How to create portable Excel applications?

[Hershmab]

I have a holiday home abroad which has a fairly basic PC without Office and a very slow Internet service. When I go there - usually for several weeks at a time - I would like to run one or two (mainly read-only) Excel applications to keep up-to-date with my personal and financial affairs and to help with doing Cryptic Crosswords.

I am a retired programming afficionado. So all my applications refer to standard workbooks that I have created myself in VBA:

1. Personal.xlsb - including a personalised Ribbon and Quick Access Bar, and many utility subroutines
   
2. A user-defined .XLAM file with a large number of utility functions

Ideally I would like to create portable, stand-alone, fully-working programs of those applications.

1. Is that possible at all? If so, how?
2. If not possible, could I make a portable version of the Microsoft Excel Viewer that would enable me to use my read-only programs incorporating interactive macros to search their (large) databases?

 

[Becky]

Welcome to the forum

I don't know much about writing programs from scratch, but you could always just download OpenOffice - their equivalent to Excel is called Calc. It's open source software, so completely free. You should be able to view your Excel documents with it no problem.

https://www.openoffice.org/

 

[macropod]

AFAIK, the Excel viewer - which MS is retiring in April - doesn't support macros, etc., so you're out of luck there.

There are such things as Excel compilers, which will turn a given workbook into a stand-alone program, but they're unlikely to be any less demanding on a system that Excel itself.

Even a basic PC running anything from Win 7 or later should be able to run, say, Excel 2010, without too much effort - just don't expect stellar performance; expect more leisurely performance in keeping with the reasons you're probably not taking your std PC/laptop anywhay... Excel 2010 will likely give you access to all your personalisations & customisations, too. I doubt OpenOffice Calc would support either.