Absolute Beginner's Guide to VBA and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle. Learn more


or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
or
Amazon Prime Free Trial required. Sign up when you check out. Learn More
Kindle Edition
 
   
More Buying Choices
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
Absolute Beginner's Guide to VBA
 
 
Start reading Absolute Beginner's Guide to VBA on your Kindle in under a minute.

Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here, or download a FREE Kindle Reading App.

Absolute Beginner's Guide to VBA [Paperback]

Paul McFedries (Author)
3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)

List Price: $24.95
Price: $16.38 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details
You Save: $8.57 (34%)
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.
Only 15 left in stock--order soon (more on the way).
Want it delivered Tuesday, February 14? Choose One-Day Shipping at checkout. Details
Textbook Student FREE Two-Day Shipping for students on millions of items. Learn more

Formats

Amazon Price New from Used from
Kindle Edition $8.98  
Paperback $16.38  

Book Description

March 19, 2004 0789730766 978-0789730763

Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) is a set of tools based on the Visual Basic language. The great thing about using it to enhance Office applications is that it's easier to learn than Visual Basic and it comes with your Office license. After reading this book, the reader will be proficient in the VBA language and will have extensive knowledge of the Office 2003 Object Model. This book will cover all features of the VBA editor and show how to program some of the more useful new features in the Office 2003 applications.

This book assumes no prior programming experience, so even programming novices can get up to speed quickly on the basics of the VBA language. It is very practical and offers the reader tested programs and projects that he or she can implement right away. This book reinforces the reader's learning by presenting useful, end-of-chapter pedagogical resources, including question-and-answer sessions and quizzes, as well as practical exercises that cement and extend the reader's knowledge. It explorers not only the object models of Word and Excel, but also other members of the Office 2003 suite, including PowerPoint, Access, and Outlook.


Frequently Bought Together

Customers buy this book with VBA For Dummies $15.66

Absolute Beginner's Guide to VBA + VBA For Dummies
  • This item: Absolute Beginner's Guide to VBA

    In Stock.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
    Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details

  • VBA For Dummies

    In Stock.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
    Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details



Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Paul McFedries is the president of Logophilia Limited, a technical writing company. While now primarily a writer, Paul has worked as a programmer, consultant, spreadsheet developer, and Web site developer. Paul has written more than 40 books that have sold nearly three million copies worldwide. These books include Access 2003 Forms, Reports, and Queries, Formulas and FUnctions with Microsoft Excel 2003, and The Complete Idiot's Guide to Windows XP.


Product Details

  • Paperback: 384 pages
  • Publisher: Que (March 19, 2004)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0789730766
  • ISBN-13: 978-0789730763
  • Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.4 x 0.9 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #470,588 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Paul McFedries runs Logophilia Limited, a technical writing company, and has been writing computer books for more than 17 years. He is the author or coauthor of more than 60 books that have sold more than 3 million copies worldwide. Paul is also the proprietor of Wordspy.com, a website that tracks new words and phrases as they enter the language.

 

Customer Reviews

12 Reviews
5 star:
 (3)
4 star:
 (2)
3 star:
 (2)
2 star:
 (2)
1 star:
 (3)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.0 out of 5 stars (12 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

45 of 46 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Great introduction to VBA, June 28, 2004
By A Customer
This review is from: Absolute Beginner's Guide to VBA (Paperback)
The book is what it says: for ABSOLUTE beginners. If you have some computer experience and a working knowledge of the MS Office suite and you are ready to begin leveraging the power of VBA, this book is for you. If you are afraid of VBA, have tried VBA before and failed, or know nothing about programming, this book is for you. I found the book to be of the appropriate length ~350 pages or so. There was also plenty of side bar information that did a great job of explaining WHY you would or would not want to do something. Coverage also included "good to know" gotchas that would definately cause a beginner some heartburn.

The Good:

The book starts out with the obvious introductory items like recording macros, building custom macros, programming control structures (if-then, for loops, etc). The book also has an entire chapter that covers "objects". They are well written, easy to follow, and definately target the beginner.

At about Chapter 7 the book begins dedicating one chapter to each of the MS Office (2000) suite - starting with Word. Then Excel, Powerpoint, Access, and even a chapter on Outlook. All the chapters had good BEGINNER examples. The chapter that covers Access has an example of how to move data between Excel and Access - quite useful.

The last few chapters cover more intermediate topics like debugging, custom dialogs, and toolbars. As before, the book does a good job of introducing and illustrating (through useable examples) how to do the task at hand.

All chapters and examples are on topic. Little or no author dialog, no extemporaneous page fill, and no pay-per-page bloat to distract you from the code.

The Bad:

Coverage of each of the specific Office applications is good for a BEGINNER and given the obvious limitations of an introductory book, so don't expect that you are getting a great Excel programming book or an outstanding Access programming book. The Access examples use ADO which is not a bad thing by itself, but the examples use a fairly advanced coding format (short-cut notation) that many beginners may find hard to follow. The Access chapter and code examples leave out most if not all coverage of integrating "Forms" and "Reports" into your VBA code, which is a huge miss IMHO - minus half star. Coverage of printing and print formatting information with VBA is (or is nearly) nonexistent - minus half star.

If you are already familiar with VBA and you are looking for a beginners VBA book for a specific Office product, this may not be the book for you.

If you have always been intimidated by VBA or you "just never could get the hang of it", this is definately the book for you.

Excellent value for the price.

CM

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No


16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars Good writing, bad teaching, April 23, 2005
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Absolute Beginner's Guide to VBA (Paperback)
After the first 30 pages I got frustrated enough to write this review. Obviously the author does not know that the best strategy to teach a beginner is to use examples and present ideas gradually in the context of complete examples. By page 10 you have procedures, modules, functions, projects and details of how to use a project module with the same name in a different project! Terrible teaching indeed. The side notes and other boxed pedogogical styles are as badly abstract and procedural as the main text. I have gone back and forth for clarification several times and to me that is not a good presentation.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No


19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Integrate MS Office Applications, December 17, 2004
This review is from: Absolute Beginner's Guide to VBA (Paperback)
This book is where to start if you are trying to automate Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, or Access. It covers each application's object model (with practical examples) which gives you the confidence to develop in each application.

Absolute Beginner's Guide to VBA's main stength is its conciseness (only ~400 pages with lots of pictures). It is very easy to read; I read the book in 10 hours.

There is only one additional subject that should have been covered in an introductory book: starting applications from within another application - i.e. starting PowerPoint from within Access. The clearest explanation of this topic is in the book "Office XP Development with VBA". I also recommend this book.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Most Recent Customer Reviews










Only search this product's reviews



Inside This Book (learn more)
First Sentence:
Visual Basic for Applications is a mouthful to say (which is why I'll use the standard short form-VBA-from now on), but it also seems like it would be a real handful to learn. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
specified slide, specified worksheet, command bar, creating custom menus, select case structure, default data type, workbook object, break mode, set this property, specified shape, accelerator key, specified control, worksheet object, screen updating, current system time, current system date, module window, active worksheet, active document, progress meter, active presentation, specified window, property returns, own macros, following syntax
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Visual Basic Editor, End Function, Data Objects, Project Explorer, Close Set, Bar Info, Database Records, End If Next, Modify Selection, Understanding Program Variables, Document The Document, Microsoft Office, Object Browser, Programming Excel, Times New Roman, Case Else, Complete Word, Presentation The Presentation, Available References, List Constants, List Properties, Main Heading, Parameter Info, Shape The Shape, Assign Macro
New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats
Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Search Inside This Book:




What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?


Tags Customers Associate with This Product

 (What's this?)
Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
 
(2)

Your tags: Add your first tag
 

Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 


Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
Search all Amazon discussions
   
Related forums



So You'd Like to...



Look for Similar Items by Category


Look for Similar Items by Subject