Writing Excel Macros

I program in VB & needed a reference to the Excel object model. This book is an outstanding resource!

"Writing Excel Macros with VBA" is an excellent book on the use of VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) for Microsoft Excel. Steven Roman provides a significant amount of information in a relatively short volume. While this book is accessible to Excel users of a variety of skill levels, it is best suited to numerically-inclined and experienced users of Excel. The book offers a good introduction to the VBA programming environment and the Excel object model. Steven Roman has written the best book on Excel VBA that I have read to date.

This book is not aimed at absolute beginners, although it pretends to be (it contains short descriptions of other languages, and devotes some time to elementary concepts). It will be appreciated by readers with some minimal programming experience, like all O'Reilly books. For novices, I'd suggest the readable "Excel 2000 for Dummies" by G.Harvey. In brief, the book's virtues are clarity and brevity. 500 pages is below average for a sector full of bloated manuals. These two virtues alone justify the 4 stars of my rating. The shortcomings are the incompleteness of the treatment. Structures and objects are not really introduced, but you can't have it all in a slim book, and the author in the firy first pages warns the reader that this is a book for average-complexity macros. There are (minor) typos here and there, and in each chapter the author shamelessly promotes other publications and software tools written by him. A more impartial bibliography would have been appreciated. Yet, in my opinion these are minor flaws.Personally, I would have liked an even more synthetic style in exchange for a more comprehensive treatment. In any event, O'Reilly offers a VBA "nutshell" book that is supposed to be good. The author has also written a book on Object-Oriented-Programming in VBA, edited by Springer-Verlag.In synthesis, whatever topic the author chooses to cover in the book, he does cover it very well. But some essential aspects of VBA are missing, and they could have been added with little effort. Still, the book is reasonably priced, well written and well edited. Overall, a good buy.

This book is definitely not for beginners and not a good reference to the VBA Basic language or the Excel objects.The author introduces well the operation of the Excel Visual Basic Editor along with a brief and quite incomplete introduction of the Basic language. A good VBA Basic book is recommended as another side reference. The Excel object models, which are extensive, powerful, and vague, are discussed very well with a lot of examples. Unfortunately, the index at the back of the book lacks considerably such that I was forced to search relevant items by thumbing through the book. The Excel objects are learned mostly from the examples and the use of Excel macro recording facilities. A more thorough and detailed tree structure of the objects would help a lot; instead the author prefers to offer his $79.95 Object Browser software. . The author does share many insights into his experience with Excel objects and offers recommendations to avoid pitfalls. The explanation of the creation of custom menus is quite difficult to understand, however the author does offer sufficient example code to learn it. Recommended for intermediate and advanced programmers. The alternative is Weber's book, which is not better and is more expensive.

O'Reilly books don't waste your time holding your hand through the wizards like most other books do. (The purpose of a wizard is to hold your hand through the process. Who needs a book to hold your hand too?) "Writing Excel Macros" is an excellent reference book. It's great when, at the back of you mind, you know the property or method that you need, but you can't quite put your finger on it. With this book, you can put your finger on it. If you're looking for screen shots get another book. If you're trying to find a good computer book on a subject, check for an O'Reilly book first.Another great thing about O'Reilly books is that they look great on the book shelf. My book shelf proudly displays many of the O'Reilly books. Even the books are color matched to the subjects to which they pertain (ie. Green books are for web books, blue books for applications, etc.)And, finally, "No. I do not work for O'Reilly"