Microsoft Office

Introducing Visual Basic for Applications 39
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You specify methods by combining the object with the method, separated by a period. For
example, to clear the contents of cell A1, use the following statement:
Worksheets(“Sheet1”).Range(“A1:C12”).ClearContents
VBA also includes all the constructs of modern programming languages, including variables,
arrays, looping, and so on.
The preceding describes VBA in a nutshell. Now you just have to learn the details, some of which are covered
in the rest of this chapter.
Objects and collections
VBA is an object-oriented language, which means that it manipulates objects, such as Ranges, Charts,
AutoShapes, and so on. These objects are arranged in a hierarchy. The Application object (which is
Excel) contains other objects. For example, the Application object contains a number of objects, including
the following:
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AddIns (a collection of AddIn objects)
Windows (a collection of Window objects)
n Workbooks (a collection of Workbook objects)
Most of these objects can contain other objects. For example, a Workbook object can contain the following
objects:
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Charts (a collection of Chart sheet objects)
Names (a collection of Name objects)
Styles (a collection of Style objects)
Windows (a collection of Window objects in the workbook)
n Worksheets (a collection of Worksheet objects)
Each of these objects, in turn, can contain other objects. A Worksheet object, for example, can contain the
following objects:
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ChartObjects (a collection of all ChartObject objects)
PageSetup (an object that stores printing information)
n PivotTables (a collection of all PivotTable objects)
A collection consists of all like objects. For example, the collection of all Workbook objects is known as the
Workbooks collection. You can refer to an individual object in a collection by using an index number or a
name. For example, if a workbook has three worksheets (named Sheet1, Sheet2, and Sheet3), you can refer
to the first object in the Worksheets collection in either of these ways:
Worksheets(1)
Worksheets(“Sheet1”)
Properties
The objects that you work with have properties, which you can think of as attributes of the objects. For
example, a Range object has properties, such as Column, Row, Width, and Value. A Chart object has
properties, such as Legend, ChartTitle, and so on. ChartTitle is also an object, with properties such
as Font, Orientation, and Text. Excel has many objects, and each has its own set of properties. You
can write VBA code to do the following:
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