XL98: How to Run VBA Procedures from AppleScript

ID: Q184440

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Excel 98 Macintosh Edition

SUMMARY

This article includes sample AppleScript scripts that demonstrate how to use AppleScript to call Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications Sub procedures and Function procedures in Microsoft Excel 98 Macintosh Edition.

MORE INFORMATION

Microsoft provides programming examples for illustration only, without warranty either expressed or implied, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and/or fitness for a particular purpose. This article assumes that you are familiar with the programming language being demonstrated and the tools used to create and debug procedures. Microsoft support professionals can help explain the functionality of a particular procedure, but they will not modify these examples to provide added functionality or construct procedures to meet your specific needs. If you have limited programming experience, you may want to contact the Microsoft fee-based consulting line at (800) 936-5200. For more information about the support options available from Microsoft, please see the following page on the World Wide Web:

http://www.microsoft.com/support/supportnet/overview/overview.asp

AppleScript is manufactured by Apple Computer Inc., a vendor independent of Microsoft; we make no warranty, implied or otherwise, regarding this product's performance or reliability.

To call a Visual Basic procedure from an AppleScript script, you can use the Evaluate command or the Do Script command, followed by the appropriate syntax for specifying the name of the procedure (and possible arguments). Because there is not a discernible difference between the Evaluate command and the Do Script command, Evaluate is used in all sample scripts in this article.

NOTE: All examples provided in this article assume Microsoft Excel is running and the sample procedure being called is contained in an open workbook called "Workbook1."

RECORDING A SCRIPT THAT STARTS A MICROSOFT EXCEL MACRO

Creating the Macro

Start Microsoft Excel.

Start the Visual Basic Editor (press OPTION+F11), and click Module on the Insert menu.

Type the following in the module:


      Sub Test_Recording()
         MsgBox "This is an Excel macro."
      End Sub

On the File menu, click "Close and Return to Microsoft Excel."

On the File menu, click Save.

Save the workbook and name it Workbook1.

Click Hide Microsoft Excel on the Application menu.

Recording the Script

To record the script, follow these steps:

Start Script Editor.

On the Controls menu, click Record.

On the Application menu, click Microsoft Excel.

Point to Macro on the Tools menu, then click Macros.

In the list of macros, click Test_Recording, and then click Run. A message box displays the message "This is an Excel macro."

Click OK.

On the Application menu, click Script Editor.

On the Controls menu, click Stop.

The recorded script looks similar to the following:
```
       tell application "Microsoft Excel"
          Activate
          Evaluate "Workbook1!Test_Recording()"
       end tell 
```
NOTE: To start Visual Basic procedures (including macros) from an AppleScript script, the name of the procedure must be followed by parentheses.

On the File menu, click Save.

Select a destination folder, type a name for your script in the Save Script As box, and then click Save.

Playing Back the Recorded Script

To play the script, follow these steps:

With the recorded script displayed in the Script Editor window, click Run on the Controls menu.

The Test_Recording macro is run, and a message box displays the "This is an Excel macro" message.

Click OK.

On the Application menu, click Script Editor.

PASSING ARGUMENTS TO AND FROM A VISUAL BASIC PROCEDURE

The following examples passes arguments from an AppleScript script to a Visual Basic for Applications Sub or Function procedure.

As noted earlier in this article, the name of the procedure must be followed by parentheses if you want to start it from an AppleScript script. If you are passing arguments to a procedure, you place them between the parentheses.

Passing a Single Value to a Sub Procedure

To pass a value, follow these steps:

Open the workbook (Workbook1) that you created earlier and then start the Visual Basic Editor (press OPTION+F11).

Type the following code in the module:


      Sub Pass_1_Argument(x As Variant)

         Worksheets("Sheet1").Cells(1,1).Value = x

      End Sub

On the File menu, click "Close and Return to Microsoft Excel."

On the File menu, click Save.

On the Application menu, click Hide Microsoft Excel.

Start Script Editor and type the following in a new script window:
```
      tell application "Microsoft Excel"
         set myvalue to 10
         Activate
         Evaluate "Workbook1!Pass_1_Argument(" &amp; myvalue &amp; ")"
      end tell 
```
NOTE: In order to pass a variable to a Visual Basic procedure, you must concatenate the variable into the Evaluate or Do Script statement. If you want to pass a constant value to the procedure, you can place the value between the parentheses without using concatenation. If you want to pass a constant value, the Evaluate line becomes the following:
```
      Evaluate "Workbook1!Pass_1_Argument(10) 
```

On the File menu, click Save.

Select a destination folder, type a name for your script in the Save Script As box, and then click Save.

On the Controls menu, click Run.

The script activates Microsoft Excel and places the value 10 in cell A1 on Sheet1.

Returning a Value from a Procedure to a Script

A Visual Basic Sub procedure returns a value of 0 when it runs successfully from an AppleScript script.

If you are calling a Function procedure, you can return any numerical, Boolean, or string value back to the AppleScript script. Whether you are calling a Sub or Function procedure, the value is returned to a predefined AppleScript variable named "result."

Returning a Value from a Function

To return a value, follow these steps:

Switch to Microsoft Excel and open the workbook (Workbook1) that you created earlier.

Start Visual Basic Editor (press OPTION+F11) and type the following code in the module:


      Function Return_Function_Value(x As Integer) As Integer

         Return_Function_Value = x * 2

      End Function

On the Application menu, click Hide Microsoft Excel.

Start Script Editor and type the following in a new script window:


      tell application "Microsoft Excel"
         Evaluate "Workbook1!Return_Function_Value(10)"
         set myvalue to result + 1
         display dialog myvalue
      end tell

On the File menu, click Save.

Select a destination folder, type a name for your script in the Save Script As box, and then click Save.

Click Run on the Controls menu.

An AppleScript dialog box displays the value 21.

Click OK.

Returning a Value from a Sub Procedure

To return a value from a Sub procedure, follow these steps:

Switch to Microsoft Excel and open the workbook (Workbook1) that you created earlier in this article.

Start the Visual Basic Editor and type the following code in the module:


      Sub Return_Sub_Value()

         Sheets("Sheet1").Cells(1, 1).Value = 1

      End Sub

On the Application menu, click Hide Microsoft Excel.

Start Script Editor, and type the following in a new script window:


      tell application "Microsoft Excel"
         Evaluate "Workbook1!Return_Sub_Value()"
         display dialog result as integer
      end tell

On the File menu, click Save.

Select a destination folder, type a name for your script in the Save Script As box, and then click Save.

On the Controls menu, click Run.

An AppleScript dialog box displays the value 0.

Click OK.

Error Trapping Values Returned from a Procedure

There are situations in which your Sub or Function procedure fails because of user intervention or a run-time error. This section discusses ways to communicate to the AppleScript script that an error has occurred in the Visual Basic procedure.

Error Trapping for a Sub Procedure

A Visual Basic Sub procedure cannot explicitly pass a value back to its AppleScript caller. However, a Sub procedure can store a value in a worksheet cell, or it can store a defined name in the workbook. Then, your AppleScritp script can check the current value of the cell or the defined name to see if an error has occurred. The following example uses a defined name to hold the status of any error in the Sub procedure:

Start Microsoft Excel and open the workbook (Workbook1) that you created earlier.

On the Insert menu, point to Name, and then click Define.

Type myerr in the Names in Workbook box.

Delete any text in the Refers To box, and then type ="ok" in the Refers To box. Click OK.

Start Visual Basic Editor and type the following code in the module:


       Sub Return_Sub_Error()

          Dim x as Integer

          ThisWorkbook.Names("myerr").RefersTo = "ok"

          On Error GoTo handle:

          x = MsgBox(Prompt:="Click Yes for an error, otherwise" &amp; _
             "Click no", Buttons:=vbYesNo)
          If x = vbYes Then
             Error 1004      ' Generates a run-time error.
          End If

          Exit Sub

          handle:
          ThisWorkbook.Names("myerr").RefersTo = Err

       End Sub

On the Application menu, click Hide Microsoft Excel.

Start Script Editor and type the following in a new script window:


       tell application "Microsoft Excel"
          Activate
          Evaluate "Workbook1!Return_Sub_Error()"
          if not(Evaluate "Workbook1!myerr") = "ok" then
             set myerr to Evaluate ("Workbook1!myerr")
             set myerr to myerr as integer
             display dialog "An error occurred in the macro: " & myerr
          else
             display dialog "No error."
          end if
       end tell

On the File menu, click Save.

Select a destination folder, type a name for your script in the Save Script As box, and then click Save.

On the Controls menu, click Run.

The script activates Microsoft Excel and displays a message box.

Click Yes.

This creates an error condition in the Sub procedure and changes the value of the defined name "myerr." Then, an AppleScript dialog box displays the following message:

"An error occurred in the macro: 1004."

Click OK.

NOTE: If you click No in step 10, the script displays a dialog box with the message "No error."

Error Trapping for a Function

Because a function can return a value to its caller, passing this information back to a script is much easier for a function than it is for a


Sub procedure.

To trap errors for a function, follow these steps:

Switch to Microsoft Excel and open the workbook (Workbook1) that you created earlier.

Start Visual Basic Editor and type the following code in the module:


      Function Return_Function_Error () As Integer

         Dim x As Integer

         On Error GoTo handle:

         x = MsgBox(Prompt:="Click Yes for an error, otherwise" & _
             "click No", Buttons:=vbYesNo)
         If x = vbYes Then
            Error 1004      ' Generates a run-time error.
         Else
            Return_Function_Error = 0
         End If

         Exit Function

         handle:
            Return_Function_Error = Err

      End Function

On the Application menu, click Hide Microsoft Excel.

Start Script Editor and type the following in a new script window:


      tell application "Microsoft Excel"
         Activate
         Evaluate "Workbook1!Return_Function_Error()"
         if not (result = 0) then
            set myerr to result as integer
            display dialog "An error occurred in the macro: " &amp; myerr
         else
            display dialog "No error"
         end if

      end tell

On the File menu, click Save.

Select a destination folder, type a name for your script in the Save Script As box, and then click Save.

On the Controls menu, click Run.

The script activates Microsoft Excel and displays a message box.

Click Yes.

This creates an error condition in the function, and the function value is set to the value of the error. Then, an AppleScript dialog box displays the following message:

"An error occurred in the macro: 1004."

Click OK.

NOTE: If you click No in step 7, the script displays a dialog box with the message "No error."

REFERENCES

For additional information about using AppleScript scripts with Excel 98, please see the following articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Q113891 MXL: Using AppleScript with Microsoft Excel

Q180613 XL98: AppleScript Error Selecting Range on Another Worksheet

Q177047 XL98: Recorded AppleScript Cannot Create Embedded Chart

Q176413 XL98: Error Message Running AppleScript That Clears Print Area

Q176412 XL98: Drawing Tools Not Recorded into AppleScript Script

Additional query words: XL98

Keywords : kb3rdparty kbprg kbdta kbdtacode xlvbahowto OffVBA PgmHowto
Version : MACINTOSH:98
Platform : MACINTOSH
Issue type : kbhowto