Code to automatically save data from Excel sheet to CSV file - vba

Question

Does there exist a code to for example save every hour the data from A1:B10 in sheet1 to a CSV file ?

Answer 1

Although this can be done in many different ways, this is what I'd do:
1) Add the following sub to a new file. Let's call it "auto.xlsb"
Sub SaveRangeToCSV()
Dim rng As Range
Dim originWB As Workbook
Dim originWS As Worksheet
Dim newBook As Workbook
Dim newBookWS As Worksheet
'Open the file you want to copy the range from
Set originWB = Workbooks.Open("path_to_file_that_contains_the_range_you_want_to_copy.xlsx")
Set originWS = ThisWorkbook.Sheets("name_of_the_sheet_where_the_range_is")
Set rng = originWS.Range("A1:B10")
'Add new workbook (csv file)
Workbooks.Add
Set newBook = ActiveWorkbook
Set newBookWS = newBook.Sheets(1)
'Copy range from origin to destination (csv file)
rng.Copy Destination:=newBookWS.Range("A1")
'Save csv file
newBook.SaveAs Filename:=ThisWorkbook.Path & "\output.csv"
End Sub
If you want to avoid the output.csv to be overwritten every 10 minutes, you could, for example, add current datetime to the filename like this:
'Save csv file
newBook.SaveAs Filename:=ThisWorkbook.Path & "\output_" & Replace(Replace(Replace(Now, "/", ""), ":", ""), " ", "") & ".csv"
2) Add this code to Workbook_Open Sub (click ThisWorkbook sheet in VBA IDE, and select Workbook and Open from the dropdown) in auto.xlsb, and Save:
Private Sub Workbook_Open()
Call Module1.SaveRangeToCSV
End Sub
Every time you doble-click to open the file, SaveRangeToCSV will be triggered and, hence, the csv created.
3) Automating the execution of this file really depends on your preferences and the Operating System you are working on. I'm assuming your are on Windows, so the easiest way to do it would be creating a task in Windows' Task Scheduler which runs "auto.xlsb" every 10 minutes.
I hope this helps.