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Part III: Programming Concepts
For example, the following statement changes the Color property of the
Interior object contained in the Range object:
Range(“A1”).Interior.Color = 8421504
In other words, this statement changes the cell’s background to middle gray.
What’s that? You didn’t know that 8421504 is middle gray? For some insights
into Excel’s wonderful world of color, see the sidebar, “A quick & dirty color
primer.”
The Formula property
The Formula property represents the formula in a cell. This is a read-write
property, so you can access it to insert a formula into a cell. For example, the
following statement enters a SUM formula into cell A13:
Range(“A13”).Formula = “=SUM(A1:A12)”
Notice that the formula is a text string and is enclosed in quotation marks.
If the formula itself contains quotation marks, things get a bit tricky. For
example, let’s say you want to insert this formula by using VBA:
=SUM(A1:A12)&” Stores”
This formula displays a value, followed by the word Stores. To make this formula
acceptable, you need to replace every quotation mark in the formula
with two quotation marks. Otherwise, VBA will get confused, and claim that
there’s a syntax error (because there is!). So here’s a statement that will
enter a formula that contains quotes:
Range(“A13”).Formula = “=SUM(A1:A12)&”” Stores”””
By the way, you can access a cell’s Formula property even if the cell doesn’t
have a formula. If a cell has no formula, the Formula property returns the
same as its Value property.
If you need to know whether a cell has a formula, use the HasFormula
property.
Be aware that VBA “speaks” U.S. English. This means that in order to put a
formula in a cell, you must use the U.S. syntax. To use your own locale formula
syntax in VBA, check the FormulaLocal property.