Special Edition Using Microsoft® Office XP

Controlling How VBA Applications Start

There are countless ways to run a macro. The most direct way, of course, is to choose from the pull-down menus. But there are far more productive ways to automate work processes, especially when you're creating a document, workbook, or presentation that you want to pass along to other users.

You can create a macro that runs automatically every time a user opens a specific Word document or Excel workbook, for example. Excel keeps track of 20 workbook-related events (Before Print, Before Save, when a Sheet is Activated), and you can write macros that run when any of those events "fire." Use these Auto macros to ask the user for initial information for a report, or to update a worksheet with up-to-the-minute ...