EnableCancelKey Property
Applies To
Application object.
Description
Controls how Microsoft Excel handles CTRL+BREAK (or ESC or COMMAND+PERIOD) user interruptions to the running procedure. Read/write Long.
Can be one of the following XlEnableCancelKey constants.
| Constant | Meaning |
|
| xlDisabled | Cancel key trapping is completely disabled. |
| xlInterrupt | The current procedure is interrupted, and the user can debug or end the procedure. |
| xlErrorHandler | The interrupt is sent to the running procedure as an error, trappable by an error handler set up with an On Error GoTo statement. The trappable error code is 18. |
Remarks
Use this property very carefully. If you use xlDisabled, there's no way to interrupt a runaway loop or other non elf-terminating code. Likewise, if you use xlErrorHandler but your error handler always returns using the Resume statement, there's no way to stop runaway code.
The EnableCancelKey property is always reset to xlInterrupt whenever Microsoft Excel returns to the idle state and there's no code running. To trap or disable cancellation in your procedure, you must explicitly change the EnableCancelKey property every time the procedure is called.
Example
This example shows how you can use the EnableCancelKey property to set up a custom cancellation handler.
On Error GoTo handleCancel
Application.EnableCancelKey = xlErrorHandler
MsgBox "This may take a long time: press ESC to cancel"
For x = 1 To 1000000 ' Do something 1,000,000 times (long!)
' do something here
Next x
handleCancel:
If Err = 18 Then
MsgBox "You cancelled"
End If