Creating an addin from an Excel macro

Pages in this article

1. Preparations
2. Book or add-in
3. Menus
4. Toolbars
5. Limit access
6. Protect code
7. Initialise
8. Save Settings
9. UI Languages
10. Setup
11. Conclusion

Conclusion

This article has shown a little bit of what it takes to convert a self built macro to a utility fit for distribution to others. Of course there are many more things to account for when one designs an add-in. Things like changing (and setting back!) Excel-application settings and designing a proper user interface haven't been addressed at al.

Nevertheless, the subjects discussed in this article will certainly get you started to create a professional looking add-in from a simple macro.

Books

To those of you who need more in-depth information, I would very much like to recommend these books:

Professional Excel development (update: Pro Excel dev II has been released)
Authors: Stephen Bullen, Rob Bovey and John Green
Published by Addison-Wesley, February 2005.
ISBN: 0321262506

Or:

Excel 2007 Power Programming with VBA
Author: John Walkenbach
Publisher: Wiley
ISBN: 978-0-7645-4072-1

If you're more of a beginner, try the Dummies series:

Excel 2007 VBA Programming for Dummies. (there are separate editions for the older Excel versions)
Author: John Walkenbach
Revision author: Jan Karel Pieterse
Publisher: Wiley.
ISBN: 978-0-470-04674-6