S
steve321
Hi Folks,
This is a very general question. I'm just wondering what paths you guys
(and gals) would recommend for somebody trying to learn VBA from scratch. I
guess by a lay-person's standards I could be considered a Word or Excel
"power-user." I have Office Professional 2003 at my disposal (via my work
place). I have no plans to become a professional programmer, but there is a
huge need for automation in my work, so I’m trying to make myself a VBA
self-taught “expert.†I’ve managed to create some slick Excel UDFs and (more
relevant to this group) a master document for doing psych reports at work.
It has a form that shows upon opening the doc. I type the client’s name into
it then click the “Male†or “Female†button and VBA does the appropriate
find-n-replacements. It then shows the Save As dialog so I remember to
rename it. (note that I alter the boilerplate doc often which is why I don’t
use a Word Template.) Anyway, my master doc is huge with sections for every
possible scenario. After Saving As, I (manually) cull out the unneeded
portions. This was how far I got on automation—where I got stuck. Somebody
on the wordvbabeginner site recommended trying headings in a list box (thanks
HelmutW). Select the sections to keep from the listbox and purge the rest.
Just like many other steps in the process, trying to populate a list box with
anything dynamic has stumped me.
My point here is not to ask for specific guidance about this, or any
project. As much as anything I guess I’m venting… I know the types of
things that I get completely stuck on are super-no-brainer-obvious for most
of you guys. I guess I could just come back to the forum here and seek
advice every single time I get stumped, but that would be quite often
) I
figure the better way for general overall mastery is for me to just scour
beginner VBA books samples on the web. (By the way THANK YOU guys who do the
MVP websites—I believe they’ve been the most helpful of anything.) I guess
many of the MVPs and others here are probably professionals who have
programmed since before VBA existed… Many probably helped in the very
evolution of VBA. Maybe programming just comes naturally for some—I don’t
know. I’m pretty good with math and general logic and I can usually learn
new skills pretty easily, so it seems like I’d be able to pick up programming
fairly easily--clearly this not the case. What I’d really like to do is take
some college courses, but this is cost-prohibitive. I’ve tinkered with VB
Express 2005. There are some free how-to videos that walk you through
creating an application. Also I see that there are some free VB Exp05
“starter kits†on the web. It seems like this would be very helpful for
learning Word VBA too, but alas, no such thing seems to exist. I’ve tried
downloading free VBA projects from the web (with the hope of dissecting the
code), but they tend to be locked. (Plus Windows sort of scares me with all
the “macro virus†warnings ;o) Anyway, I know some of you guys started like
me—just a hobbyist that jumped right in. How did you do it? If you’re an
old-time programmer, what do you recommend? Are there things I’m not even
thinking to ask???
The question: What methods of- and resources for- self-teaching VBA do you
recommend?
Much thanks for any insights you can offer. Much thanks to those of you who
take the time to answer posts like these—only you make this technology
accessible to the average person (like me).
This is a very general question. I'm just wondering what paths you guys
(and gals) would recommend for somebody trying to learn VBA from scratch. I
guess by a lay-person's standards I could be considered a Word or Excel
"power-user." I have Office Professional 2003 at my disposal (via my work
place). I have no plans to become a professional programmer, but there is a
huge need for automation in my work, so I’m trying to make myself a VBA
self-taught “expert.†I’ve managed to create some slick Excel UDFs and (more
relevant to this group) a master document for doing psych reports at work.
It has a form that shows upon opening the doc. I type the client’s name into
it then click the “Male†or “Female†button and VBA does the appropriate
find-n-replacements. It then shows the Save As dialog so I remember to
rename it. (note that I alter the boilerplate doc often which is why I don’t
use a Word Template.) Anyway, my master doc is huge with sections for every
possible scenario. After Saving As, I (manually) cull out the unneeded
portions. This was how far I got on automation—where I got stuck. Somebody
on the wordvbabeginner site recommended trying headings in a list box (thanks
HelmutW). Select the sections to keep from the listbox and purge the rest.
Just like many other steps in the process, trying to populate a list box with
anything dynamic has stumped me.
My point here is not to ask for specific guidance about this, or any
project. As much as anything I guess I’m venting… I know the types of
things that I get completely stuck on are super-no-brainer-obvious for most
of you guys. I guess I could just come back to the forum here and seek
advice every single time I get stumped, but that would be quite often
) Ifigure the better way for general overall mastery is for me to just scour
beginner VBA books samples on the web. (By the way THANK YOU guys who do the
MVP websites—I believe they’ve been the most helpful of anything.) I guess
many of the MVPs and others here are probably professionals who have
programmed since before VBA existed… Many probably helped in the very
evolution of VBA. Maybe programming just comes naturally for some—I don’t
know. I’m pretty good with math and general logic and I can usually learn
new skills pretty easily, so it seems like I’d be able to pick up programming
fairly easily--clearly this not the case. What I’d really like to do is take
some college courses, but this is cost-prohibitive. I’ve tinkered with VB
Express 2005. There are some free how-to videos that walk you through
creating an application. Also I see that there are some free VB Exp05
“starter kits†on the web. It seems like this would be very helpful for
learning Word VBA too, but alas, no such thing seems to exist. I’ve tried
downloading free VBA projects from the web (with the hope of dissecting the
code), but they tend to be locked. (Plus Windows sort of scares me with all
the “macro virus†warnings ;o) Anyway, I know some of you guys started like
me—just a hobbyist that jumped right in. How did you do it? If you’re an
old-time programmer, what do you recommend? Are there things I’m not even
thinking to ask???
The question: What methods of- and resources for- self-teaching VBA do you
recommend?
Much thanks for any insights you can offer. Much thanks to those of you who
take the time to answer posts like these—only you make this technology
accessible to the average person (like me).