Hiding a column that appears within an entered range - excel

Question

In my data sheet, I want to allow users to hide whichever columns they want, but column F cannot be hidden. When the user wants to hide a column, they push a button which brings up an input form, and they can enter the column(s) they want to hide. I have it working if column F is specifically mentioned(i.e. user inputs "F" or "A,C,F,G" etc), but I'm not sure how to go about if they enter it as a range and F isn't specified (i.e. A-G, E-I, etc.). Here's the code that I have:
If Len(TheColumn) <= 2 Then
If Hide = True And TheColumn = "F" Then
MsgBox "Sorry, you cannot hide column F", vbOKOnly, "Action cancelled!"
Exit Sub
End If
Else
If InStr(1, TheColumn, ",F,") > 0 Or InStr(1, TheColumn, ",F") > 0 Or Left(TheColumn, 1) = "F" Then
MsgBox "Sorry, you cannot hide column F", vbOKOnly, "Action cancelled!"
Exit Sub
End If
End If
I thought about using ASC to find out if ASC("F") is between the ASC of the first and last letters, but it only counts the first character, so ASC("AA") is the same as ASC("A"), which could cause issues if you want to hide "Z-AB"
Also just realized my code below won't work if they enter a range that doesn't encompass F (i.e A-D) anyway.
sStart = 1
Do Until sStart > Len(TheColumn)
sEnd = InStr(sStart, TheColumn, ",") - 1
If sEnd = -1 Then sEnd = Len(TheColumn)
col = Mid(TheColumn, sStart, sEnd - sStart + 1)
If Show = True Then
Range(col & "1").EntireColumn.Hidden = False
Else
Range(col & "1").EntireColumn.Hidden = True
End If
sStart = sEnd + 2
Loop

Answer 1

You can use regular expression to make it usable for Range to hide columns in one line instead of using loops. At the end of code you just make sure that column F is always visible.
Sub F()
Dim cols, re
Set re = CreateObject("VBScript.RegExp")
re.Global = True: re.Pattern = "([A-Z]{1,2})(?=,|$)"
cols = "A,C,E,F": cols = re.Replace(cols, "$1:$1") '=> A:A,C:C,E:E,F:F
Range(cols).EntireColumn.Hidden = True
Columns("F").Hidden = False
End Sub