Author: Codenga 04.05.2022

VBA language has been an important part of the Office suite for years. With its help we can automate repetitive, frequently performed tasks.

If you have any experience with Excel then you probably associate that most of the operations performed in this program are quite tedious. We have to constantly select the same cells, copy the same data, etc. And this is where VBA or Visual Basic for Applications comes to our aid.

How does it work

With the help of VBA we can write so called macros which are small programs that do all the repetitive operations for us.

It is worth mentioning at this section that VBA language is closely related to Office applications (i.e. Excel, Access etc.) It is not a general-purpose language. You cannot use it to write applications that run independently. VBA simply has a strictly defined purpose - to simplify work in Office by use of automation.

Where you can use VBA in practice

In fact we can do a lot with VBA. At least within the limits which the Office environment allows us to do.

• Write custom functions for Excel.
• Automate most of the repetitive tasks we used to do manually. For example, copying or formatting data.
• Build UI i. e. User Interface, which will facilitate our work with worksheets, tables and data.
• And much, much more.

We use VBA language in Excel, Access, Word etc. As we wrote earlier, it is closely integrated with Microsoft Office programs.

VBA in comparison to other languages

VBA is a fairly standard programming language. This means that it has elements commonly used in other languages like variables, loops, conditional statements or comments.

The nature of the VBA means that for many people it is often the first encounter with any form of programming. Sometimes it is because of necessity to create or rewrite a simple macro that we reach for VBA. Because we need to automate an action which we perform hundreds of times. There are many reasons for this.

The basics of this language can be learned relatively quickly. The entry level is relatively low. At least in comparison to other languages with more general applications.

What you need to learn

What you need to learn To work with VBA, you need to master some key concepts in the beginning. For sure you need to learn about such elements as variables, declaring functions, using conditional statements or the most important operators. That is everything that makes up the core of the language.

Remember that VBA is closely related to Office applications. So the most important thing is good knowledge of the software from this suite. After all it is difficult to write macros and create automation for tasks in Excel or Access if you do not use these programs on a daily basis.