How did you learn VBA?

[mileys1990]

Hello!

I'm looking for tips and suggestions on learning VBA? books, online courses any suggestions are welcome.

most of my VBA is either recording the macro then tweaking it, or searching for similar code online and tweaking it. my goal is to become more proficient in VBA for my job and career advancement.

thanks!

[BanginMyHeadOnMyDesk]

Hi and welcome

Recording macros and understanding what they're doing is a great way to start off.

Having a problem to solve and researching it on forums like this is how I got started. Break things down into small problems and learn to solve them one at a time.
As your knowledge grows you will find it easier to solve bigger problems by piecing all your knowledge together.

Use this forum to help you along. There are some fantastic coders on here and they're always happy to help. Never be afraid to ask, no matter how small the problem or how silly you may think it is.

Between all of the above (and badgering my far more experienced brother, also a forum member, for help), I learned VBA relatively quickly without ever opening a book on the topic or taking a course. I'm far from great at it, but good enough that I have a job doing it.

Hope that helps and good luck with your learning.

Beth.

[Mrrrr]

I learned VBA out of need.
I had many ideas when it came to improvement of some document related activities which involved Word, Excel and Outlook, so I searched for solutions and found VBA.
I was "afraid" of VBA up until the point I saw its power. I was amazed by what abundance of codes I found online and the infinite possibilities to use those codes.

I started slow, first searching for solutions via Google and trying to make multiple snippets of code work as one. Sometimes that didn't work well, so I started also asking around on blogs or forums and tried to learn from my mistakes and from the wisdom of others. I still have many things to learn.

Macro recorder is very useful, as Beth said.
To understand what code is doing you should run it step by step with F8 and visualize what each line of code does.
F8 would also help you to prevent lags and freezes in case of accidental infinite loops and such.

I also saved lots of useful snippets to a Module of their own in the Personal.xlsb file, like LastRow, LastCol etc. just to have them "at arm's length".
Some of them I saved as Quick Access Toolbar or Ribbon buttons, like toggle R1C1 for when I want to know the number of a column, convert text to number, add thousands separator to selection etc.
Those snippets helped me later when I started working more and more with VBA.

[Mumps1]

I found that the best way to learn VBA on your own is to use on-line tutorials, searching the web for specific areas of interest and following forums such as this one. The volunteers on sites such as this one are invaluable at providing help. I would suggest you keep a file of codes that you find useful and in this way you can build up a library that you can refer to. A lot is also trail and error. The more you practise, the better your get at it. The very first post in this forum is a good place to start. Also have a look at these links:
https://www.mrexcel.com/forum/lounge...ml#post5235342
http://www.snb-vba.eu/index_en.html