VBA vs. VB Script in Outlook

[achidsey]

I'm just starting to learn about automating my use of Outlook. I've had a
good amount of experience using VBA in Excel.

I don't want to do anything to complex in Outlook, just automate creating
and editing of tasks, categories, printing task list, generating e-mails.

I was looking for a book to buy on the subject of Outlook VBA, and came
across Microsoft Outlook Programming, Jumpstart for Administrators,
Developers, and Power Users (Paperback) by Sue Mosher.

One of the posted reader's review got me confused about whether I want to
use (and learn) VBA or VB Script to write my code. I copied in the review
below. The Outlook online help seems to give code examples in each format.

Can someone clarify what this issue is all about and give me some advice on
which language I should use.

Thanks,
Alan Chidsey

Text of review on Amazon cited above:
The whole thing is so confusing!! Just a small example, all the code is
written in VBA and it is only when you get to the page 369 (!) that the
author actually tells you you can't use the code as is, but have to change it
to VBScript. After that follow 9 rules how to do the changes. It feels like
another debugging. Why not write all the stuff in VBScript?? Ridiculous

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

Outlook uses both: VBScript behind custom forms, VBA for the sort of stuff that you want to do.

We decided to start the book with VBA and make the transition to VBScript later in the book, after introducing basic custom forms concepts, so that beginners could gain code-writing confidence in the VBA environment with its Intellisense and decent debugger. To cover both in parallel would have been way too confusing both for readers and for the author! (And I am not the only outlook programmer to advocate writing and testing even custom form code in VBA before porting it with a few simple changes to the VBScript environment.)
--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers