1.4 Exploring the Developer Tab
Excel provides commands for recording and running macros – as well as several other tasks – on the Developer tab of the Ribbon.
Excel does not display the Developer tab by default.
If you do not see the Developer tab on the ribbon, you will need to change your Excel options settings – the visibility of the Developer ribbon tab is user-configurable, and you may need to turn it on.
To display the Developer tab:
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Click the File tab. Excel displays the File window.
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Click Options in the column at the left edge of the File window. Excel displays the Excel Options dialog.
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Click Customize Ribbon in the left-most column of the Excel Options dialog to display the Ribbon customization options.
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In the right-hand column (labeled Main Tabs), click on the Developer check-box to select it.
Click OK to save your changes and close the Excel Options window.
You can also record macros from the Macros button on the View tab. The Developer tab, however, provides more options and commands related to VBA and macro recording; displaying the Developer tab is highly recommended.
The Developer tab is divided into four groups: Code, Add-ins, Controls, and XML. For recording, running, and editing macros, we are most concerned with the commands in the Code section of the Developer tab (refer to Figure 1.1). You'll learn more about the Controls section of the Developer tab in Chapter 26 "Creating Custom Dialogs with User Forms."
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Figure 1.1 – Use Excel's Developer tab to start and stop macro recording, and to run previously recorded macros. |
The Code section of the Developer tab contains these commands:
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Visual Basic – clicking this command opens the Visual Basic Editor (VBE). You'll learn more about the VBE in Chapter 4 "Writing Simple Macro Procedures."
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Macros – clicking this command opens Excel's Macro dialog. You use the Macro dialog to see a list of currently available macros, and to run, edit, or delete macros. You'll learn more about the Macro dialog in this chapter and the next.
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Record Macro – use this command to start Excel's Macro Recorder, as described in this chapter. When the Excel Macro Recorder is running, this command changes to the Stop Recording command.
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Use Relative References – clicking this command toggles relative references on and off. Relative references are explained later in this chapter.
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Macro Security – clicking this command opens the Excel Trust Center window with the Macro Settings tab selected. Use this command to set the level of security for macro code. Refer to Excel's help system for more information on the options available. For most users and VBA developers, the default settings are fine.
Now that you have a sense of the macro-related commands available to you on the Developer tab, you're ready to start putting them to work starting with the next section.