Copying range to new workbook - vba

Question

I have come across some code to copy a range to a new workbook, but I'm not sure why it works.
Worksheets("Short Form").Copy
Set wb = ActiveWorkbook
How does this copy the worksheet 'Short Form' to a new workbook when all that the code says is assign the active workbook to the reference 'wb'? It doesn't even employ the .add method. Right now I want to paste values only to this new workbook, but not quite sure how to do so because I don't understand this block of code.

Answer 1

Try this - as the following manual steps are the same as your code snippet:
1.Open a blank workbook
2.Press record macro
3.Right click the Sheet1 workbook tab
4.Select "Move or Copy"
5.In the "To book" combo select (new book)
6.Check the "Create a copy" box so that the window now looks like this:
7.Stop the recorder
8.Go and find your recorded code ...and voila....mine looks like this
Option Explicit
Sub Macro1()
'
' Macro1 Macro
'
'
Sheets("Sheet1").Select
Sheets("Sheet1").Copy
End Sub
Your code is the same as what these manual steps describe.
You must have a line Dim wb as workbook somewhere or it would not run.
This line Set wb = ActiveWorkbook will then make the object wb equal to the new workbook that you have copied into, as it is active, so you can do further operations on it. You can easily switch the workbook that wb is pointed at:
Sub Macro1()
Dim wb As Workbook
ThisWorkbook.Sheets("Sheet1").Copy
Set wb = ActiveWorkbook
MsgBox wb.Name
ThisWorkbook.Activate
Set wb = ActiveWorkbook
MsgBox wb.Name
End Sub
BUT
In my production code I generally never use Set x To ActiveWorkbook I always name the workbook and then use Set x To Workbooks("DefiniteName")
WITHOUT USING CLIPBOARD
If you want to avoid using the clip board then the following example shows how to move values-only data without using paste:
Sub WithoutPastespecial()
Dim firstRange As Range
Set firstRange = ThisWorkbook.Worksheets("Short Form").Range("S4:S2000") 'can change S4:S2000 to the range you want to copy
Dim newBk As Workbook
Dim secondRange As Range
Set newBk = Workbooks.Add
Set secondRange = newBk.Worksheets("Sheet1").Range("A1")
With firstRange
Set secondRange = secondRange.Resize(.Rows.Count, .Columns.Count)
End With
secondRange.Value = firstRange.Value
End Sub

Answer 2

Note this is not copying a Range rather the entire worskheet :)
If you use the method:
Worksheets("Short Form").Cells.Copy
Then you will copy only the cells, not the entire worksheet, and this method will NOT create a new workbook. You can tell it to add a workbook when necessary.
Here is an example:
Option Explicit
Sub CopyNew()
Dim wbNew As Workbook
Dim wb As Workbook
Set wb = ThisWorkbook 'It is a good idea to explicitly control workbooks using either a defined variable like "wb" or the "ThisWorkbook" object, instead of using "ActiveWorkbook" or referring to files by name.
Application.CutCopyMode = False
wb.Sheets("Short Form").Cells.Copy
'Add a new workbook for the values:
Set wbNew = Workbooks.Add
wbNew.Sheets(1).Cells.PasteSpecial Paste:=xlPasteValues, Operation:=xlNone, SkipBlanks _
:=False, Transpose:=False
End Sub