itself.

I just bought it used from Amazon (one of their dealers) for less than
$10 shipped.

Thanks,
Mike

 

[Mark Tangard]

How big is it (# pages, I mean?)

MT

I just bought it used from Amazon (one of their dealers) for less than
$10 shipped.

Thanks,
Mike

 

[mcp6453]

How big is it (# pages, I mean?)

Paperback: 700 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.50 x 9.25 x 7.50
Publisher: Microsoft Press; (April 1997)
ASIN: 1572313404
Average Customer Review: Based on 7 reviews. Write a review.
Amazon.com Sales Rank: 17,919