Introduction
In Working with Tables in Excel I
promised to add a page about working with those tables in VBA too. Well,
here you go.
It's a ListObject!
On the VBA side there seems to be nothing new about Tables. They are
addressed as ListObjects, a collection that was introduced with Excel
2003. But there are significant changes to this part of the object model
and I am only going to touch on the basic parts here.
Creating a table
Converting a range to a table is simple enough:
Sub CreateTable()
ActiveSheet.ListObjects.Add(xlSrcRange, Range("$B$1:$D$16"),
, xlYes).Name = _
"Table1"
ActiveSheet.ListObjects("Table1").TableStyle =
"TableStyleLight2"
End Sub
Table formatting is determined by TableStyles. A collection
of objects which are a member of the Workbook object. This gives rise to
some oddities. You can change the formatting of a tableStyle, e.g. like
this:
Sub ChangeTableStyles()
ActiveWorkbook.TableStyles(2).TableStyleElements(xlWholeTable) _
.Borders(xlEdgeBottom).LineStyle =
xlDash
End Sub
This changes the linestyle of the bottom of your table. But hold your
horses! If you have any other workbook open, all tables with the same
tablestyle now use your changed style! But if you save your file,
close Excel and open Excel again with the file, the changes are gone.
This is because you've just changed a built-in tablestyle. If you ask
me, I find it strange that the Workbook is a tablestyles' parent,
whereas built-in table styles behave as if being bound to the
Application object.
If you want full control over your table style, you'd better
duplicate a built-in style and modify and apply that style to your
table.
Listing the tables
Let's start with finding all tables on the active worksheet:
Sub FindAllTablesOnSheet()
Dim oSh As Worksheet
Dim oLo As ListObject
Set oSh = ActiveSheet
For Each oLo In oSh.ListObjects
Application.Goto oLo.Range
MsgBox "Table found: " & oLo.Name &
", " & oLo.Range.Address
Next
End Sub
Selecting parts of tables
You might need to work with specific parts of a table. Here is a
couple of examples on how to achieve that.
Sub SelectingPartOfTable()
Dim oSh As Worksheet
Set oSh = ActiveSheet
'1: with the listobject
With oSh.ListObjects("Table1")
MsgBox .Name
'Select entire table
.Range.Select
'Select just the data of the entire
table
.DataBodyRange.Select
'Select third column
.ListColumns(3).Range.Select
'Select only data of first column
.ListColumns(1).DataBodyRange.Select
'Select just row 4 (header row
doesn't count!)
.ListRows(4).Range.Select
End With
'2: with the range object
'select an entire column (data only)
oSh.Range("Table1[Column2]").Select
'select an entire column (data plus header)
oSh.Range("Table1[[#All],[Column1]]").Select
'select entire data section of table
oSh.Range("Table1").Select
'select entire table
oSh.Range("Table1[#All]").Select
'Select one row in table
oSh.Range("A5:F5").Select
End Sub
As you may have spotted, current Excel versions handle tables like
they are range names. Well, that is exactly what is going on. After
inserting a table, a range name is defined automatically. These range
names are special though. Excel controls them entirely. You cannot
delete them and they get renamed automatically when you change a table's
name. Remove a table (convert back to range) and the defined name is
removed as well.
Inserting rows and columns
Another part in which lists already had most of the functionality.
Just a few new things have been added, like the "AlwaysInsert" argument
to the ListRows.Add method:
Sub TableInsertingExamples()
'insert at specific position
Selection.ListObject.ListColumns.Add Position:=4
'insert right
Selection.ListObject.ListColumns.Add
'insert above
Selection.ListObject.ListRows.Add (11)
'insert below
Selection.ListObject.ListRows.Add AlwaysInsert:=True
End Sub
If you need to do something with a newly inserted row, you can set an
object variable to the new row:
Dim oNewRow As ListRow
Set oNewRow =
Selection.ListObject.ListRows.Add(AlwaysInsert:=True)
If you then want to write something in the first cell of the new row
you can use:
oNewRow.Range.Cells(1,1).Value = "Value
For New cell"
Adding a comment to a table
Adding a comment to a table through the UI
is a challenge, because you have to go to the Name Manager to do that.
In VBA the syntax is:
Sub AddComment2Table()
Dim oSh As Worksheet
Set oSh = ActiveSheet
'add a comment to the table (shows as a comment to
'the rangename that a table is associated with automatically)
'Note that such a range name cannot be deleted!!
'The range name is removed as soon as the table is converted
to a range
oSh.ListObjects("Table1").Comment = "This is a table's
comment"
End Sub
Convert a table back to a normal range
That is simple:
Sub RemoveTableStyle()
Dim oSh As Worksheet
Set oSh = ActiveSheet
'remove table or list style
oSh.ListObjects("Table1").Unlist
End Sub
Special stuff: Sorting and filtering
With tables, we get a whole new set of filtering and sorting options.
I'm only showing a tiny bit here, a Sort on cell color (orangish) and a
filter on the font color.
Sub SortingAndFiltering()
'NoGo in 2003
With
ActiveWorkbook.Worksheets("Sheet1").ListObjects("Table1")
.Sort.SortFields.Clear
.Sort.SortFields.Add( _
Range("Table1[[#All],[Column2]]"), xlSortOnCellColor, xlAscending, , _
xlSortNormal).SortOnValue.Color = RGB(255, 235, 156)
With .Sort
.Header =
xlYes
.MatchCase =
False
.Orientation
= xlTopToBottom
.SortMethod =
xlPinYin
.Apply
End With
End With
ActiveSheet.ListObjects("Table1").Range.AutoFilter Field:=2,
_
Criteria1:=RGB(156, 0, 6),
Operator:=xlFilterFontColor
End Sub
Accessing the formatting of a cell inside a table
You may wonder why this subject is there, why not simply ask for the
cell.Interior.ThemeColor if you need the ThemeColor of a cell in a
table? Well, because the cell formatting is completely prescribed by the
settings of your table and the table style that has been selected.
So in order to get at a formatting element of a cell in your table you
need to:
- Find out where in your table the cell is located (on header row,
on first column, in the bulk of the table
- Determine the table settings: does it have row striping turned
on, does it have a specially formatted first column, ...
- Based on these pieces of information, one can extract the
appropriate TableStyleElement from the table style and read its
properties.
The function shown here returns the TableStyleElement belonging to a
cell oCell inside a table object called oLo:
Function
GetStyleElementFromTableCell(oCell As
Range, oLo As ListObject)
As TableStyleElement
'-------------------------------------------------------------------------
' Procedure : GetStyleElementFromTableCell
' Company : JKP Application Development Services
(c)
' Author : Jan Karel Pieterse
' Created : 2-6-2009
' Purpose : Function to return the proper style
element from a cell inside a table
'-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dim lRow As
Long
Dim lCol As
Long
'Determine on what row we are inside the table
lRow = oCell.Row - oLo.DataBodyRange.Cells(1, 1).Row
lCol = oCell.Column - oLo.DataBodyRange.Cells(1, 1).Column
With oLo
If lRow < 0 And .ShowHeaders
Then
'on first row and has header
Set
GetStyleElementFromTableCell =
oLo.TableStyle.TableStyleElements(xlHeaderRow)
ElseIf .ShowTableStyleFirstColumn
And lCol = 0 Then
'On first column and has first column
style
Set
GetStyleElementFromTableCell =
oLo.TableStyle.TableStyleElements(xlFirstColumn)
ElseIf .ShowTableStyleLastColumn
And lCol = oLo.Range.Columns.Count - 1 Then
'On last column and has last col style
Set
GetStyleElementFromTableCell =
oLo.TableStyle.TableStyleElements(xlLastColumn)
ElseIf lRow =
.DataBodyRange.Rows.Count And .ShowTotals Then
'On last row and has total row
Set
GetStyleElementFromTableCell =
oLo.TableStyle.TableStyleElements(xlTotalRow)
Else
If
.ShowTableStyleColumnStripes And Not
.ShowTableStyleRowStripes Then
'in table, has column stripes
If lCol Mod 2 = 0
Then
Set
GetStyleElementFromTableCell =
oLo.TableStyle.TableStyleElements(xlColumnStripe1)
Else
Set
GetStyleElementFromTableCell =
oLo.TableStyle.TableStyleElements(xlWholeTable)
End If
ElseIf
.ShowTableStyleRowStripes And Not
.ShowTableStyleColumnStripes Then
'in table, has column stripes
If lRow Mod 2 = 0
Then
Set
GetStyleElementFromTableCell =
oLo.TableStyle.TableStyleElements(xlRowStripe1)
Else
Set
GetStyleElementFromTableCell =
oLo.TableStyle.TableStyleElements(xlWholeTable)
End If
ElseIf
.ShowTableStyleColumnStripes And .ShowTableStyleRowStripes
Then
If lRow Mod 2 = 0 And lCol
Mod 2 = 0 Then
Set
GetStyleElementFromTableCell =
oLo.TableStyle.TableStyleElements(xlRowStripe1)
ElseIf lRow Mod 2 <> 0 And
lCol Mod 2 = 0 Then
Set
GetStyleElementFromTableCell =
oLo.TableStyle.TableStyleElements(xlColumnStripe1)
ElseIf lRow Mod 2 = 0 And
lCol Mod 2 <> 0 Then
Set
GetStyleElementFromTableCell =
oLo.TableStyle.TableStyleElements(xlRowStripe1)
Else
Set
GetStyleElementFromTableCell =
oLo.TableStyle.TableStyleElements(xlWholeTable)
End If
End If
End If
End With
End Function
You could use this function like this:
Sub test()
Dim oLo As
ListObject
Dim oTSt As
TableStyleElement
Set oLo = ActiveSheet.ListObjects(1)
Set oTSt =
GetStyleElementFromTableCell(ActiveCell, oLo)
With ActiveCell.Offset(, 8)
.Interior.ThemeColor = oTSt.Interior.ThemeColor
.Interior.TintAndShade = oTSt.Interior.TintAndShade
End With
End Sub
Removing formating from an Excel Table
Suppose you have just converted a range to a table, but the range had
some formatting set up such as background fills and borders. Tables
allow you to format things like that automatically, but now your
preexisting formatting messes up the table formatting. One way to
overcome this is by changing the style of the cells (see
this article) in the table back to the Normal style. This however
removes your number formats too. The little macro below fixes that by
first making a copy of the normal style, setting its Number checkbox to
false and then applying the new style without number format to the
table. Finally it applies the tablestyle and deletes the temporary
style:
Sub RemoveFormattingOfTable()
Dim oStNormalNoNum As
Style
On Error
Resume Next
Set
oStNormalNoNum = ActiveWorkbook.Styles("NormalNoNum")
On
Error GoTo 0
If
oStNormalNoNum Is Nothing
Then
ActiveWorkbook.Styles.Add "NormalNoNum"
Set oStNormalNoNum =
ActiveWorkbook.Styles("NormalNoNum")
oStNormalNoNum.IncludeNumber = False
End If
With
ActiveSheet.ListObjects(1)
.Range.Style = "NormalNoNum"
'Now apply tablestyle:
.TableStyle = "TableStyleLight1"
End
With
ActiveWorkbook.Styles("NormalNoNum").Delete
End Sub
Note that the function shown above does not take into account that
you can set the width of the stripes, both vertically and horizontally.
Wrap Up
Of course there is more to learn and know about tables and lists. A
good way to come acquainted with the VBA behind them is by recording
macro's while fooling around with them. Luckily Microsoft did include
the table object if it comes to recording your actions, unlike the
omission on the charting side...
