Microsoft Office

Introducing Visual Basic for Applications 39
FIGURE 39.9
The TimeStamp procedure was generated by Excel’s macro recorder.
Double-click the module in the Projects window to activate the module so that you can examine the macro.
It should consist of the following code:
Sub TimeStamp()
‘
‘ TimeStamp Macro
‘ Keyboard Shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+T
‘
ActiveCell.FormulaR1C1 = “=NOW()”
Selection.Copy
Selection.PasteSpecial Paste:=xlPasteValues, _
Operation:= xlNone, SkipBlanks _
:=False, Transpose:=False
Application.CutCopyMode = False
End Sub
The procedure has four statements. The first inserts the NOW() formula into the active cell. The second
statement copies the cell. The third statement, which is displayed on three lines (the underscore character
means that the statement continues on the next line), pastes the Clipboard contents (as a value) to the current
selection. The fourth statement cancels the moving border around the selected range.
You may notice that the macro recorded some actions that you didn’t take. For example, it specified several
options for the PasteSpecial operation. Recording actions that you don’t specifically make is just a
byproduct of the method that Excel uses to translate actions into code.
Testing the macro
When Excel is active, activate a worksheet. (It can be in the workbook that contains the VBA module or in
any other workbook.) Select a cell and press Ctrl+Shift+T. The macro immediately enters the current date
and time into the cell. You may need to widen the column to see the date and time. To widen the column
automatically, just add this statement to the end of the macro (before the End Sub statement):
ActiveCell.EntireColumn.AutoFit
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