VBA/Excel: Tracing precedents to another sheet not working - excel

I recently started working with a friend's excel project, making macros. I was mostly doing this through the "Record Macro" function, as I am not knowledgeable in Visual Basic to code it myself, and there is not enough time to learn the language.
All was going smoothly until I learned that ctrl-[ would not work to trace a cell's precedents inside of a macro because it just selected the cell that the first precedent was linked to, and would not change for future precedents. I looked up how to code it in Visual Basic and ended up using "Selection.Precedents.Select" to trace the cell's precedents. Because the precedent I am trying to link to is on a different sheet (still in the same workbook) it returns "Run-time error '1004': No cells were found."
It looked like this:
Range("U5").Select
Selection.Precedents.Select
Because this did not work, I went to the "Trace Precedents" button on the Formula Auditing tab, and it was able to trace back to the precedent on the other sheet (ctrl-[ also worked to select the cell). I then tested a macro using a different cell as the precedent on the same sheet (so U5 was linked to V5, instead of the cell on the other sheet), and it was able to select the precedent cell.
I did some research and found a lot of answers that just said "Use Selection.Precedents.Select", which I did, and it didn't work.
Edit:
I got it working, I had to do:
Worksheets("Sensitivity Table").Activate
Range("U5").Select
Range("U5").ShowPrecedents
ActiveCell.NavigateArrow True, 1
Probably not the most efficient way to do it, but as far as I know, it works. You just have to remove arrows at the end of the code.

The Precedents property of the range object only applies to ranges on the current worksheet. To get all the precedents, you would need to parse the formula.
See:
Charles Williams Answer
A typical approach is discussed in Colin Legg's Blog

Related

How to insert a column in Excel using VBA?

Please help me with the code to insert a column in excel using vba. Here is what I am doing -
Sheet1.Range("A:A").EntireColumn.insert
That code works fine for me.
Sheet1.Range("A:A").Insert works also. Range("A:A") is already referencing an EntireColumn.
There are a few things to check if it's not working for you:
You're referencing an object called Sheet1. Is that definitely the codename of the worksheet you want to change? Make sure you understand the difference between sheet name and codename. You could try referencing it by the sheet's name instead: Worksheets("Tabname").Range("A:A")...
Is the worksheet protected? That would give you an error if it is.
Is there any data in the right-most column of the spreadsheet? That would also cause an error as Excel doesn't know what to do with it. If you're not 100% sure, select the entire right-most column of the sheet and hit delete to remove anything that might cause an issue.
Lastly, can you insert a column manually? i.e. select left most column, [right-click] and [Insert]?
I think you got the Sheets property wrong, this works for me :
Sheets(1).Range("A:A").EntireColumn.Insert
You should clearly mention what you are trying to do; what type of problem you are facing.
However, you should try out the below code. hope this will help
Sheet1.Range("A:A").EntireColumn.Insert Shift:=xlToRight
while inserting a new row or column make sure to refer to the entire row or column. Check if there are any marge cells at the right of column A. That can possibly be causing the problem.
Sub TryMe()
Columns(1).Insert
End Sub
Also, this is a very generic question. If you can Google something and figure it out in a fraction of the time that it takes to craft a question and post it on SO, just Google it. If your question is very unique, and after hitting multiple dead ends using Google, then ask the SO community. I found the 3 links below using a Google search that took around 1 second.
https://www.automateexcel.com/vba/insert-row-column/
https://excelchamps.com/vba/insert-column/
https://www.educba.com/vba-insert-column/

How to determine what VBA code is changing the value of an Excel cell

I have a workbook written by someone else and a particular cell is being changed by some code. I cannot figure out the code that is changing the cell value.
I cannot even figure out a strategy to narrow down the code possibilities apart from setting a breakpoint in hundreds of procedures. So I would be happy with strategy ideas.
I am very experienced using VBA in Microsoft Access and a little bit experienced using VBA in Excel.
EDIT
Gotta larf. I cannot even F8 throught the code by starting at the start. What I mean is..
The cell in question changes after I change a value (a year actually) in the worksheet. So I set up a subroutine and breakpoint as below.
Private Sub Worksheet_Change(ByVal Target As Range)
End Sub '<== set breakpoint here
Then I press F8 and no other code is entered by the debugger and yet the cell changes.
The problem may be because there is an awful lot of dynamic formula creation going on in the code. Not sure. Don't know enough about Excel quirks.
EDIT 2
There is a missing formula in the cell in question. Sorry to have wasted everyone's time.
So how can a missing formula change a cell's value. It can't!
The question should have been "How to determine why a cell is NOT changing."
So why didn't I ask that?
I did not notice that other cells in the same column as this cell contain a formula. Because the other cells were changing values correctly and this cell was not, I presumed it was some VBA code not working so I tried to track down the rogue code. I guess not being an experienced Excel person I did not rule out the bleeding obvious and went straight to VBA. Phew!
Add a change event handler on the sheet containing the cell you want to track.
In that Event Handler, add code to break when a change in the tracked cell takes place
Private Sub Worksheet_Change(ByVal Target As Range)
If Not Intersect(Target, Me.Cells(1, 1)) Is Nothing Then
Stop
End If
End Sub
Chnage Me.Cells(1, 1) to cell of your choosing.
When the code breaks, open the Call Stack, to see where the change came from
Here's a proof of concept. I ran ZX. Call stack shows the Change event at the top. The next function is what changed to cell.

Application.Goto Run-Time Error 5

I have been an active user of the information on this site and it has generally served me very well. I am struggling with this one however... I built an excel document a while back with this code:
Application.Goto Range("PART_NUMBERS").Cells(Application.Match(ROP_UPDATE.Label5.Caption, Range("PART_NUMBERS"), 0))
and it works beautifully! Basically it checks to see if a checkmark on a userform is checked and if it is it then finds the label associated with that checkmark and it finds it in a range where i can use other lines of code to do stuff. anyway... I am building another document where i need to do essentially the same thing and i built the code accordingly:
Application.Goto Range("po_s").Cells(Application.Match(PO_Checker.Label1.Caption, Range("po_s"), 0))
it gives me run-time error 5 every time. Identical code basically and i have looked over my named ranges and changed them a few times. I am stumped. Why does this code work good on my first document but not the one i am working on now? both are macro enabled. Any suggestions help. Thank you!

Sheet / Range Select (combined) not working

Something has changed in my VBA that is not allowing me to complete certain routines. I have listed a very simple example below. If anyone has experienced this I would be really appreciate any support in resolving this issue.
Simple example of issue:
When I use the following code it works fine.
Sheets("Sheet1").Select
Range("B3").Select
When I combine them I get a "1004" error
Sheets("Sheet1").Range("B3").Select
I checked the reference/document library and nothing appears to have changed in here. It has to be something simple but I just can't put my finger on it.
If you absolutely must do it in a single line of code then swap the Select for an Application.GoTo which accepts both worksheet and cell range.
application.goto range("Sheet1!B3")
However, it is almost never necessary (and most often counter-productive) to use the Range .Select method to reference a cell or cells to work on. See How to avoid using Select in Excel VBA macros for methods on getting away from relying on select and activate to accomplish your goals.
You already have your answer:
first Select the worksheet
the Select a range on that worksheet
Your code will work if you happen to be on Sheet1 when it is run, but will fail if you are not on Sheet1. In my opinion VBA is kind of dumb with regard to this issue.

Offset selection in Excel from Access

I'm creating an Excel file from data in an Access database.
All I'm currently trying to do is offset a selection I've made in Excel from Access, and I keep receiving errors.
ExcelWS.Range(Range("H6"), Range("H6").End(xlDown)).Offset(0, -1).Select
ExcelWS is an Excel. Worksheet object.
My goal is to select from G6 to the end of the workbook. However, not every cell in column G is populated, so a simple End(xlDown) from cell G6 only takes me part way through the file. That being said, all cells in column H are populated, so I'm able to do an End(xlDown) from cell H6. From there, I want to move my selection one to the left, giving me the desired range in column G selected.
The above code is a product of about 2hrs of googling, and trying tons of different combinations of similar code. However, I'm still receiving an error.
Run-time error '1004':
Method 'Range' of object '_Global' failed
The odd thing is that 1/10 times, I'll receive the desire results. The rest of the time I receive the above error.
I feel as though my issue has something to do with running that line of code from Access, however that's currently my only way of completing this task as I have other things that rely on being able to do it from Access.
Any help would be appreciated, and if there's any more info I can give I'll try my best.
Thanks.
To run Select the sheet shoudl be active/ in -focus.
So you ned to set foucus to sheet.
ExcelWS.Activate
ExcelWS.Range(Range("H6"), Range("H6").End(xlDown)).Offset(0, -1).Select
Simalarly, to make the seet in-focus, your workbook needs to be active/ infocus.
Try to avoid Select as much as possible. Also fully qualify the names.
Dim rngTest as Range
Set rngTest= ExcelWS.Range(ExcelWS.Range("H6"), ExcelWS.Range("H6").End(xlDown)).Offset(0, -1)
Thanks to #cyboashu, I was able to get it working.
I took the examples he gave me and mushed them together to make it do what I wanted.
I realized after posting the question that it was working every other time, consistently.
Anyway, the code I used is
Dim ExcelR1 As Range
Set ExcelR1 = ExcelWS.Range(ExcelWS.Range("H6"), ExcelWS.Range("H6").End(xlDown)).Offset(0, -1)
ExcelR1.Activate

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