User FAQs

If you have a question, please send it to us.

1) Is there a forum for questions about VBA Programming ?
There is a forum on techcommunity. The Excel hub forum with the label "Macros and VBA".
The following labels also exist but should not be used "Macros & VBA" and "VBA".

link - techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/forums/filteredbylabelpage/board-id/ExcelGeneral/label-name/Macros%20and%20VBA 

There are also forums on answers for specific applications.

link - learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/tags/321/office-development 
link - learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/tags/178/office-excel 
link - learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/tags/42/office-word 
link - learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/tags/163/office-powerpoint 
link - learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/tags/131/office-outlook 
link - learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/tags/255/javascript-api 
link - learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/tags/309/csharp 

There is a forum on Stack Overflow with the tag "vba".

link - stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/vba 

There are also other active forums.

link - eileenslounge.com/viewforum.php?f=30 

2) What is the difference between VBA and VBScript ?
VBA runs inside an Office application, VBScript runs outside.
VBA is used to control the host application, VBScript is used for Windows scripting, changing the registry etc.
VBA code is saved inside the actual (.xlsm and .docm) files, VBScript is saved to a separate file (.vbs)
They share a lot of the same syntax however VBScript relies on external libraries.

3) How long should my subroutines and functions be ?
Never write procedures and functions that are longer than a full screen as these are hard to understand.
Here is a full list of suggested Best Practices.

4) Should I prefix my variable names to indicate their data type ?
Always prefix your variables so you can quickly identify their data type.
Always prefix your variables with a data type indicator followed by a descriptive name.

5) Where should I declare my variables ?
Always declare your variables at the top of the subroutine or function, not just before you use it.
Here is a full list of suggested Best Practices.

6) When running VBA code, are there any speed benefits when the Visual Basic Editor is closed ?
Not really unless there are extremely long running loops or large array processing.
The big performance wins are:

Application.ScreenUpdating = False 
Application.EnableEvents = False 
Application.Calculation = xlCalculationManual 

7) File Name Conventions ?
Do not use full stops in your filenames, always use an underscore instead.

8) Was there a setting called Trust all installed templates and add-ins ?
Yes. This was a checkbox in Office 2003/2007.
In more recent versions of Office this checkbox was replaced with Trusted Locations and Trusted Publishers.