Excel VBA — Adding Code To Excel Workbook

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Tips for copying VBA code to a workbook, and checking the code, to ensure
that it runs without errors.

Copy Excel VBA Code to a Regular Module

To see the steps for pasting a macro into a workbook, and running the
macro, please watch this short video tutorial. The written
instructions are below the video.

Copy Excel VBA Code to a Regular
Module

Instead of starting from scratch, if you need an Excel macro, you can
often find sample code at reputable sites on the internet. To copy that
code, and add it to one of your workbooks, follow these steps:

1. Copy the sample code that you want to use
2. Open the workbook in which you want to add the code
3. Hold the Alt key, and press the F11 key, to open the Visual Basic
   Editor
4. Choose Insert | Module
5. Where the cursor is flashing, choose Edit | Paste

To run the code:

1. On the Excel Ribbon, click the View tab
2. At the far right, click Macros
3. Select a macro in the list, and click the Run button

Copy Excel VBA Code to a Worksheet Module

Another type of Excel code is Event code, which runs automatically when
something specific occurs in the workbook. For example, if you enter a
number in a cell, or select an entry in a cell’s drop down list, the worksheet
has been changed. This could trigger the Worksheet_Change event.

Worksheet event code is stored on a worksheet module. To add worksheet
event code to your worksheet, do the following:

1. Copy the code that you want to use
2. Select the worksheet in which you the code to run
3. Right click on the sheet tab and click View Code, to open the
   Visual Basic Editor.

   

4. Where the cursor is flashing, choose Edit | Paste

Copy Excel VBA Code to a Workbook Module

Another type of code is Workbook Event code, which should be added to
the workbook code module:

1. Copy the code that you want to use
2. Select the workbook in which you want to store the code
3. Hold the Alt key, and press the F11 key, to open the Visual Basic
   Editor
4. In the Project Explorer, find your workbook, and open the list of
   Microsoft Excel Objects
5. Right-click on the ThisWorkbook object, and choose View Code
6. Where the cursor is flashing, choose Edit | Paste

Copy
Excel VBA Code From a Different Workbook

To see the steps for copying a macro from one workbook to another, in
any version of Excel, please watch this short video tutorial. The written
instructions are below the video.

Copy Excel VBA Code From a Different Workbook

You may find code in a sample workbook online, and decide to add it to
one of your workbooks. You can copy all the code in a module by doing
the following:

1. Open both workbooks
2. Hold the Alt key, and press the F11 key, to open the Visual Basic
   Editor
3. In the Project Explorer, find your workbook, and the workbook with
   the code that you want to copy. The screenshot at the right, the code
   is in VBACodeCopy.xls and will be copied to MyForm.xlsm
4. In the workbook with the code, click the + sign to view the list of
   Modules
5. Click on the module that you want to copy, and drag it over the project
   where you’d like the copy placed.
6. Release the mouse button, and a copy of the module will appear in
   the workbook.

To run the code:

1. On the Excel Ribbon, click the View tab
2. At the far right, click Macros
3. Select a macro in the list, and click the Run button

Allow Macros to Run in Your Workbook

To use macros in Excel, you might need to enable them when the file opens.
If you are using macros for the first time on your current computer, you
might also need to adjust the macro security settings.

Follow the instructions below, to make these changes.

Enable Macros When Opening the File

When you open a workbook that contains macros, you might see a security
warning, at the top of the worksheet, above the Formula Bar.

1. Click the Options button.
2. Click Enable This Content, to allow the workbook’s macros to run,
   and click OK.

Check Your Macro Security Settings

If you haven’t run macros before, you might need to change your macro
security level. (You may have to clear this with your IT department.)

1. On the Ribbon, click the Developer tab, and in the Code group, click
   Macro Security.

• In the Macro Settings category, under Macro Settings, click Disable
  all macros with notification
• Click OK.
• If you changed the setting, close the workbook, and then reopen it

Run an Excel Macro

After you copy a macro to a regular module, follow the steps below, to run the macro. If the macro does not run, check your macro settings.

To run an Excel macro:

1. Copy the macro code to a regular code module in your file.
2. Then, on the Ribbon’s View tab, click the top part of the Macro button, to open the Macro window
3. In the list of macros, click on the macro that you want to run
4. Click the Run button



Modify Copied Excel VBA Code

If you copy VBA code into your Excel file, you might need to make changes
to the object names, or other settings, so that the code works correctly
in your file. Here are three things to check, before you try to run the
code in your file:

Check the Sheet Names and Ranges

If there are sheet names or range references in the code, you can modify
them, to match your workbook.

• In the code, look for references to “Worksheets” to “Sheets”,
  and change those to the sheet names in your workbook.
• Also look for “Range” references, such as Range(“A1:G100”),
  and adjust those to match the location of your data.

These references might be at the top of the procedure, in a Set statement:

Set ws = Worksheets("SalesData")

or elsewhere in the code.

If you run the code without modifying the reference, you might see an
error message: Run-time error ‘9’: Subscript out of range



To see where the problem is, click the Debug button, and a line of code
will be highlighted in yellow.



To stop the code, click the Run menu, then click Reset.



Change the sheet name in the line that was highlighted, save the changes,
and try the code again.

Add and Name Objects

If the code refers to objects on the worksheet, be sure to add those
objects in your workbook, and use the correct object name in the code.

For example, in the code for the Data
Validation Combo Box, you’ll need to add a combo box to the worksheet,
and name it as TempCombo. Or, if your combo box has a different name,
change the code references to match.



Specify the Target Columns or Rows

Some code is designed to run when a cell in a specific row or column
is changed. For example, in the sample code shown below, there is a red
dot on the line that says column 3 is the only one where the change will
occur.



NOTE: In all of these examples, you could use Row instead of Column,
to limit the target to specific rows.

A) In your workbook, if you want the code to run when a cell in column
E is changed, you could change the 3 to a 5.

If Target.Column = 5 Then

B) Or, add more columns in the code. For example:

If Target.Column = 3 _
    Or Target.Column = 5 _
    Or Target.Column = 6 Then

C) If you don’t want to limit the code to a specific column, you could
delete the two rows (If…End If) that are marked with red circles. In
that case, the code will run for a change in every column.

D) If you want code to run on any column EXCEPT a specific column, use
the Not Equal To operator — <> — instead of the equal sign. For
example:

If Target.Column <> 3 Then

Get the Sample File

To see examples of workbook modules, worksheet modules and regular code modules, download the Add Code to a Workbook sample file. The zipped file is in xlsm format, and contains macros. Be sure to enable macros when you open the file, if you want to test the macros.

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