This is a guest post by Vijay, our in-house VBA Expert.
Suresh sent an email with interesting problem.
There is one data entry sheet where all the data needs will be entered, however once done we want the data to be stored separately in multiple sheets designated by the Employee code.
In this article we will learn how to use VBA to help in resolving the problem Suresh was facing at work.
We will do this using VBA and the below procedure illustrates how this was done.
Sub copyPasteData()
Dim strSourceSheet As String
Dim strDestinationSheet As String
Dim lastRow As Long
strSourceSheet = "Data entry"
Sheets(strSourceSheet).Visible = True
Sheets(strSourceSheet).Select
Range("C2").Select
Do While ActiveCell.Value <> ""
strDestinationSheet = ActiveCell.Value
ActiveCell.Offset(0, -2).Resize(1, ActiveCell.CurrentRegion.Columns.Count).Select
Selection.Copy
Sheets(strDestinationSheet).Visible = True
Sheets(strDestinationSheet).Select
lastRow = LastRowInOneColumn("A")
Cells(lastRow + 1, 1).Select
Selection.PasteSpecial xlPasteValues
Application.CutCopyMode = False
Sheets(strSourceSheet).Select
ActiveCell.Offset(0, 2).Select
ActiveCell.Offset(1, 0).Select
Loop
End Sub
Let’s understand the code
We start by defining 2 variables which will hold the Source and destinations sheet names, source will be one sheet only however there will be multiple destinations sheets.
A simple Do While loop is utilized to complete this data transfer from one sheet to the others.
However the most interesting line in the code is :
ActiveCell.Offset(0, -2).Resize(1, ActiveCell.CurrentRegion.Columns.Count).Select
Since we start our work on Column C in the loop, we need to ensure the data from Column A and B is also selected to be copied and pasted on the relevant sheets, this is accomplished using the above line.
Once we have selected the entire data set on the current row, we copy the same and select the relevant sheet and then paste the data as values on the same.
At the end of the code once we switch back to the Source sheet, we need to ensure that we select Column C again. The reason for that is, when we select the entire data set we activate the first column and we need to come back to column C for our loop and the rest of the code to work.
Download Excel File
Click here to download the file & save it on your system and use it to understand this technique.
More on VBA & Macros
If you want to learn more about using VBA to automate reporting & email tasks, read these:
- Automatically Generate Report Variations using Excel
- What is VBA & Macros? Introduction
- Excel VBA Example Macros
- VBA tutorial videos
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If you want to learn how to develop applications like these and more, please consider joining our VBA Classes. It is a step-by-step program designed to teach you all concepts of VBA so that you can automate & simplify your work.
8 Responses to “Top 5 keyboard shortcuts for Excel Charts”
As far as I remember (checked, again, 2 minutes ago) in my "Excel 2013" in order to select various chart elements I need to use the Arrow keys and not the TAB key.
Practically, the TAB key does nothing (within a Chart).
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Michael (Micky) Avidan
Thanks for pointing this out. This is how I remember it too, but when I was recording the video yesterday, only TAB key worked. MS must have changed the keys in Excel 2016. I have edited the post to include both keys.
The key navigation on charts is different in 2016.
TAB cycles through a layer of objects (SHIFT+TAB cycles backwards)
ENTER move down a layer
ESC moves up a layer
So on a column chart with title/legend/data labels if you select the plotarea the TAB will go through Title > Legend > Plotarea.
ENTER at plotarea will then select Vertical axis. Tab will take you through
Horizontal axis > gridlines > Series > Horizontal Axis.
ENTER with series selected will then allow you to TAB through individual data points and data labels.
If you ENTER on datalabels you can TAB through each data label.
ALT + F1 : to create default chart
ALT+E S T = CTRL + ALT + V, T : I find that easier to remember
I second what Michael already said about TAB and arrow keys. I can't help but think if this is related to the "," or ";" as separator. I prefer to use the chart tools - layout- drop down box, anyway.
Got to be F11 for instant charting. Highlight your data , hit F11 and voila! ?
Ctrl+1 is the most important chart shortcut. In fact, it works for any Excel object: whatever is selected, Ctrl+1 opens the task pane or dialog to format that object.
Somewhere along the line, maybe when Excel 2016 came out, the arrow keys stopped working to cycle through the elements of a chart. But what works is holding Ctrl while clicking the arrow keys. I haven't gotten used to the Tab and other keys, but as long as Ctrl+Arrow works, I'm good.
And F4 used to be so helpful when formatting a lot of charts. But since Excel 2007 came out, it has been mostly useless. It used to remember a whole set of changes at once, so I get that the newer modeless dialogs make that impractical. But now it only seems to work with formatting of lines and borders, and maybe fills. I find myself writing a lot of VBA one-liners in the Immediate Window to handle these tedious formatting tasks.
after clicking on a chart, is there a shortcut key to copy it?
Thank you for the Alt E S T - tip. This is more than a time saver. Because of dynamic charts or de-activated external references to data when you make the charts, you often have empty charts that are otherwise impossible to format. So this shortcut helps adressing that. I will work with it more and see if there remain some obstacles.