Selecting non-blank cells in Excel with VBA - vba

Question

I'm just beginning to dive into VBA and I've hit a bit of a roadblock.
I have a sheet with 50+ columns, 900+ rows of data. I need to reformat about 10 of those columns and stick them in a new workbook.
How do I programmatically select every non-blank cell in a column of book1, run it through some functions, and drop the results in book2?

Answer 1

I know I'm am very late on this, but here some usefull samples:
'select the used cells in column 3 of worksheet wks
wks.columns(3).SpecialCells(xlCellTypeConstants).Select
or
'change all formulas in col 3 to values
with sheet1.columns(3).SpecialCells(xlCellTypeFormulas)
.value = .value
end with
To find the last used row in column, never rely on LastCell, which is unreliable (it is not reset after deleting data). Instead, I use someting like
lngLast = cells(rows.count,3).end(xlUp).row

Answer 2

The following VBA code should get you started. It will copy all of the data in the original workbook to a new workbook, but it will have added 1 to each value, and all blank cells will have been ignored.
Option Explicit
Public Sub exportDataToNewBook()
Dim rowIndex As Integer
Dim colIndex As Integer
Dim dataRange As Range
Dim thisBook As Workbook
Dim newBook As Workbook
Dim newRow As Integer
Dim temp
'// set your data range here
Set dataRange = Sheet1.Range("A1:B100")
'// create a new workbook
Set newBook = Excel.Workbooks.Add
'// loop through the data in book1, one column at a time
For colIndex = 1 To dataRange.Columns.Count
newRow = 0
For rowIndex = 1 To dataRange.Rows.Count
With dataRange.Cells(rowIndex, colIndex)
'// ignore empty cells
If .value <> "" Then
newRow = newRow + 1
temp = doSomethingWith(.value)
newBook.ActiveSheet.Cells(newRow, colIndex).value = temp
End If
End With
Next rowIndex
Next colIndex
End Sub
Private Function doSomethingWith(aValue)
'// This is where you would compute a different value
'// for use in the new workbook
'// In this example, I simply add one to it.
aValue = aValue + 1
doSomethingWith = aValue
End Function

Answer 3

If you are looking for the last row of a column, use:
Sub SelectFirstColumn()
SelectEntireColumn (1)
End Sub
Sub SelectSecondColumn()
SelectEntireColumn (2)
End Sub
Sub SelectEntireColumn(columnNumber)
Dim LastRow
Sheets("sheet1").Select
LastRow = ActiveSheet.Columns(columnNumber).SpecialCells(xlLastCell).Row
ActiveSheet.Range(Cells(1, columnNumber), Cells(LastRow, columnNumber)).Select
End Sub
Other commands you will need to get familiar with are copy and paste commands:
Sub CopyOneToTwo()
SelectEntireColumn (1)
Selection.Copy
Sheets("sheet1").Select
ActiveSheet.Range("B1").PasteSpecial Paste:=xlPasteValues
End Sub
Finally, you can reference worksheets in other workbooks by using the following syntax:
Dim book2
Set book2 = Workbooks.Open("C:\book2.xls")
book2.Worksheets("sheet1")

Answer 4

For me the best way to proceed was to:
Create a new Excel Table
AutoFilter it by the parameter Criterial:="<>"
An example of the code would be:
Sub ExampleFilterCol()
' Create a Table
Dim ws As Worksheet
Dim rg As Range
Set ws = ActiveSheet
Set rg = ws.Range("A1").CurrentRegion
ws.ListObjects.Add(xlSrcRange, rg, , xlYes).Name = "myNonRepeatedTableName"
' Filter the created table
Dim Io As ListObject
Dim iCol As Long
' Set reference to the first Table on the sheet
' That should be the recently created one
Set lo = Sheets("Totalinfo").ListObjects(1)
' Set filter field
iCol = lo.ListColumns("yourColumnNameToFilter").Index
' Non-blank cells – use NOT operator <>
lo.Range.AutoFilter Field:=iCol, Criteria1:="<>"
End Sub

Answer 5

This might be completely off base, but can't you just copy the whole column into a new spreadsheet and then sort the column? I'm assuming that you don't need to maintain the order integrity.