So, I've been banging my head against this one for a few days now, and figured it couldn't hurt to see if someone else has a solution.
I'm programming a macro in VBA for PowerPoint. Amongst other things, it needs to copy and paste multiple shapes (approximately 40 every time it's run). However, it randomly stops with an error:
This happens at random points during execution, not at the same point every time; sometimes it will instead paste the previous shape, causing other issues; and sometimes it will fully execute with no problems. I have tried numerous suggested fixes that I've found here and on other sites, and nothing seems to be working.
Right now, this is the relevant bit of code:
ClearClipboard
newPriorityShape.Copy
DoEvents
Set pastedShp = curSlide.Shapes.PasteSpecial(ppPasteDefault)
ClearClipboard
And for ClearClipboard I have:
Private Declare PtrSafe Function OpenClipboard Lib "user32" (ByVal hwnd As Long) As Long
Private Declare PtrSafe Function EmptyClipboard Lib "user32" () As Long
Private Declare PtrSafe Function CloseClipboard Lib "user32" () As Long
Public Function ClearClipboard()
OpenClipboard (0&)
EmptyClipboard
CloseClipboard
End Function
If anyone has any other suggestions, I'd be most grateful.
A little bit too late but I ran into the same issue recently. The implementation of the clipboard history on Windows conflicts with this, so in order to avoid those random errors you need to disable it.
Since I just found out about Excel Macros, I want to try to simulate moving objects. I would like to run some looped code every 'frame' of my project. I can make an infinite loop in Excel VBA with this code:
Do While True:
'code
Loop
However, this crashes Excel. Is there a way to make an infinite loop that runs every ten milliseconds or so, something like this:
Dim timer as Timer
If timer = 10 Then
'code
timer = 0
End If
EDIT: Your answers are very good, but not exactly what I'm looking for. I want to be able to run other code at the same time; a bit like Javascript's
setInterval(function(){}, 200);
which can run multiple functions simultaneously.
You can use an API call and Sleep.
Put this at the top of your module:
Declare Sub Sleep Lib "kernel32" (ByVal dwMilliseconds As Long)
Then you can call it in a procedure like this:
Do While True:
Sleep 10 'wait 0.01 seconds
Loop
If the code is in 64bit OS, you will need to use PtrSafe. See https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/983043/compile-error-the-code-in-this-project-must-be-updated-for-use-on-64
Your original method is crashing Excel because it is creating an infinite loop with no exit condition.
The second method doesn't work because your system clock time (given by Timer) will never be 10, if you use debug.Print(Timer) in your Immediate Window you will see its value.
Here is some commented code to execute some actions based on a timer. Please please PLEASE make sure you retain the runtime condition for exiting the while loop, infinite loops are the devil and really you should have some other exit code in here somewhere!
Sub timeloop()
Dim start As Double: start = Timer ' Use Timer to get current time
Dim t As Double: t = start ' Set current time "t" equal to start
Dim interval As Double: interval = 1 ' Interval for loop update (seconds)
Dim nIntervals As Long: nIntervals = 0 ' Number of intervals passed
' Use this While loop to avoid an infinite duration! Only runs for "runtime" seconds
Dim runtime As Double: runtime = 10
Do While t < start + runtime
' Check if a full interval has passed
If (t - start) / interval > nIntervals Then
nIntervals = nIntervals + 1
' Do stuff here ---
Debug.Print (t)
' -----------------
End If
t = Timer ' Update current time
Loop
End Sub
VBA - 7.1. PowerPoint 2013
I am trying to achieve a small animation for an image on a slide (hide - wait half a sec - show).
I had noticed earlier that MsgBox usually pops up before the previous line of code gets completely executed. While it was annoying, I did't bother about it much. However, same behavior with Sleep is making my approach falls apart. I don't know how the system process management (or threads or whatever) is done internally by PowerPoint but it seems to have some problem.
I have tried following so far
1:
Public Declare PtrSafe Sub Sleep Lib "kernel32" (ByVal dwMilliseconds As LongPtr)
Sub SleepTest()
ActivePresentation.Slides("Slide 1").Shapes("Worker").Visible = 0
Sleep 5000 'delay in milliseconds
ActivePresentation.Slides("Slide 1").Shapes("Worker").Visible = 1
End Sub
Resut:-> Nothing happens. Before visibility is set to 0, sleep kicks in, wait for 5 seconds, image hides and shows within a millisec (so you cant see it happened)
2:
Public Declare PtrSafe Sub Sleep Lib "kernel32" (ByVal dwMilliseconds As LongPtr)
Sub SleepTest()
ActivePresentation.Slides("Slide 1").Shapes("Worker").Visible = 0
MsgBox("temptemptemp")
Sleep 5000 'delay in milliseconds
ActivePresentation.Slides("Slide 1").Shapes("Worker").Visible = 1
End Sub
Result: -> MsgBox pops up immediately, after few seconds while msgbox is shown, the image hides, click ok, application waits for 5 secs, image is shown back.
3:
I tried putting hiding and showing steps in two different subs and tried calling second sub after the sleep. It also showed the same behavior as the first attempt.
Can anyone provide some explanation for this behavior? Or suggest any other way to achieve what I am trying for.
how do I get out the time my VBA script takes to execute?
I know from PHP that there is something like microtime() which is called once before the script and once after in order to be able to calculate the difference from this values...
Is there an VBA equivalent?
It's a sample code that I used in one of my VBA projects to measure the performance of my script temporarily.
Also you can find ample of resources to optimize your script's performance
Public Sub generate(ByRef generators() As Generator)
Dim startTime As Double
OptimizePerformance doc
'/////////////////below is the line that matters
startTime = Timer
'////////// your code that is to be measured (in time) here //////////
MsgBox Format(Timer - startTime, "00.00") & " seconds"
removeOptimization doc
End Sub
There's a function called Timer() that returns time in seconds since midnight. Includes milliseconds. I don't know of a micro-second resolution timer in VBA.
An article on About.com suggests that it's possible to write your own microtimer by making Win32 API calls directly from VBA.
In case you need more accurate timing information, I would recommend using one of the following functions the get the start and end times
#If Win64 Then
Private Declare PtrSafe Function GetTickCount Lib "kernel32" () As LongLong
Private Declare PtrSafe Function timeGetTime Lib "winmm.dll" () As LongLong
#Else
Private Declare Function GetTickCount Lib "kernel32" () As Long
Private Declare Function timeGetTime Lib "winmm.dll" () As Long
#End If
They should return more precise information, depending on systems. Personally, on Win7 64bit / Office 2010/2013 32bit environments I prefer timeGetTime
Note that the absolute values of timeGetTime are not recommended to be used, but the DIFFERENCE (e.g. endTime-startTime) is a quite accurate value in miliseconds
Is there an equivalent to Thread.Sleep() in Access VBA?
Declare Sub Sleep Lib "kernel32" Alias "Sleep" _
(ByVal dwMilliseconds As Long)
Use the following syntax to call the Sleep function:
Sub Sleep()
Sleep 1000 'Implements a 1 second delay
End Sub
Another way without using kernel32:
Dim started As Single: started = Timer
Do: DoEvents: Loop Until Timer - started >= 1
All of the rest of the methods to make Excel wait result in Excel becoming completely unresponsive. The solution to make Excel wait while ensuring a responsive UI is to call this wait Sub with the number of seconds to wait.
Sub Wait(seconds As Integer)
Dim now As Long
now = Timer()
Do
DoEvents
Loop While (Timer < now + seconds)
End Sub
A couple of amendments are required to get the code to work.
The code below is the corrected version.
Declare Sub Sleep Lib "kernel32" Alias "Sleep" (ByVal dwMilliseconds As Long)
Sub SleepVBA()
Sleep 1000 'Implements a 1 second delay
End Sub
I use this in Excel and it works great:
Application.Wait DateAdd("s", 1, Now())
DateAdd() is a function that set a time, relative to Now() (in this case - you can use other values as your argument), "s" is the time measure (seconds in this case), and the increment is 1. So here, the function call is telling the application to wait 1 second.
See also for more detail about the use of the DateAdd function.
If you use Declare Sub Sleep Lib "kernel32" (ByVal dwMilliseconds As Long), you may get this error in an object module.
If so, you can declare it as private:
Private Declare Sub Sleep Lib "kernel32" (ByVal dwMilliseconds As Long)
It is possible to use the Excel Wait() procedure from Access VBA.
The first step is to ensure that the Excel library is referenced from your project.
When that's done the following code will work to wait for ten seconds :
Call Excel.Application.Wait(Time:=DateAdd("s",10,Now()))
Cross-Platform Solution
The accepted answer will not work in 64-bit VBA. Also, it won't work on Mac.
Thanks #Cristian Buse for pointing out Mac compatibility in your comment!
Achieving full Mac compatibility requires importing the platform-dependent library function for suspending thread execution, that is usleep on Mac and Sleep on Windows. Because usleep takes it's argument in microseconds and Sleep uses milliseconds, it is necessary to declare a custom Sub that deals with the conversion.
Importing the library functions and declaring the Sub can be done as presented in the following.
This solution emerged from a collaboration of myself and Cristian Buse on an adaption of his original solution, to avoid integer overflow and to allow Sleep times of more than &HFFFFFFFF microseconds (~71 minutes) on Mac:
#If Mac Then
#If VBA7 Then
Private Declare PtrSafe Sub USleep Lib "/usr/lib/libc.dylib" Alias "usleep" (ByVal dwMicroseconds As Long)
#Else
Private Declare Sub USleep Lib "/usr/lib/libc.dylib" Alias "usleep" (ByVal dwMicroseconds As Long)
#End If
#Else 'Windows
#If VBA7 Then
Public Declare PtrSafe Sub Sleep Lib "kernel32" (ByVal dwMilliseconds As Long)
#Else
Public Declare Sub Sleep Lib "kernel32" (ByVal dwMilliseconds As Long)
#End If
#End If
#If Mac Then
'Sub providing a Sleep API consistent with Windows on Mac (argument in ms)
'Authors: Cristian Buse, https://stackoverflow.com/a/71176040/12287457
' Guido Witt-Dörring, https://stackoverflow.com/a/74262120/12287457
Public Sub Sleep(ByVal dwMilliseconds As Long)
Do While dwMilliseconds And &H80000000
USleep &HFFFFFED8
If dwMilliseconds < (&H418937 Or &H80000000) Then
dwMilliseconds = &H7FBE76C9 + (dwMilliseconds - &H80000000)
Else
dwMilliseconds = dwMilliseconds - &H418937
End If
Loop
Do While dwMilliseconds > &H418937
USleep &HFFFFFED8: dwMilliseconds = dwMilliseconds - &H418937
Loop
If dwMilliseconds > &H20C49B Then
USleep (dwMilliseconds * 500& Or &H80000000) * 2&
Else
USleep dwMilliseconds * 1000&
End If
End Sub
#End If
Now Sleep will be available on both, Windows and Mac and in 32- as well as 64-bit environments.
It can be called like this:
Sub ExampleSleepCall()
Sleep 1000 'Suspends thread execution for 1 second
'Calling application will freeze completely for that amount of time!
'If this is undesired, look here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/74387976/12287457
End Sub
Note that:
While Sleep does take its argument in milliseconds, its resolution is not actually 1 millisecond.
If you want to use Sleep inside of a class module and you don't want to declare the sub in an additional standard module, you can use the above code but you have to replace all occurrences of Public with Private, because it's impossible to import API functions as Public inside a class module.
On Mac, the maximum usleep duration is limited by MAX_UINT = &HFFFFFFFF microseconds or about 4294.97 seconds (~71 minutes). This is why the custom Sleep sub for Mac will call usleep multiple times for input values dwMilliseconds > &H418937, to avoid integer overflow issues.
On Windows (and on Mac with the custom Sleep sub), the maximum Sleep duration is limited by MAX_UINT milliseconds, about 4294967.3 seconds. (~49.71 days)
On both Windows and Mac, calling Sleep with millisecond values greater than MAX_LONG = &H7FFFFFFF (= 2147483647) requires passing it negative VBA Long values, with the maximum Sleep duration achieved by calling it like this: Sleep -1 (=Sleep &HFFFFFFFF)
Note that this way of pausing the execution has severe drawbacks in VBA!
Most importantly, all Microsoft Office applications run VBA code in the same thread as the main user interface. This means, calling Sleep essentially freezes the entire application (It will show as "not responding" in Task-Manager!). There is no way of recovering from this state without waiting for the time to pass or force quitting the Application and restarting it. Excels Application.Wait suffers from the same issue. While the app will not show as not responding in Task Manager in this case, it will be just as unresponsive to the user.
A way to circumvent this problem is calling DoEvents in a loop, as other people have already pointed out. However, this comes with another issue. Because the application will try to execute VBA code as fast as possible, DoEvents is called at the maximum achievable rate essentially saturating the CPU completely on that single thread, leading to high, unnecessary CPU and power usage and potentially slowing down other more important tasks in the UI.
To learn about the best way to pause VBA execution, look at this answer.
Adding
Declare Sub Sleep Lib "kernel32" Alias "Sleep" (ByVal dwMilliseconds As Long)
somehow created additional problems somewhere else in my code.
I ended up using this function that I found on an other forum and tweeked a bit:
Function WaitTime(n As Double)
'Function that wait an amount of time n in seconds
TWait = Time
TWait = DateAdd("s", n, TWait)
Do Until TNow >= TWait
TNow = Time
Loop
End Function
hope this helps :)
If the code is executing in a Form, you can use the built-in Timer of the Form.
Start the timer of the Form with
TimerInterval = 1000 ' Delay in ms
Declare an event handler:
Private Sub Form_Timer()
TimerInterval = 0 ' Stop the timer if don't want to repeat the event each second
' Execute your code here
End Sub