Check if cell was empty Excel VBA - vba

I am writing an Excel Macro to display a warning if the user edits a cell that was previously empty. Basically if a cell is edited, is in column 1, and already contains text I want to display a warning But if it does not have text already, I do not want to.
So what I have tried is the following
Private Sub Worksheet_Change(ByVal Target As Range)
If Target.Column = 1 And Not IsEmpty(Cells(Target.Row,Target.Column)) Then
Application.EnableEvents = False
MsgBox "Some Message"
Application.EnableEvents = True
End If
End Sub
The issue I am having is when I am getting the cell to see if it was empty or not, it will never return that it was because, well the user just added stuff to it.
So I want to know if there is a simple way to check the previous state of that cell. I want to find out if the cell WAS empty. Is this possible?

You could use the Worksheet_SelectionChange event to capture the value of the cell that the user has selected in a variable, which happens before they make any changes.
Then when Worksheet_Change is fired, you can refer to that variable.

Related

ByVal with a range in which formulas are used.

Private Sub Worksheet_Change(ByVal Target As Range)
'Hvis du på noget tidspunkt tilføjer flere rows, så sig til.
Application.EnableEvents = False
If Not Intersect(Range("B27:B33"), Target) Is Nothing Then
Target.Offset(, 1).Formula = "=UDF_Now()"
End If
Application.EnableEvents = True
End Sub
I am using the following VBA code to execute my user defined function whenever a cell value in the Range("B27:B33") changes.
This works fine, as long as I am changing the cell values in the range manually. The issue is now that I want this macro to work for a given range that is made up by formulas. Whenever I change any of the precedents, a cell value of the range changes, but my macro does not execute.
I want this to work with formulas, so that the macro gets executed whenever I change a precedent and thus change the values of the cells within the range.
I hope this is useful explanation.
The Change Event code doesn't get triggered when the cell content is changed due to a formula.
If you want to trigger a event when the value is being changed by a formula, you may consider Worksheet_Calculate also along with change event code if that is also required.

Run macro when linked cell changes value (Excel VBA)

I am currently trying to obtain historical information about how the backlog is developing.
My Excel file is based on queries from an Access Database which can give me a view of the current situation.
I would like to automatically run a macro every time the week number changes. I am currently using the following code:
Private Sub Worksheet_Change(ByVal Target As Range)
If Not Intersect(Target, Target.Worksheet.Range("D3")) Is Nothing Then
Call KPIupdate
End If
End Sub
The macro that should fire is called KPIupdate
My problem is that the Macro only fires if I click the cell. I would like it to just fire when the number changes. The cell "D3" is linked to another cell with the formula =Weeknum(Today();21)
I hope you can help me
According to the MSDN entry for Worksheet_Change:
This event does not occur when cells change during a recalculation. Use the Calculate event to trap a sheet recalculation.
To use Worksheet_Calculate to trap the change in a cell that is set by a formula looking at another cell, you need to set a variable to hold the value of the 'Target' and then check if it has changed after the Calculate event fires.
Here is a simple example:
Option Explicit
Private strCurrentWeek As String
Private Sub Worksheet_Calculate()
If Me.Range("A1").Value <> strCurrentWeek Then
'the linked cell changed
Debug.Print "Sheet1!A1 was changed"
'call another macro
End If
'update the new current week
strCurrentWeek = Me.Range("A1").Value
End Sub
To test this, just set the formula in A1 to be =B1 and then change the value of B1 and check the output in the Immediate window.
You can adapt this code to call KPIupdate where my Debug.Print... statement is.

VBA Excel Custom Userform with Checkboxes, wont work in macro code

I need a little VBA help. I created a custom user form with options yes, n/a, no and a commandbutton to enter. Now i wanted to add the logic, it should filter only the shown rows. It always returns error on my first if line (if checkbox1.enabled ). I already tried if checkbox1.value Is True, but it still wont work. Any ideas? Thanks!
Private Sub CommandButton1_Click()
Dim runner As Variant, row As Variant
row = 9
If CheckBox1.Enabled Is True Then
For Each runner In row
If Not runner.Hidden Then
If cell(row, 10).Value Is Empty Then
runner.Hide
End If
End If
Next runner
End If
End Sub
To fix the issue in your first If, you need to change it to
If CheckBox1.Enabled = True Then
This is the correct syntax to check if a value is True in VBA. The following is also an acceptable syntax:
If CheckBox1.Enabled Then
If nothing is provided in such validation, VBA will check if the value is True by default. Similarly, to check if value is False you can do:
If CheckBox1.Enabled = False Then
Or also
If Not CheckBox1.Enabled Then
Once you fix the current issue, you will find another problem in the following line:
If cell(row, 10).Value Is Empty Then
To check if a cell is Empty, the correct syntax would be
If IsEmpty(Cells(row, 10).Value) Then
Please note that I'm using Cells and not cell. Plus, this will check for the global reference of a cell, which in turn looks for the cell in the active worksheet. Supposing you want to check for the cell in Sheet1, but user activates Sheet2 while using your UserForm, the cell in Sheet2 will be checked instead. To avoid this, is advisable that you make a proper reference to the cell, like the following:
If IsEmpty(ThisWorkbook.Worksheets("YourSheetName").Cells(row, 10).Value) Then
There are also some problems in your For loop, if your code is exactly as you posted. It will probably not work, but I'd need a better understanding on what is going on there in order to assist you.
I hope this helps.

How do i insert a new blank cell before current cell that has just been populated

I have a two (very long) TO-DO lists- one going across and the other going down.
What i want to achieve is for a blank cell to appear at the start of the list instead of having to scroll to the end of the lists to enter a new item.
So then when i have entered an item in a cell and hit enter, i want the cell just populated to move down the list (or across if i hit tab) and a new empty cell to appear at the start of the list.
It would be useful for the new blank cell to be pre-populated with the current date but that is not essential.
Thanks for your help.
NOT FOR POINTS.
Piggy-backing on Gary's answer, the mistake is that you set A to Range("C4:C6"). What happens is, when you enter data into any of C4, C5, and C6, they are all moved to the right because of A.Insert, which refers to all the cells assigned to A.
The trick here is to fully qualify your requirements for Target. Let's say you have a table from B1:E3, like below:
Now, let's say you want to move row 1 if you enter something into A1, row 2 if A2, etc. The following macro should do it (notice the difference with Gary's macro):
Private Sub Worksheet_Change(ByVal Target As Range)
Dim QualifyingRange As Range
'Dim OrigRng As String
Set QualifyingRange = Range("A1:A3")
If Intersect(Target, QualifyingRange) Is Nothing Then Exit Sub
Application.EnableEvents = False
'OrigRng = Target.Address
Target.Insert Shift:=xlToRight, CopyOrigin:=xlFormatFromLeftOrAbove
'Range(OrigRng).Value = Date
Application.EnableEvents = True
End Sub
What is the difference in the above? Very simple but very important. When a Worksheet_Change is in a sheet's code, every time you do a valid change to the sheet, the macro fires. The range you just edited will be known to the macro as Target. Now, usually, if you don't declare what the qualifications for Target are, the Worksheet_Change macro just fires indiscriminately. How do we qualify Target properly then?
We use Intersect. First, we declare a range of cells that we want to track. These cells, when changed, should fire the macro. Otherwise, macro is kaput. This line: If Intersect(Target, QualifyingRange) Is Nothing Then Exit Sub basically reads: If Target is not inside my desired range, then nothing happens.
This is the reason why I declared A1:A3 as my QualifyingRange. This way, if my change is to any of the cells above, the macro will fire. HOWEVER, .Insert should not be applied to the whole range but to Target alone. This is because if we do QualifyingRange.Insert, every time a change is detected in any cells in A1:A3, all three rows will move. This is what happened when you set A to three cells and kept A.Insert.
Hopefully, this clears up the confusion. Let us know if this helps.
Here is a partial solution. The following event macro monitors entry to cell A1 . Once you have entered a value in A1, the macro "pushed" the values in column A down by one. This means that value you just entered has been pushed down to A2 and A1 is empty:
Private Sub Worksheet_Change(ByVal Target As Range)
Dim A As Range
Set A = Range("A1")
If Intersect(A, Target) Is Nothing Then Exit Sub
Application.EnableEvents = False
A.Insert Shift:=xlDown, CopyOrigin:=xlFormatFromLeftOrAbove
Application.EnableEvents = True
End Sub
Because it is worksheet code, it is very easy to install and automatic to use:
right-click the tab name near the bottom of the Excel window
select View Code - this brings up a VBE window
paste the stuff in and close the VBE window
If you have any concerns, first try it on a trial worksheet.
If you save the workbook, the macro will be saved with it.
If you are using a version of Excel later then 2003, you must save
the file as .xlsm rather than .xlsx
To remove the macro:
bring up the VBE windows as above
clear the code out
close the VBE window
To learn more about macros in general, see:
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/getstarted.htm
and
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee814735(v=office.14).aspx
To learn more about Event Macros (worksheet code), see:
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/event.htm
Macros must be enabled for this to work!
EDIT#1
To push across rather than down:
Private Sub Worksheet_Change(ByVal Target As Range)
Dim A As Range
Set A = Range("A1")
If Intersect(A, Target) Is Nothing Then Exit Sub
Application.EnableEvents = False
A.Insert Shift:=xlToRight, CopyOrigin:=xlFormatFromLeftOrAbove
Application.EnableEvents = True
End Sub
To handle multiple cells, you must specify which cells get pushed across and which cells get pushed down.

OnClick in Excel VBA

Is there a way to catch a click on a cell in VBA with Excel? I am not referring to the Worksheet_SelectionChange event, as that will not trigger multiple times if the cell is clicked multiple times. BeforeDoubleClick does not solve my problem either, as I do not want to require the user to double click that frequently.
My current solution does work with the SelectionChange event, but it appears to require the use of global variables and other suboptimal coding practices. It also seems prone to error.
Clearly, there is no perfect answer. However, if you want to allow the user to
select certain cells
allow them to change those cells,
and
trap each click,even repeated clicks
on the same cell,
then the easiest way seems to be to move the focus off the selected cell, so that clicking it will trigger a Select event.
One option is to move the focus as I suggested above, but this prevents cell editing. Another option is to extend the selection by one cell (left/right/up/down),because this permits editing of the original cell, but will trigger a Select event if that cell is clicked again on its own.
If you only wanted to trap selection of a single column of cells, you could insert a hidden column to the right, extend the selection to include the hidden cell to the right when the user clicked,and this gives you an editable cell which can be trapped every time it is clicked. The code is as follows
Private Sub Worksheet_SelectionChange(ByVal Target As Range)
'prevent Select event triggering again when we extend the selection below
Application.EnableEvents = False
Target.Resize(1, 2).Select
Application.EnableEvents = True
End Sub
In order to trap repeated clicks on the same cell, you need to move the focus to a different cell, so that each time you click, you are in fact moving the selection.
The code below will select the top left cell visible on the screen, when you click on any cell. Obviously, it has the flaw that it won't trap a click on the top left cell, but that can be managed (eg by selecting the top right cell if the activecell is the top left).
Private Sub Worksheet_SelectionChange(ByVal Target As Range)
'put your code here to process the selection, then..
ActiveWindow.VisibleRange.Cells(1, 1).Select
End Sub
SelectionChange is the event built into the Excel Object model for this. It should do exactly as you want, firing any time the user clicks anywhere...
I'm not sure that I understand your objections to global variables here, you would only need 1 if you use the Application.SelectionChange event. However, you wouldn't need any if you utilize the Workbook class code behind (to trap the Workbook.SelectionChange event) or the Worksheet class code behind (to trap the Worksheet.SelectionChange) event. (Unless your issue is the "global variable reset" problem in VBA, for which there is only one solution: error handling everywhere. Do not allow any unhandled errors, instead log them and/or "soft-report" an error as a message box to the user.)
You might also need to trap the Worksheet.Activate() and Worksheet.Deactivate() events (or the equivalent in the Workbook class) and/or the Workbook.Activate and Workbook.Deactivate() events so that you know when the user has switched worksheets and/or workbooks. The Window activate and deactivate events should make this approach complete. They could all call the same exact procedure, however, they all denote the same thing: the user changed the "focus", if you will.
If you don't like VBA, btw, you can do the same using VB.NET or C#.
[Edit: Dbb makes a very good point about the SelectionChange event not picking up a click when the user clicks within the currently selected cell. If you need to pick that up, then you would need to use subclassing.]
I don't think so. But you can create a shape object ( or wordart or something similiar ) hook Click event and place the object to position of the specified cell.
This has worked for me.....
Private Sub Worksheet_Change(ByVal Target As Range)
If Mid(Target.Address, 3, 1) = "$" And Mid(Target.Address, 2, 1) < "E" Then
' The logic in the if condition will filter for a specific cell or block of cells
Application.ScreenUpdating = False
'MsgBox "You just changed " & Target.Address
'all conditions are true .... DO THE FUNCTION NEEDED
Application.ScreenUpdating = True
End If
' if clicked cell is not in the range then do nothing (if condttion is not run)
End Sub
NOTE: this function in actual use recalculated a pivot table if a user added a item in a data range of A4 to D500. The there were protected and unprotected sections in the sheet so the actual check for the click is if the column is less that "E" The logic can get as complex as you want to include or exclude any number of areas
block1 = row > 3 and row < 5 and column column >"b" and < "d"
block2 = row > 7 and row < 12 and column column >"b" and < "d"
block3 = row > 10 and row < 15 and column column >"e" and < "g"
If block1 or block2 or block 3 then
do function .....
end if
I had a similar issue, and I fixed by running the macro "onTime", and by using some global variables to only run once the user has stopped clicking.
Public macroIsOnQueue As Boolean
Private Sub Worksheet_SelectionChange(ByVal Target As Range)
macroIsOnQueue = False
Application.OnTime (Now() + TimeValue("00:00:02")), "addBordersOnRow"
macroIsOnQueue = True
End sub
Sub addBordersOnRow()
If macroIsOnQueue Then
macroIsOnQueue = False
' add code here
End if
End sub
This way, whenever the user changes selection within 2 seconds, the macroIsOnQueue variable is set to false, but the last time selection is changed, macroIsOnQueue is set to true, and the macro will run.
Hope this helps,
Have fun with VBA !!
Just a follow-up to dbb's accepted answer: Rather than adding the immediate cell on the right to the selection, why not select a cell way off the working range (i.e. a dummy cell that you know the user will never need). In the following code cell ZZ1 is the dummy cell
Private Sub Worksheet_SelectionChange(ByVal Target As Range)
Application.EnableEvents = False
Union(Target, Me.Range("ZZ1")).Select
Application.EnableEvents = True
' Respond to click/selection-change here
End Sub