Open Excel VBA Editor

To open Excel visual basic editor,

Click the visual basic button on the developer tab.

If the Developer tab is not present, go to File -> Options -> customize ribbon and tick Developer.

You can also open VBA in Excel using Alt + F11 keyboard shortcut.

What is the VBA Editor

Great, now you’re in the editor, what is it? Microsoft Excel’s Visual basic editor can be referred to as, VBA editor, VB editor and even VBE. It is all the same thing. It’s the place where you can create macros and write scripts in Excel VBA.

The most basic sections of the editor is the Project View in which you can see modules listed down the left hand side. Think of this like a folder for your macros. Modules contain the code that is required for your macros to work. Its beyond the scope of this article to go into how to split out your code into objects but modules gives the user a powerful tool to create efficient and well organized code.

To get started writing code you will need to create a new module. Add a new module in VBA editor by clicking on VBAProject(Book1), right click, Insert Model. Delete a module by simply right clicking, Remove Module. Excel will prompt you to confirm before deleting.

Record a Macro in Excel

Recording a macro in Excel is a great way to automate tasks as well as a great tool to help learn more VBA code. A common trick is to record a macro and then review the VBA code to see how it works. Now you know how to open the VBA editor in Excel you should be able to record a macro, open the editor and view the code. You’ll see the system generated VBA can be messy but it will give you the key snippets of code needed for the desired action. These can be things as simple as formatting, copying, pasting, deleting or selecting a sell. Alternatively, you could get quite advanced and carry out entire tasks before going into the Excel visual basic editor to review the code.

The world really is your oyster when you get started recording macros in excel. Top tip is to start with small steps. You can always bulk all your small macros into one at a later stage but when it comes to reviewing each step its useful to keep it separate, at least when you are first getting started.

 Run a Macro in Excel VBA Editor

Once you have entered the VBA editor, created a module and written some code you will want to run the code.

To run VBA code in VBA editor simply click the Run Macro button which is shaped like a small green triangle on the toolbar. You can also Run Macro in Excel VBA editor by pressing F5 shortcut.

This is a very quick introduction to show you how to open VBA in excel, create a new module and also run your macro once written. To write some actual code, as we have suggested above, a great tip is to record macros and then go back and review the code in the MS Excel VBA editor. You’ll be surprised how messy the generated VBA can get but it will give you the key snippets of VBA code you need to get started with Excel VBA programming and is a great way of learning the syntax of VBA. Alternatively, Google is your best friend when it comes to writing macros. So what are you waiting for, press Alt + F11 in Excel and get coding in VBA!

What to do next? REad our quick Introduction to VBA for MS Excel

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Other use cases might require you to delete any rows containing someone’s name, a location, or some other information to trim the excess data from your sheet.

How to Remove all Rows Containing Certain Data

1. Select all of your data, including the data you wish to remove.
2. Press Ctrl F to open the Find and Replace window.
3. Type the text that is contained in the row you wish to delete. For example if you need to delete rows with someone’s name, type that name in.
4. Click the Find All button.
   • This will show a list of all cells containing the data you searched for below the search box.
5. Click on one of the results that appear below the search box, then press Ctrl A.
   • All results should be highlighted now. Also, if you notice on your spreadsheet, each cell containing what you searched for will be selected.
6. Click the Close button on the Find and Replace window.
7. Press Ctrl – to open the Delete window.
8. Select the Entire Row option, and press the OK button.

All rows containing the data you wanted to remove should be gone now!

You can also remove an entire column of data that contains certain information in a similar manner. To remove the entire column, simply select the Entire Column option in the last step above.

As with any data modification, be sure to have a copy of your data saved elsewhere as a backup just in case you accidentally remove some important information. This will ensure that when trying to remove all rows containing certain data, you do so in the safest possible way.

Remove Certain Rows Containing Certain Data with VBA

In the developer tab, go to Visual Basic as normal and create a module like the one below. Change and amend the code to your needs and then simply run the module on your sheet.

 Sub Delete_All_Rows_IF_Cell_Contains_Certain_String_Text()
    Dim lRow As Long
    Dim iCntr As Long
    lRow = 1000
    For iCntr = lRow To 1 Step -1
        If Cells(iCntr, 3).Value = "Certain data to delete here" Then
            Rows(iCntr).Delete
        End If
    Next
    End 

Number “3” in the ‘If Cells (iCntr, 3).Value represents the third column (C)
lRow = 1000 means it will check the first 1000 rows.

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How to type same data in multiple cells

1. Select all of the cells that need to contain the same data. If the cells are consecutive you can click and drag to highlight them all, or you can hold down the CTRL button and click each individual cell.
2. With all of the cells still highlighted, type the data you need repeated in all the cells in the last cell you selected.
3. After you type the data press CTRL and the Enter button. Your data should now be in all of the cells you selected.

If you have multiple worksheets that need the same data in the same cells in each worksheet, you can automate this process even further by selecting each worksheet tab before you start selecting the cells in step #1 above. You can select multiple non-consecutive worksheet tabs by holding down CTRL and clicking on each tab, or if the tabs are consecutive you can click the first tab, hold down Shift, and then click the last tab. All tabs in between should also be highlighted. To deselect the tabs, click any other tab that is not the tab for the current  worksheet you are looking at.

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Then you might like Silk. Silk is a data publishing platform that lets you convert a spreadsheet into a live interactive site. Silk takes each row on your spreadsheet and converts it into a standalone Web page (we call it a datacard). Then Silk allows you to build maps, charts, tables, and image galleries using the spreadsheet information stored in each datacard.

For example, here I’ve used Silk to turn a spreadsheet with headphone information into a site with interactive tables and graphs.

ExcelZoom.com was kind enough to allow us to explain Silk in this guest post and provide a quick user guide. I’ll show you how to prepare your spreadsheet for import into Silk, import options and then how to build visualizations.

Preparing your sheet for import into Silk

Silk will convert every row in your spreadsheet into a Webpage (datacard). You need to select one of the columns on your spreadsheet for the titles of your datacards. The information in the other columns will also show up on each datacard page in a table we call the factsheet. For import Silk requires a “flat” spreadsheet – no nested cells and no merged cells. You need to put a title in the first row of every column you are using – no blank rows. (See this tutorial on preparing your spreadsheet for Silk for more information.)

Importing your sheet into Silk

Now sign up for Silk. All that you need is an email and to pick a password. Next you’ll need to name your Silk. Then you can elect to take a quick tutorial or jump right into the import. To do the import:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EajJ7mvYJWo

• Find the ‘Add a new collection’ menu at the bottom of your screen.
• Click on the ‘Upload Spreadsheet’ box.
• Drag the Excel file you wish to upload into the drop box.
• Or use the ‘Paste spreadsheet’ option to copy and paste the columns from your spreadsheet into the importer box.

After you click ‘Import’, you will get a preview of how your datacards will appear in Silk.

1. Browse through the datacards by clicking the arrows.
2. Select which column you want to use as the title for each datacard.
3. Specify the “Collection” these datacards will go into. Collections hold together related datacards on a Silk. It’s best to change the collection name to something descriptive. We used ‘Headphones’ in this example.
4. Start the import.

If the preview looks good, click the blue “Import” button to convert your spreadsheet into a Silk site.

• When your import is completed, Silk will automatically analyze your data and place you into the “Explore” tab (this is where you can build visualization and explore the data). Silk will suggest a visualization.
• You can accept the visualization suggestion or pick a different one from the visualization ribbon. Silk offers 14 different types including maps, charts, tables, lists and galleries.
• You can change the contents of your visualizations by adding or removing tags (tag = column) or adding inline filters. (Further editing options can be found by clicking the ‘More Options’ button.)
• To publish the visualization to your Silk’s home page, click the green ‘Publish this visualization’ button.
• To further edit your homepage, click click the ‘+’ anywhere on the page. Then you can choose from the menu to add more visualizations as well as blocks of text, images, YouTube videos and other media.
• Or you can click the ‘Explore’ tab again create more visualizations from inside Explore.

For more detailed information, see our spreadsheet tutorial, we now created our Silk. The spreadsheet in this example was filled with information about headphones, and was used to create headphones.silk.co. You can now share the Silk so anyone can compare and visualize the data. You can let the Silk stay public, but you can also make it private if you wish. Better yet, you can allow anyone to edit the Silk, turning your Silk into a community project.

That’s it! If you like to learn more about Silk, you can participate in our webinar series, which will start on July 22nd, 12-1 pm EDT / 9-10am PDT. If you want examples of cool Silks, check out our home page, and don’t hesitate to send us an email if you have any questions. Attach your spreadsheet if you’re having trouble. We’d love to help anyone create a nice Silk. Thanks for reading!

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Why Format Numbers as File Sizes

If you wanted to have a spreadsheet that lists out file sizes like 10 MB, you may enter 10 MB in a cell. If you ever wanted to do anything with that information, such as add up file sizes, or anything else, the letters “MB” in that cell would make it difficult to do. On the other hand, if you only had a number in the cell that was formatted to display the appropriate file size abbreviation after the number you would be able to perform any calculations you wanted with that data.

For purposes of this example, I am going to assume that all the numbers we are working with are in bytes and we want to display them in KB, MB, or GB as appropriate.

Also, for reference here is a guide to convert bytes to KB, MB or GB.

• 1,000 bytes = 1 kilobyte
• 1,000,000 bytes = 1 megabyte
• 1,000,000,000 bytes = 1 gigabyte

Click on a cell that contains the file size in bytes. Then from the Home Tab, Number Group, select More Number Formats from the drop down menu.

Next, you will be on the Format Cells window. From here you can select “Custom” from the left hand side under Category, and enter the following custom format in the box that says “Type”.

Once you have entered the format, click OK.

This formatting will display the bytes in a more readable format by adding the appropriate KB, MB, or GB ending to the number.

**UPDATE** Thanks to Dennis in the comments, who pointed out that this is the American format. Other countries format numbers with different decimal and thousands separators than us here in America. If you use a comma (,) instead of a period (.) as the decimal marker you can simply replace the period with a comma in between the zeros in the code above. So 0.00 would become 0,00 in your case.

For example, if you entered 1000 in a cell, this custom format will display 1.00 KB. 1000000 would display 1.00 MB, etc.

You can use the same concept for other data sizes, but I chose some of the more common formats for purposes of this example. If you are unsure what conversion to use for your example, you can always do a Google search for the conversion you are looking for. For example a search for "1 terabyte in bytes", would tell you it is equivalent to 1000000000000 bytes. Using the dropdowns on the search results page you can jump between formats as well.

Here are some more helpful hints for other formatting tricks in Excel.

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Excel Search Tip #1: Find All

If you are working with a large set of data, and you need to find all cells containing a particular word, number, or phrase you can easily find all cells containing the data you need.

Simply hit CTRL+F, type the information you need to find in the “Find what” box, and click the Find All button. A list of cells containing data that matches your search criteria will show up under the search box.

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Excel Tip #1: Insert a New Line Inside a Cell

Inserting a new line in Microsoft Word is easy – just hit the Enter/Return button on your keyboard. However in Excel, pressing that button will cause you to move to the next cell down, but won’t insert a new line inside the cell you are typing in.

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Before we continue, you should check to see that Solver is installed on your version of Excel.

Navigate to the add-ins menu, and make sure that Solver Add-in has a check in the box next to it.

You should then be able to find Solver in the Data tab.

If you’re able to see Solver in the Data tab like in the screenshot above, you should be all set to use Solver in Excel.

To understand how to use Solver in Excel, you should know the group of cells that the add-in works with:

• Decision Variable Cells: The values in the variable cells are adjusted by Solver when solving a problem.
• Constraint Cell: Provides Solver with the restrictions, or limits on the values that it has to work with in order to produce a result.
• Objective Cell: Solver provides the optimal value depending on the criteria provided in the Objective Cell. This cell must contain a formula.

Before you start to use Solver, you will want to have a spreadsheet set up with a problem that you want to solve. For demonstration purposes we will work with a spreadsheet that is trying to determine how many of four different types of “Widgets” to manufacture in order to maximize profits.

We will assume that each Widget produces the following profits:

• Widget A: $25
• Widget B: $35
• Widget C: $45
• Widget D: $55

Assuming there were no constraints, and we could manufacture and sell Widget D just as easily as the other Widgets, we should drop Widgets A-C and just focus on Widget D.

However in real life there are constraints such as time to produce, availability of materials, etc.

Let’s also assume the following constraints for each Widget:

• Widget A Requires:
  • Part A: 4
  • Part B: 6
  • Time (hours): 0.25 (15 minutes)
• Widget B Requires:
  • Part A: 6
  • Part B: 5
  • Time (hours): 0.25 (15 minutes)
• Widget C Requires:
  • Part A: 4
  • Part B: 8
  • Time (hours): 0.5 (30 minutes)
• Widget D Requires:
  • Part A: 6
  • Part B: 10
  • Time (hours): 0.5 (30 minutes)

We also have a maximum of 17,000 Part A, 50,000 Part B, and 2,000 hours of labor.

What we are looking to do is solve the following equation, where Y_A is the quantity of Widget A, Y_B is the quantity of Widget B, and so on.

Maximize: 25 Y_A + 35 Y_B + 45 Y_C + 55 Y_D

Subject to these constraints:

Part A: 4 Y_A + 6 Y_B + 4 Y_C + 6 Y_D <= 17,000
Part B: 6 Y_A + 5 Y_B + 8 Y_C + 10 Y_D <= 50,000
Time: 0.25 Y_A + 0.25 Y_B + 0.5 Y_C + 0.5 Y_D <= 2,000

Additionally, another constraint is you can’t build a negative number of any of the Widgets, so:

Y_A + Y_B + Y_C + Y_D >= 0

Set-up Your Spreadsheet With Data

We can then build a spreadsheet with this information:

In the spreadsheet all the numbers, other than the numbers in column G, were manually entered. There are four cells with formulas:

• G5: =SUMPRODUCT(C3:F3,C4:F4) – Note this is the same as saying =C3*C4+D3*D4+E3*E4+F3*F4.
• G8: =SUMPRODUCT(C8:F8:$C$4:$F$4) – In this formula, we add the $ signs to keep the reference to cells C4:F4 static when we eventually copy the formula to other cells.
• G9-G10: Copy the formula from G8 down to G9 and G10. Since we used the $ signs in the formula in G8, the formula in G9 and G10 will retain the references to cells C4:F4 (because this part had the $ signs), but will update itself to reference C9:F9, and C10:F10 (since this part did not have $ signs).

Use Solver to Maximize Profits:

Now, to find out the maximum profit, we are going to let Solver run through the scenario and provide us with an answer. First we need to tell Solver what we are trying to do.

• On the Data tab, click on Solver.
• Click in the Set Objective field and type $G$5, or click on cell G5. This tells Solver which cell we want to optimize.
• The To option should be set to Max. This tells Solver that we want to maximize the value in cell G5.
• In the By Changing Variable Cells box, type $C$4:$F$4, or highlight the range C4:F4 with your mouse. This tells Solver which cells should change in order to maximize the value in cell G5.
• Next to the Subject to Constraints box click the Add button. Here we will provide the constraints that we described in the math formula above.
  • We want the resources to be limited by the quantities we have available, so in the Cell Reference box (left side), enter $G$8:$G$10, or select the range G8:G10 with your mouse.
  • The dropdown box (middle) should be set to <=.
  • The Constraint box (right side) should be set to the maximum quantities available, which in our case is $H$8:$H$10.
  • Click OK.
• If we had additional constraints to enter, we could do so by clicking the Add button. In this case we want to make sure the Units to produce are not negative, we could enter a new constraint of $C$4:$F$4 >= 0.
• Since all of our variables are constrained, it won’t change the outcome if you check or uncheck the box for Make Unconstrained Variables Non-Negative.
• Click Solve.

Solver will run through the problem and provide the optimal number of each Widget type to produce in order to maximize profits. You should see a message saying that “Solver found a solution”.

In this scenario, in order to maximize profits we need to produce 3,500 of Widget C, 500 of Widget D, and none of Widgets A or B.

Find Ways to Further Maximize Profits:

If we want to generate an Answer report, click on Answer under the Reports section in the Solver Results window. Solver will create an Answer Report tab to the left of the tab you are working on.

The Answer Report will show you the original and final values of the objective and variable cells. It will also list out the resources that prevented Solver from further maximizing our profits.

In this case, Part A and Time were both fully used up. In the report their status is “Binding”, with a slack of 0. Part B was the only resource that was not binding, as there were 17,000 units left over.

In the real world we could use this information to try to determine if we could possibly acquire more of Part A, and hire more employees to further maximize the profits.

If this wasn’t a possibility, we could see if there was something else we could make with the 17,000 remaining units of Part B.

Other Ways to Use Solver in Excel:

We just ran through a simple scenario to maximize the profit of a widget manufacturer. However the usage of Solver is not limited to producing widgets.

You can use Solver in Excel to help allocate money to certain investments, purchasing real-estate, or scheduling staff at a multi-location business.

Do you use Solver in Excel? Let’s hear about how you use it in the comments.

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Delete Every Other Row in Excel

This tutorial will require you to use the Visual Basic Editor to create a macro.

In earlier versions of Excel (prior to 2007), click Tools > Macro > Visual Basic Editor.

In Excel 2007 or later, click Developer tab, and then Visual Basic in the Code group.

In the Project pane, right click your workbook > Insert > Module.

Next, double click the new module (usually Module1 unless there were already modules there) under your workbook. Paste the following code into the new module:

IMPORTANT: Create a backup of your file just in case, because there is no easy way of retrieving the data that is deleted after this macro is run.

Depending on your needs, you may need to change the Y = False to Y = True to delete the correct rows. False will delete the even row numbers, and True will delete the odd row numbers.

To use this macro, select the rows that contain the data where every other row should be deleted. The macro will only work on the selected range, so if you have other data outside of a specific range, it won’t be touched by this macro if you don’t select it first.

Also, note that the True/False setting discussed earlier refers to the actual row numbers in Excel, and not the 1st, 3rd, 5th etc. or 2nd, 4th, 6th etc. rows in your selected range. For example, if you want to delete every other row with Y=False and select rows 2-8, Excel rows 2, 6, and 8 will be deleted. If you select rows 2-8 with Y=True, Excel rows 3, 5, and 7 will be deleted.

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Click through to see our top 10 Excel tips.

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