Beginner’s Guide to Excel Macros and VBA

Let’s go back to the kitchen analogy.

Imagine you have two robots. One always prepares steaks, and the other always makes salmon. They’re helpful, but they only follow a fixed set of instructions. What if you could upgrade these robots to do even more?

Such as handle orders for steak and fries, or salmon and vegetables

That’s where VBA comes in. VBA, or Visual Basic for Applications, is the coding language that powers macros.

It lets you rewire your macros and teach them new tricks. With VBA, you can customize tasks instead of sticking to what was recorded.

For example, you could upgrade the steak robot to also make fries, so it handles steak and fries orders. The salmon robot could be enhanced to prepare salmon with vegetables.

But why stop there? With VBA, you can make a third, smarter robot that adapts based on what’s needed. If the customer wants steak, it makes steak and fries. If they ask for salmon, it makes salmon and vegetables.

Back in Excel, this means upgrading your macros to expand their abilities and adding logic to make them more versatile. For instance, you can use VBA to create a macro that toggles highlighting on and off, depending on the current state of the selected rows.

It may seem intimidating at first, but it’s like learning to tweak a recipe. Once you understand the basics, you’ll wonder how you ever managed without it. And the best part? You don’t need to be a coding expert to get started.

The macros you recorded only work on single rows. To make them work on multiple rows, we need to tweak the VBA code:

Filtering data in Excel is a common task, and macros can make it lightning fast. For instance, you might often need to focus on specific rows, such as:

To automate these tasks:

By assigning these macros to buttons, you can sort data instantly with just one click, saving time and effort. Clearly label your buttons to match the sorting tasks for ease of use.

In 2011, I was working under intense pressure with a high-stakes deadline. The company’s board of directors needed updated reports for an important meeting, and I had just minutes to deliver them.

My hands were cold and clammy as I held a stack of papers like a shield outside the VP’s office. Inside, the VP—my boss’s boss—was reviewing the first version of the reports with a red pen, ready to mark up any mistakes.

Suddenly, his computer dinged with an email: there was a last-minute change that had to be reflected in the reports.

I scrambled back to my desk. There were only 30 minutes left before the meeting. I opened Excel, clicked a few buttons to run my macros, and watched as they flawlessly updated the reports in minutes.

Without VBA, this task would have taken hours, and I would have missed the deadline.

Instead, the reports were ready with 20 minutes to spare. The VP commended my quick turnaround, and I realized in that moment how much VBA had saved my job and transformed my career.

Another pivotal moment came years earlier, back when I was working at a billion-dollar tech company.

I was in the open floor office, staring at a colleague’s laptop screen during a meeting. She opened an Excel file and then clicked a button that brought up the VBA editor.

At first glance, the editor looked overwhelming, filled with a ton of code that seemed completely foreign to me.

But then she began explaining what it all meant. The macros she had written were automating hours of repetitive work, saving her time every single week.

She showed me how it helped her prepare reports by handling data preparation, formatting, and analysis with just a few clicks. These reports were critical and went straight to the company’s senior executives, including the CEO and CFO.

Her words struck me deeply: “This is the only way I can meet my Monday afternoon deadline. Without these macros, I’d never finish in time.”

And then she added, “By the way, these reports are about to become your responsibility. You’ll need to learn VBA fast if you want to succeed in this role.”

That moment was a turning point.

Suddenly, VBA didn’t look so intimidating. It looked like a powerful cheat code that could make my life easier and let me meet those critical deadlines.

From then on, I made it my mission to learn VBA, and it transformed not only how I worked but how I viewed Excel as a tool for solving problems.

The truth is that most Excel users have no idea that VBA even exists, or they see it as something that's just too hard to learn.

But I'm here to help you take that next step and learn VBA for yourself. I spent years figuring out how to teach VBA so there's nothing to stop you.

More than 500 Excel users have taken my Excel VBA course, and now they use VBA to automate their work. And that could be you in a few weeks' time.

My course has over 10 hours of video tutorials taking you from the basics of macros to doing some advanced tasks with VBA. It also includes practice files and quizzes to keep the concepts fresh and give you the much needed practice to get good at Macros and VBA.

The course is split into three levels:

In Level 1 just like teaching someone to drive a car, I start with the basics of car control and road awareness. This means recording macros and learning how to use the VBA editor to write and edit code.

In Level 2 we take the car out onto public roads. Just like a learner driver practices to handle road signs and traffic, in Excel, I show you important ways to handle macros and VBA.

And in Level 3 we jump into the fast lane and turbocharge what you learned in earlier levels. You start to make reports fly out and then automate your work based on the foundations you learned in Levels 1 and 2.

When you can write VBA code efficiently and confidently it will change the trajectory of your career or business.

So, if you're ready to transform the way you work in Excel and automate repetitive tasks, check out the link to my online course. And I hope to see you inside soon!