**

*Lesson 1: The Visual Basic Editor in Excel (VBE)
*

*For users of Excel 1997 to 2006:* The first thing that you need to do is to
make sure that the security level of Excel is set at either "Low" or
"Medium" so that you can use the macros (VBA procedures) that you develop.
>From the menu bar of Excel select "Tools" then "Macro" then "Security" and
select "Medium".

*For users of Excel 2007 to 2010:* From the "Developer" ribbon click on the
"Macro Security" button. Check the second level "Disable all Macros with
Notification" and you are set.
 *Setting up  the Visual Basic Editor in Excel (VBE)*

The Visual Basic Editor is a program within Excel that allows you to
communicate with Excel. We will open it and start by setting it up so that
working within it becomes easy and efficient.

Print this page, open Excel and open a new workbook (Book1).

On your keyboard press the "ALT" key (left of the space bar) and hold,
strike the "F11"key (the F11 key is at the top of your keyboard).You now
see the Visual Basic Editor. Again press "ALT/F11" and you are back into
Excel. Use the "ALT/F11" key to go from Excel to the VBA and back.

When you first open the VBE you will see is a window somewhat like the image
below.

 If there are any open windows within the VBE like in the image below click
on the Xs to close them and see a gray rectangle filling up the bottom part
of the screen like in the image above.

 *The Three Windows in the Visual Basic Editor*

To be efficient when working with the VBE there should always be 3 windows
showing like in the image below;  the Project Window (1),  the Code Window (
2), and the Properties Window (3), arranged as in the image below. You
can resize the windows by left-clicking where the red stars are, holding and
moving sideways or up and down. We will study each of the three windows in
lessons 2, 3 and 4 but first we will set them up in the VBE.

 In the exercise below we will setup the 3 windows of the VBE.

*Exercise 1* (Create your first macro and use it)

Remember that you will perform this task only once as each time you will
open the VBE it will remain setup.

*Step 1:* Close all the windows that are open in the VBE to end up with
this:

 *Step 2:* Go to the menu bar "View" and click "Project Explorer". The
result will be somewhat like the image below:

 If the project window already appears as a column on the left side of the
screen there is nothing else that you have to do for now. If the project
window appears in the middle of the gray area like above, right-click in the
white space in the middle of the project window and check "Dockable". Then
click on the top blue bar of the Project window, hold and drag it left until
the cursor (white arrow) touches the middle of the left side of the screen.
When you let go of the mouse button the end result should be like shown in
the image below. Congratulations you have setup the first major window of
the VBE.

 *Step 3: *Move your cursor on the line separating the project window and
the gray rectangle. When it turns to two small parallel lines and
arrows click, hold and move the lines sideways. Resize the two windows as
you want them.

*Step 4:* Go back to the menu bar "View" and click "Properties Window". The
Properties window will appear somewhat like in the image below.

 If the Properties window is already located below the Project window there
is nothing left to do. If it shows like in the image above, right-click in
the white space in the middle of the Properties window and check "Dockable".
Then click on the top blue bar of the Properties window and drag it left and
down until the cursor (white arrow) touches the center of the bottom of the
Project window. When you let go of the mouse button the end result should be
as the image below. Congratulations you have setup the second major window
of the VBE.

 *Step 5: *Move your cursor on the line separating the project window and
the properties window. When it turns to two small parallel lines and
arrows click, hold and move the lines vertically. Resize the two windows as
you want them.

*Step 6: *To add the code window to the setup, you just have to double click
on the name of a component in the Project window (Sheet1, Sheet2, Sheet3 or
ThisWorkbook) and its code window appears within the gray rectangle. You
can maximize any Code window by clicking on its "Maximize" button  .

The final result looks like the image below. The words "Option Explicit"
might not be present in your Code window. We will address this issue later
in the lesson on variables (Lesson 19). You might also have a VBAProject
named FUNCRES.XLA or FUNCRES.XLAM in the project window. Forget about this
project for now.

 *Step 6: *Now go to Excel and close it. Re-open Excel, go to the VBE
(ALT/F11) and you will see that the VBE setup persists. Congratulations, you
are now ready to work in the Visual Basic Editor.

We will discover more about each of these three windows in lessons 2 (*Project
Window <http://www.excel-vba.com/vba-prog-1-2-editor-project.htm>*), 3
(*Properties
Window <http://www.excel-vba.com/vba-prog-1-3-editor-properties.htm>*) and 4
(*Code Windows <http://www.excel-vba.com/vba-prog-1-4-editor-code.htm>*).

Remember that you can use "ALT/F11" to navigate from Excel to the VBE and
back.

Close the VBE and close Excel without saving anything.

-- 
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