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If you have tasks in Microsoft Excel that you do repeatedly, you can record a macro to automate those tasks. A macro is an action or a set of actions that you can run as many times as you want. When you create a macro, you are recording your mouse clicks and keystrokes. After you create a macro, you can edit it to make minor changes to the way it works.
Suppose that every month, you create a report for your accounting manager. You want to format the names of the customers with overdue accounts in red, and also apply bold formatting. You can create and then run a macro that quickly applies these formatting changes to the cells you select.
WindowsMac
How?
| | Before you record a macro Macros and VBA tools can be found on the Developer tab, which is hidden by default, so the first step is to enable it. For more information, see Show the Developer tab.  |
| | Record a macro
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| | Take a closer look at the macro You can learn a little about the Visual Basic programming language by editing a macro. To edit a macro, in the Code group on the Developer tab, click Macros, select the name of the macro, and click Edit. This starts the Visual Basic Editor. See how the actions that you recorded appear as code. Some of the code will probably be clear to you, and some of it may be a little mysterious. Experiment with the code, close the Visual Basic Editor, and run your macro again. This time, see if anything different happens! |
Next steps
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To learn more about creating macros, see Create or delete a macro.
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To learn about how to run a macro, see Run a macro.
How?
| | Before you record a macro Make sure the Developer tab is visible on the ribbon. By default, the Developer tab is not visible, so do the following:
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| | Record a macro
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| | Take a closer look at the macro You can learn a little about the Visual Basic programming language by editing a macro. To edit a macro, in the Developer tab, click Macros, select the name of the macro, and click Edit. This starts the Visual Basic Editor. See how the actions that you recorded appear as code. Some of the code will probably be clear to you, and some of it may be a little mysterious. Experiment with the code, close the Visual Basic Editor, and run your macro again. This time, see if anything different happens! |
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