How to Record Macros in Excel
Excel macros can be used to automate complex repetative tasks. Using the macro function, you can record a series of actions or other commonly used commands and play the macro multiple times whenever you want to perform these actions. The instructions provided in this blog post will work with all versions of Microsoft Excel after Excel 97. If you are using some other spreadsheet software such as OpenOffice, etc. the procedure may be slightly different but similar.
#1: Open Excel, click on “Tools” >>> “Macro” >>> “Record New Macro”. A box will open up.
#2: Fill the details of the macro. You have to fill “Macro name”, “Shortcut key”, select the workbook where the macro will be saved i.e. “Store macro in” and “Description”. Provide appropriate description i.e. describe what the macro is supposed to do as it may be helpful later. Click on OK.
#3: After you press OK, you will observe a box saying that the macro is being recorded. You can stop the macro recording by clicking on a button in the box.
#4: Perform the actions. Both keystrokes and mouse actions will get recorded. You can record all normal Excel actions/functions using macros.
#5: When you are done with entering the actions, click on the stop button on the box and the macro will get completed. You can also stop the recording by going to “Tools” >>> “Macro” >>> “Stop Recording”.
#6: Once you have recorded the macro, you can activate it using either the shortcut key you selected earlier or by selecting the macro from the list by going to “Tools” >>> “Macro” >>> “Macros”. Otherwise you can also press Alt-F8 to directly open the macro list and run your macros from there. When you run the macro, it will reproduce the same sequence of actions you performed while recording it.
