How to create an App Events object without using ThisWorkbook? - excel

Question

Inherited a rather large selection of spreadsheets for multiple clients.
Some of these have multiple ThisWorkbooks (e.g. ThisWorkbook, ThisWorkbook2, etc...).
Trying to put some event code check to automatically run when the workbook is opened. Either Workbook or App Events could be a solution.
The recommendation from http://www.cpearson.com/Excel/AppEvent.aspx suggests adding something like the following code to ThisWorkbook.
Private XLApp As CExcelEvents
Private Sub Workbook_Open()
Set XLApp = New CExcelEvents
End Sub
The issue is that if there are multiple ThisWorkbooks, the code never runs.
Actually, testing shows if I put it into ThisWorkbook1, it runs from there. LOL.
Main Question: Is there an event to create an Application Events object that doesn't use ThisWorkbook when opening a spreadsheet?
Basically another "code gate" that is always guaranteed to run that doesn't require ThisWorkbook.
I suspect "No", but any confirmation or alternative would be helpful.
Thanks.

Answer 1

The Workbook.Open event is the modern way to get code to run on open.
The legacy way is to have a specially named macro in a standard module:
Public Sub Auto_Open()
MsgBox "Works!"
End Sub
That should pop the message box on open.
As mentioned in the comments, a sane Excel file only has a single Workbook module - there being more than one means the file is corrupted in some way, and that can't be good. I'd recommend rebuilding the broken files: you never know when a corrupted file will just outright crash Excel for no apparent reason.

Answer 2

Don't know why the corruption is happening, but it's happening enough across various spreadsheets to be worrisome.
Created code to test for a bad ThisWorkbook upon opening and not allow saving if ThisWorkbook is bad.
1 regular module (modAutoOpenAndClose) and 1 class module (classWBEvents).
Putting these 2 modules into all spreadsheets as standard procedure. As mentioned above in the comments, users will then follow the instructions from Excel Experts Tips to Fix Corrupt Spreadsheet.
Hopefully these are useful to anyone else experiencing/preventing corruption. May seem like overkill, but this has been a bedeviling issue.
Option Explicit
'modAutoOpenAndClose
Dim WorkbookEvents As classWBEvents
Function ErrorIsThisWorkBookBad() As Boolean
On Error GoTo ErrLabel
ErrorIsThisWorkBookBad = Not (ThisWorkbook.CodeName = "ThisWorkbook")
Exit Function
ErrLabel:
ErrorIsThisWorkBookBad = True
End Function
Private Sub Auto_Open()
If ErrorIsThisWorkBookBad Then
Call MsgBox("This Spreadsheet is Corrupt." + vbCrLf + vbCrLf + _
"Please Copy Tabs And Modules to New Spreadsheet." + vbCrLf + vbCrLf + _
"Saving will not be allowed.", vbCritical)
End If
Set WorkbookEvents = New classWBEvents
Set WorkbookEvents.WB = ActiveWorkbook
If Not WorkbookEvents.WB Is Nothing Then
WorkbookEvents.WB_Open
End If
End Sub
Private Sub Auto_Close()
If Not WorkbookEvents Is Nothing Then
If Not WorkbookEvents.WB Is Nothing Then
Set WorkbookEvents.WB = Nothing
End If
Set WorkbookEvents = Nothing
End If
End Sub
And
Option Explicit
'classWBEvents
Public WithEvents WB As Workbook
Private Sub WB_BeforeSave(ByVal SaveAsUI As Boolean, Cancel As Boolean)
If ErrorIsThisWorkBookBad Then
Call MsgBox("This Spreadsheet is Corrupt." + vbCrLf + vbCrLf + _
"Please Copy Tabs And Modules to New Spreadsheet." + vbCrLf + vbCrLf + _
"Saving will not be allowed.", vbCritical)
Cancel = True
End If
End Sub
Public Sub WB_Open()
'Reserved for project specific code
End Sub