How to practice VBA?

Hi,

I think I am finally getting the hang of the basics of VBA and finding it immensely satisfying (its almost like playing a puzzle game & Im a huge PC gamer)... my problem is that I do not have anything to practice, I mean scenarios and the like to practice for/with.

So my question is how do you all learn and practice?

Cheers & regards,

Try answering threads is always a good start

VBA Noob

Kayote,

If you use Excel in the workplace, try to automate a report that you may have to download from, say a financial system, and, instead of manually formatting the report for a manager/superviosr, create a macro to do the work for you.

For example, if you manually format some data, and it takes you one hour, a macro could cut that time down to seconds.

Then you become more valuable, because you can now turn out work faster than your piers.


Watch the posts in this forum. If you see something that you would like to learn to do, try creating the macro on your own, and then compare it with what someone else has done.

All of the code solutions posted are unique to the creator. But, some have less lines of code, and may run faster.





Have a great day,
Stan

Can't help but agree with VBA noob.

I'm still pretty new to VBA, but I try to help whoever I can when I see a post on here which applies to something I can handle, and if I'm close, or have a working solution, but not the best one, I check out what the more experienced members post after me.

If I see a post which I would like to understand, or think I'm close to being able to handle but still unclear, I subscribe to it, so that when an answer is posted, I can learn from the solution.

Most importantly,
mew!

I totally agree with Stan -- think of THE dullest, monotonous thing you have to do in your job and envisage not having to do it any more because XL is going to do it for you... that should be sufficient to get you going...

Regardless of how good you get you're never too good for the Macro Recorder ... it's always handy to get to grips with basic syntax for something if you can't recall off hand what it is... I still use it every now and then and I've been coding VBA for a good few years now... it may generate lots of stuff you don't need but it will invariably give you the one bit you do need that you can't remember!

And to back up VBA Noob -- practice here on other people's tasks - they'll be grateful for the assistance (for the most part!)

As others have echoed, posting your solutions is one of the best ways to learn. Teachers become even better as they teach. Like school, if you work a problem rather than just looking at a solution, you will get more out of it. Also like the others posted, look at how others solve the same problem.

I save the link and solutions that I like to folders with names of what I think that I can use later. If you have the link for the solution, you can give proper credit when you post the same solution for others. I usually make a reference to the link as a comment just before the code. Try to pick a broad category for a thread. Example folders names in no order: Batch, MailMerge, Dialogs, Control Toolbox Toolbar/ListBox, Ranges, IExplore, Events, Class, ADO, FSO, API, Comment, CommandBars, Control Forms/Listbox, Clipboard, SumProduct, UserForms, UserForms/Listbox, Registry, VBComponent, UDFs, Parse, SpeedUp, Split, Sound, String Routines, Charts, MSWord, PPT, ExcelForum, MrExcel, VBAExpress, etc.

You can get a good view of the various major topics by visiting MVP web sites. Chip Pearson has several topics indexed. Ron de Bruin has several links about ADO. Some others have good links for Charts and such.

I usually try to combine similar solutions in the same xls. That way, I can pick the one that best meets my goals.

Try to spend a block of time each day trying to solve a problem. The more practice you get, the faster you can use what you know when you actually need it for a deadline.

Also, don't get over enthusiastic. Look for a built in excel function first, before resorting to VBA

Thankyou all. Some really useful advice here. I have already automated almost all of my frequent reports here now I need to focus on the rest of them.

Cheers