[geeks] Excel

[Joshua D Boyd]

On Thu, Oct 24, 2002 at 07:44:01PM -0500, Jonathan C Patschke wrote:

> The easiest way to do things like that is to compose your complicated  
> functions in VBA[0] and then export them to the spreadsheet so that you  
> can do "=NiftyFunc(A4:A6, A5:A7)".  It's possible to do scary things in  
> VBA.  I wrote a piece of software that evaluated the proficiency of  
> students' reading comprehension for an ESL program years ago.
> 
> I don't recall exactly what you need to click on to invoke the VBA  
> editor, but I could install Office 97 into VPC, if it doesn't stick out  
> to you.

Yeah, I know how to use VBA.  This system has about 2000 lines of VBA
setting it up to do reporting (crystal reports and competitors not being
flexible enough to do what we wanted), but I try to avoid making
fundamental modifications to the system that will only apply to one
report.  Writing a single function or 3 to call wouldn't cause
problems.  I guess I just need to figure out how to export functions
from VBA to excel.  I'll take a stab at it tonight or tomorrow night
(blech, working for free, but I don't have the help files on my work
notebook, see below).
 
> [0] Warning:  If you did not install the "extra help" or "more help"  
> (depending on the version of Excel) VBA files, the documentation will  
> approximate uselessness.  If you did install it, it will merely be  
> impossibly frustrating.

It isn't installed, and I can't install it.  This is for work, and not
being in the IT department, and being the bottom of the food chain and
all.  Not allowed to install any software (although I went and put putty
on a CD anyway for the sake of my sanity).

-- 
Joshua D. Boyd