Minimize Excel window but keep it visible in the Taskbar

[kdsteinman]

I'm working on an Excel workbook that is opened by a batch file, updates information, copy and pastes that information to PowerPoint, and closes itself after spending two minutes idle. This is all for an employee communication monitor that runs 24/7. However, I don't like that the Excel spreadsheet displays on the monitors for two minutes every time it opens and runs.

Right now I was using the bit of code below to minimize the workbook when it was done copying and pasting the information. It works fine for the monitors, but the application is not visible in the Taskbar. That might cause problems later on if somebody else needs to update anything in the spreadsheet.

Sub Workbook_Open()
...
Application.Visible = False
End Sub

Is there anyway to minimize the workbook while keeping the window visible in the taskbar?

[LJMetzger]

Hi kdsteinman and welcome,

Try:

Please Login or Register  to view this content.

Options include:

Please Login or Register  to view this content.

Lewis

[kdsteinman]

I did that originally but it only minimized the worksheet, not the entire Excel window. I want to display the desktop.

[LJMetzger]

With a file named Book1.xls (using Excel 2003 on a Vista 32 bit system) that has the code ( Application.WindowState = xlMinimized) in Workbook_Open :

a. Double click on Book1.xls. Excel file is opened and runs minimized.

b. Double click on RunBook1.bat. Excel file is opened and runs minimized.

Please Login or Register  to view this content.

c. Double click on RunBook2And1.bat. Excel file(s) are opened and both are minimized. Book2.xls is an ordinary Excel file with NO Workbook_Open() code.

Please Login or Register  to view this content.

c. Double click on RunBook1And2.bat. Book1 is minimized. Book2 is visible. Book2.xls is an ordinary Excel file with NO Workbook_Open() code.

Please Login or Register  to view this content.

Lewis

[kdsteinman]

That looks like it would work, but because of account restrictions (this is for work and they highly restrict everything, I can't even look in C:\) I can't use the START command. Is there another command that works similarly?

Correction: I can actually use START on that computer, so that looks like a solution. Thank you very much!

[LJMetzger]

I'm glad that you seem to have a fix.

I was able to find the following VBA code (thank you Leith Ross) that works using Excel 2003 on my Vista 32 bit system. The 64 bit conditional compilation (added by me) has never been tested.

Please Login or Register  to view this content.

Lewis

[kdsteinman]

Thank you very much.

As it turned out, my boss decided he just wanted a button human users could push to stop all macros so that we could set the excel file to close itself after 30 seconds unless the macros were stopped.

Now we all get to feel like bomb defusers