A brief introduction to Macros in Excel

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Hello everyone, we’re meeting today on Excel for a brief introduction to macros.

What is Macros in Excel?

It is quite simply , a macro is a small program which allows you to repeat the actions or to automate certain actions.

So lets take a small example. Imagine, for example, that I have a fairly recurring action, for example adding a new line in a table and pre-filling this line. Of course, I can do it manually, but if I have to do it a lot of times, well it’ll tire me of doing that and here comes the utility of macros in Excel.

How it goes?

I’m going to record a macro so that I only have to press a single button and this action is done all at once.

First, we open the <<Display>> menu and then, on the far right, I have the part about macros. What I’m going to do  is recording a macro. Actually i’m going to record the actions that I will do so I can reuse them afterwards.

So I click Save. I will name my new macro, for example a “MyFirstMacro”,   and I will be able to start recording as soon as I press OK.

So lets do it I am going to insert a new lines in the sheet and i  I will for example mark 1000 references and I decide that this line always corresponds to a purchase line.

So I’m going to score. Purchase and validate. Once I have done all the actions I want to do. I can go back to View and stop recording now. So I can use my macro.  I’m going to run it and you see that a new pre-filled line is automatically displayed. So that’s what macros are for.

Are you automating certain actions to save a lot of time?

Be aware that macros are extremely powerful tools and you can go much further with macros for that.

Also in the <View> menu, you can display macros and you can for example modify a macro when you are there.

So you now know what a macro is about? What’s the point? How do I record macros? and you also know that you can go much further if you wish.