Excel is a great program and it is even better when you get it to do repetitive or complex tasks at a click of a button. You’ve thinking but how is that possible when everyone has different requirements and tasks to do. That is where recording macros comes in handy. You basically get it to remember everything you do and then you can simply play it back when you need it. It creates the script or code for you, this code is called Visual Basic for Applications (VBA).

So there are many things you can do including setting up a spreadsheet, formatting it and then automatically printing it out, or perhaps you want to import some data, reorganise the information, format it, save it and then print it. These are just a couple of examples of where you can use this record macro facility. It is a nice feeling to just click a button and in the blink of an eye Excel has done it for you.

You can do so much more and stay tuned for more tutorials where you can add in interactivity and get Excel to make choices based on criteria that has been entered. Here are two videos to get you started. One is how to record in Excel 2003, the same works for Mac versions of Excel. The other tutorial is how to do it on Excel 2010 but the it works the same way in Excel 2007 and 2013.

Recording Macros in Excel 2003 (and Excel for Mac)

Recording Macros in Excel 2010…and 2007 and 2013