NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Visual Basic for Applications

Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) is an implementation of Microsoft's Visual Basic, an event driven programming language and associated integrated development environment (IDE) which is built into most Microsoft Office applications. It is also built in to Office applications for Apple Mac OS, other Microsoft applications such as Microsoft MapPoint and Microsoft Visio — a former independent application which was acquired by Microsoft — as well as being at least partially implemented in some other applications such as AutoCAD, WordPerfect and ESRI ArcGIS. It supersedes and expands on the capabilities of earlier application-specific macro programming languages such as Word's WordBasic, and can be used to control almost all aspects of the host application, including manipulating user interface features, such as menus and toolbars, and working with custom user forms or dialog boxes. VBA can also be used to create import and export filters for various file formats, such as ODF. Image File history File links VBA_logo. ... Microsoft Corporation, (NASDAQ: MSFT, HKSE: 4338) is a multinational computer technology corporation with global annual revenue of US$44. ... This article is about the Visual Basic language shipping with Microsoft Visual Studio 6. ... Please wikify (format) this article or section as suggested in the Guide to layout and the Manual of Style. ... An integrated development environment (IDE), also known as integrated design environment and integrated debugging environment, is a programming environment that has been packaged as an application program,that assists computer programmers in developing software. ... Microsoft Office is an office suite from Microsoft for Microsoft Windows and Apple Mac OS X operating systems. ... Apple Inc. ... This article relates to both the original Classic Mac OS as well as Mac OS X, Apples more recent operating system. ... Three maps generated by MapPoint North America 2001 (outside the detailed dataset), Encarta 2005 (not very detailed) and Microsoft AutoRoute 2004 (highly detailed). ... This article is about a software application. ... AutoCAD is a CAD software application for 2D and 3D design and drafting, developed and sold by Autodesk, Inc. ... WordPerfect is a proprietary word processing application. ... For the Irish research group, see Economic and Social Research Institute. ... ArcGIS is the name of a group of Geographic Information System software product lines produced by ESRI. At the desktop GIS level, ArcGIS can include: ArcReader, which allows one to view and query maps created with the other Arc products; ArcView, which allows one to view spatial data, create maps... For other uses, see Macro (disambiguation) A macro in computer science is a rule or pattern that specifies how a certain input sequence (often a sequence of characters) should be mapped to an output sequence (also often a sequence of characters) according to a defined procedure. ... Microsoft Word is Microsofts flagship word processing software. ... Semi-official ODF logo The OpenDocument format (ODF, ISO/IEC 26300, full name: OASIS Open Document Format for Office Applications) is a file format for electronic office documents, such as spreadsheets, charts, presentations, databases and word processing documents (e. ...

VBA itself is an interpreted language. As its name suggests, VBA is closely related to Visual Basic, but can normally only run code from within a host application rather than as a standalone application. It can, however, be used to control one application from another using OLE Automation. For example, it is used to automatically create a Word report from Excel data. In computer science, an interpreter is a computer program that executes, or performs, instructions written in a computer programming language. ... This article is about the Visual Basic language shipping with Microsoft Visual Studio 6. ... Stand-alone is a confusing and misleading term, used to refer to various categories of computer programs, but rarely in a consistent fashion. ... OLE Automation is a late-binding extension to COM and IUnknown. ... Microsoft Word is Microsofts flagship word processing software. ... Microsoft Excel (full name Microsoft Office Excel) is a spreadsheet application written and distributed by Microsoft for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS. It features calculation and graphing tools which, along with aggressive marketing, have made Excel one of the most popular microcomputer applications to date. ...

VBA is functionally rich and extremely flexible but it does have some important limitations, including limited support for function pointers which are used as callback functions in the Windows API. It has the ability to use (but not create) (ActiveX/COM) DLLs, and later versions add support for class modules. A function pointer is a type of pointer in C, C++, D, and other C-like programming languages. ... A callback is often back on the level of the original caller. ... Windows API is a set of APIs, (application programming interfaces) available in the Microsoft Windows operating systems. ... Component Object Model (COM) is a platform for software componentry introduced by Microsoft in 1993. ... Dynamic-link library (also written without the hyphen), or DLL, is Microsofts implementation of the shared library concept in the Microsoft Windows and OS/2 operating systems. ...

Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1024x702, 40 KB) Summary VBA In Office 2003 Licensing This is a screenshot of copyrighted computer software for Microsoft Windows, and copyright for it is most likely held by the author(s) or the company that created the software. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1024x702, 40 KB) Summary VBA In Office 2003 Licensing This is a screenshot of copyrighted computer software for Microsoft Windows, and copyright for it is most likely held by the author(s) or the company that created the software. ...

Language

VBA is an interpreted language, meaning its instructions are run, or interpreted, when the source code is run. Despite its resemblance to many old BASIC dialects, VBA is not compatible with any of them except Microsoft Visual Basic, where source-code of VBA Modules can be directly imported. Compatibility ends with Visual Basic Version 6; VBA is not compatible with VB.NET. VBA is proprietary to Microsoft and is not an Open standard. This article is about the programming language. ... Visual Basic . ... This article or section cites very few or no references or sources. ...

This article is about the Visual Basic language shipping with Microsoft Visual Studio 6. ...

Automation

Interaction with the host application uses OLE Automation. Typically, the host application provides a type library and API documentation which document how VBA programs can interact with the application. This documentation can be examined from inside the VBA development environment using its Object Browser. In programming languages a data type defines a set of values and the allowable operations on those values[1]. For example, in the Java programming language, the int type represents the set of 32-bit integers ranging in value from -2,147,483,648 to 2,147,483,647, and... API and Api redirect here. ...

VBA programs which are written to use the OLE Automation interface of one application can't be used to automate a different application, even if that application hosts the Visual Basic runtime, because the OLE Automation interfaces will be different. For example, a VBA program written to automate Microsoft Word cannot be used with a different word processor, even if that word processor hosts VBA.

On the reverse of this, you can automate multiple applications from the one host by creating Application objects within the VBA code. References to the different libraries must be created within the VBA client before any of the methods, objects, etc. become available to use in your application. These application objects create the OLE link to the application when they are first created. Commands to the different applications must be done explicitly through these application objects in order to work correctly. OLE Automation is a late-binding extension to COM and IUnknown. ...

For example: In Microsoft Access, you automatically have access to the Access library. You may also create references to the Excel, Word, and Outlook libraries. This will allow you to create an application that runs a query in Access, exports the results to Excel, formats the text, then writes a Mail Merge document in Word that it automatically e-mails to each member of your original query through Outlook.

It is important to note that Outlook does contain a security feature that forces a user to allow, disallow, or cancel an e-mail being sent through an automated process with a forced 5 second wait. Information on this can be found at the Microsoft website.

VBA programs, or macros, can be attached to a menu button, a keyboard shortcut, or an event in the application, such as the opening of the document. The language also provides a user interface in the form of UserForms, which can host ActiveX controls for added functionality. For other uses, see Macro (disambiguation) A macro in computer science is a rule or pattern that specifies how a certain input sequence (often a sequence of characters) should be mapped to an output sequence (also often a sequence of characters) according to a defined procedure. ... A keyboard shortcut (also known as an accelerator key, shortcut key, or hotkey) is one or a set of keyboard keys that, when pressed simultaneously, perform a predefined task. ... ActiveX control is a term used to denote reusable software components that are based on Microsoft Component Object Model (COM). ...

Security concerns

Like any common programming language, VBA macros can be created with a malicious intent. Using VBA, most of the security features lie in the hands of the user, not the author. The VBA 'host-application' options are accessible to the user. The user who runs any document containing VBA macros can preset the software with user preferences, much like those for internet browsers. End-users can protect themselves from attack by disabling macros from running in an application if they do not intend to use documents containing them, or only grant permission for a document to run VBA code if they are sure the source of the document can be trusted. This article describes how security can be achieved through design and engineering. ... A web browser is a software package that enables a user to display and interact with documents hosted by web servers. ... The end user is a central concept in software engineering, referring to an abstraction of the group of persons who will ultimately use a piece of software (i. ...

Examples

A common use of VBA is to add functionality that may be missing from the standard user interface. This macro provides a shortcut for entering the current date in Word: The user interface is the part of a system exposed to users. ... Microsoft Word is Microsofts flagship word processing software. ...

VBA can be used to create a user defined function (UDF) for use in a Microsoft Excel workbook: Microsoft Excel (full name Microsoft Office Excel) is a spreadsheet application written and distributed by Microsoft for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS. It features calculation and graphing tools which, along with aggressive marketing, have made Excel one of the most popular microcomputer applications to date. ...

Example of how to add an external application object (You must have the application library referenced in your application before this):

Future

Microsoft plans to eventually replace VBA with Visual Studio Tools for Applications (VSTA), an application customization toolkit based on the .NET Framework. From Dr Ex's article: The Microsoft . ...

Office 2007 continues to use the legacy VBA engine; however, Visual Studio Tool for Office (VSTO) is available. Support for VBA in Microsoft Office for Mac will be dropped with the release of version 12, in 2008^[1]. See also VB.NET. The first version of VSTA was released in April of 2006 and has been integrated into several ISV's, including InfoPath 2007 and ABB Robotics. The next version of VSTA (based on Visual Studio 2008 otherwise known as "Orcas") will be released in February 2008. The second version of VSTA is dramatically different than the first version, including features such as dynamic programing and support for WPF, WCF, WF, LINQ, and .NET 3.5. 2007 Microsoft Office system, also known as Microsoft Office 2007, is Microsofts next release of its productivity suite, slated to replace Microsoft Office 2003. ... This subsystem is a part of . ... This subsystem is a part of . ... This subsystem is a part of . ... Language intergrated query (LINQ) is a Microsoft project that aims to add a native querying syntax to C# and VB.Net. ... The Microsoft . ...

References

Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 219th day of the year (220th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era in the 21st century. ... is the 145th day of the year (146th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...

External links

Categories: BASIC programming language family | Microsoft Office Microsoft Office is an office suite from Microsoft for Microsoft Windows and Apple Mac OS X operating systems. ... Microsoft Office Accounting (formerly Small Business Accounting) is Microsofts accounting software targeted towards small business customers. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Microsoft Office Communicator is an integrated enterprise communications client, enabling information workers to communicate in real time through the use of instant messaging (IM), voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) and videoconferencing and could be applied to when speaking with company directors and other persons of influence in a corporation. ... Microsoft Entourage is an e-mail client and personal information manager developed by Microsoft for Mac OS 8. ... Equation Editor is a legacy formula editor developed by Design Science that allows users to construct math and science equations in a WYSIWYG environment. ... Microsoft Excel (full name Microsoft Office Excel) is a spreadsheet application written and distributed by Microsoft for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS. It features calculation and graphing tools which, along with aggressive marketing, have made Excel one of the most popular microcomputer applications to date. ... Microsoft Groove - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ... Microsoft InfoPath (full name Microsoft Office InfoPath) is an application used to develop XML-based data entry forms, first released as part of the Microsoft Office 2003 suite of programs in late 2003 and later released as part of Microsoft Office 2007. ... Microsoft InterConnect, or Microsoft Office InterConnect, is a personal information manager application sold by Microsoft Japan, a division of Microsoft. ... Three maps generated by MapPoint North America 2001 (outside the detailed dataset), Encarta 2005 (not very detailed) and Microsoft AutoRoute 2004 (highly detailed). ... Microsoft Office OneNote, usually referred to as Microsoft OneNote, is a tool for notetaking, information gathering, and multi-user collaboration by Microsoft. ... Microsoft Outlook or Outlook (full name Microsoft Office Outlook since Outlook 2003) is a personal information manager from Microsoft, and is part of the Microsoft Office suite. ... Power point redirects here. ... Microsoft Project (or MSP) is a project management software program developed and sold by Microsoft which is designed to assist project managers in developing plans, assigning resources to tasks, tracking progress, managing budgets and analyzing workloads. ... Microsoft Publisher is a desktop publishing application from Microsoft. ... Microsoft SharePoint Designer (full name Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer) is a WYSIWYG HTML editor and general web design program from Microsoft, replacing Microsoft Office FrontPage. ... This article is about a software application. ... Microsoft Word is Microsofts flagship word processing software. ... Microsoft Clip Organizer is Microsofts clip art organizing software. ... Microsoft Office Document Imaging (MODI) is a Microsoft Office application that supports editing documents scanned by Microsoft Office Document Scanning. ... This article is considered orphaned, since there are very few or no other articles that link to this one. ... Microsoft Office Picture Manager is a software program included with Microsoft Office suite for Windows 2003 and later. ... Smart Tags (Microsoft) This article refers to a feature of MS Office and Internet Explorer. ... Information Bridge Framework is an Office programmability framework from Microsoft Corp targeting Microsoft Office 2003 and later versions. ... Information Rights Management (IRM) is a DRM system available to users of Microsoft Office (versions 2003 and above). ... Not to be confused with OpenOffice. ... Microsoft Office Communications Server, MOCS, (formerly Live Communications Server) is an enterprise real-time communications server, providing instant messaging and collaboration functionality. ... Microsoft Office Forms Server 2007 allows InfoPath forms to be accessed and filled out using any browser, including mobile phone browsers. ... Microsoft Groove - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ... Microsoft Office 2007 (officially called 2007 Microsoft Office system) is the most recent version of Microsofts productivity suite. ... Microsoft Office Project Server is a project management server solution made by Microsoft. ... REDIRECT [1] Categories: | ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. ... Excel Services - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ... Infopath Forms Services (or Office Forms Services) is a component of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 which allows Microsoft Office InfoPath forms to be hosted in a SharePoint web site and serve them using a browser based interface. ... Microsoft Office Live Meeting is a web conferencing service operated by Microsoft. ... Microsoft Office Live is an Internet-based software service designed for small businesses with fewer than ten employees launched on February 15, 2006,[1] and is part of Microsofts Windows Live initiative. ... Office Live Workspace is a Microsoft Office Live-branded online storage and collaboration service for Microsoft Office 2007 documents. ... Screenshot from Binder Microsoft Binder was an application included with Microsoft Office designed to allow users to include several different types of files (e. ... Microsoft Data Analyzer was a data analysis software for Microsoft Office XP. Even though it was a stand alone application and was not available in any Office XP bundle, it was a part of the Office XP suite. ... Microsoft FrontPage (later full name Microsoft Office FrontPage) is a WYSIWYG HTML editor and web site administration tool from Microsoft for the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems. ... Microsoft Mail for PC Networks is a file-based E-mail system intended for corporate usage. ... Clippit asking if you need help The Office Assistant was a feature included in Microsoft Office 97 and subsequent versions until Office 2007, in which the assistants have been removed due to widespread dissatisfaction on the part of Office users. ... Microsoft PhotoDraw version 2 box Microsoft PhotoDraw 2000 is a vector graphics and raster imaging software package developed by Microsoft. ... Microsoft Photo Editor was an image-editing application found in some versions of the Microsoft Office suite. ... Microsoft Schedule Plus (or Microsoft Schedule+) was a time management software product by Microsoft, but was discontinued as part of Office when its functionality was incorporated into Outlook 97. ... Microsoft Vizact 2000 box Microsoft Vizact 2000 is a program that activated documents using HTML, adding effects such as animation. ... Office Web Components (OWC) is a collection of web components included in Microsoft Office 2000, XP and 2003. ...

Contents

Language GA_googleFillSlot("encyclopedia_square");