Customer Reviews

Using Excel Visual Basic for Applications

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is the only Visual Basic book I have seen which allows users to program in VB without first learning the intricacies of the language. Which makes this book the only convenient source (that I have found; after repeated trips to book stores and libraries) for anyone who is attempting to make useful programs in Excel. While it was written for Excel 7.0 the applications (amazingly) still work in Excel 2000. I would recomend this book to anyone who works with computers and wishes to save some time by avoiding tedious data entry.

This book is at a very beginning level, telling you how to use the macro recorder,defining a variable ("where programs store values"), defining what "calling" a procedure means etc. If you are at this beginning level, the book is excellent EXCEPT it is out of date. For example, the menu arrangement described in this book for inserting a module sheet is different if you use Excel '97. The dialog sheet is used here for designing dialog boxes, a method replaced with UserForms in Excel '97. So although intended to be a very handholding approach, for users of Excel '97 it is no longer so straigtforward. Probably John Walkenbach's "Microsoft Excel 2000 Power Programming" is more useful, but unfortunately at a more advanced level.

I am always amazed at how hard it is to find a book that teaches someone to program in Visual Basic. There are thousands of books that go through lists of objects, properties, and controls, but very few that teach classic programming fundamentals using the VB language. I recommend this book to anyone interested in learning Visual Basic, not just those doing Excel macro programming.

This book has an excellent treatment of basic (no pun intended) programming concepts and is the only truly useful and usable text I've found for teaching VB inside or outside of the Excel environment.

My only question is when is Ms. Boonin going to update this book or release another one? I'm teaching a community college class and would like to use this as a textbook but the version of Excel this book is based upon is out of date.

I needed a quick course in Visual Basic for Excel. This book did the trick. I was tired of reading others' macros and trying to figure out what meant what. With a college course in Fortran77 providing me the basic framework of how to program, I found this book easy to follow and easier to learn from.

I don't know if someone with absolutely no programming experience would find it as helpful, but it was an excellent book for me. I can now create my own code without having to use the recorder, and I can figure out other's complex code with the foundation the book provided.

This is a very good book to begin programming in Excel VBA, but not to end if you will. The book sort of gives you a push and YOU! have to then take the ball and run with it. The book is analogous to how a mother bear chases her cubs away once they are big enough to take care of themselves. The cubs, though with enough skills to survive, are still left with new and open possibilities before them. The reason why is that most of the examples are too easy, making them too unrealistic for the real world. The other is that the book is based on an older Excel version. This book is really great for those people who are scared of programming and want to make the transition, but are not sure of what road to take.

After floundering for some weeks trying to use the Microsoft manuals, I purchased the Que book "Using Exel Visual Basic for Applications," (ISBN 0-7897-0325-4) by Eliabeth Boonin. It was just the mix of context and specific instructions I needed to get going, and to make sense of MicroSoft's treatment of "objects," "properties," and "methods," as well as their online "help." The book is an excellent effort. The only constructive criticism I can offer for the future would be another paragraph or two of clarification on "Displaying Your Dialog Boxes." I didn't find the explanation complete as to where code should be located for displaying a custom-made box while protecting the sheet on which the box was created. I would be delighted to purchase other titles by this author.

Numerous examples and suggestions in the book were not accurate using Excel 97. For a self-paced, self-taught learner, look elsewhere.