One letter per cell

[Bishop]

I have a 5X5 grid which contains 25 cells. I want to restrict each cell so
that only one letter can be entered into it. And once that letter is entered
I want my cursor to tab to the next cell in the grid automatically. So you
don't have to press enter or tab. Is there a way to do this?

 

[paul.robinson]

Hi
I strongly suspect no. If you had such a facility then it would
automatically detect one character then stop you editing the cell
further. If you wanted to go back and edit the cell the same code
wouldn't let you....Cells can be contrived to have various activate
events (like click, double click etc) but typing a single character
isn't one of them. Possibly some clever way round this, but it may be
more bother than it is worth. Your users would expect to do something
after typing e.g. tab, return - and then you would get a double tab
(auto plus tab)!? Very annoying...
What you probably can do is force the cursor to go to the next cell in
the grid, without the user having to tab back to the start of the next
row. Would that do?
regards
Paul

 

[Dave Peterson]

Saved from a previous post:

I would turn
tools|options|edit tab|move selection after enter
to down or right or ...

Then turn number lock on and use the numeric keypad to type your digit

Hitting the enter key on the numeric keypad doesn't seem too bad to me.

Another alternative is to create a tiny userform that just looks for one
character.

Put a single textbox on it (use the X button to close the userform).

Put this code in a General module:

Option Explicit
Sub testme01()
'Start in column A of the row with the activecell
ActiveSheet.Cells(ActiveCell.Row, 1).Activate
UserForm1.Show
End Sub

Add this code to the userform module:

Option Explicit
Private Sub TextBox1_KeyPress(ByVal KeyAscii As MSForms.ReturnInteger)

With ActiveCell
.Value = Chr(KeyAscii)
'A:E, then down a row
If ActiveCell.Column = 5 Then
ActiveCell.EntireRow.Cells(1).Offset(1, 0).Activate
Else
.Offset(0, 1).Activate
End If
End With

KeyAscii = 0
TextBox1.Value = ""

End Sub


This code goes from A:E then next row, column A.

If you're new to macros:

Debra Dalgleish has some notes how to implement macros here:
http://www.contextures.com/xlvba01.html

David McRitchie has an intro to macros:
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/getstarted.htm

Ron de Bruin's intro to macros:
http://www.rondebruin.nl/code.htm

(General, Regular and Standard modules all describe the same thing.)

Debra Dalgleish has some getstarted instructions for userforms at:
http://contextures.com/xlUserForm01.html

 

[Bishop]

What if I was just looking for a specific letter? The way the grid is set up
it already has the letter P in each of the 25 cells. I already have it set
up so that you can only put a P or an F in the cell. So unless the user
needs to change the value to F they just leave the cell alone. Is there a
way to autotab if the value entered is F?

Something like:

If cell.value = F,f then tab