Create Your First Excel Macro: A Step-by-Step Guide for Beginners🚀

hi I'm Jamie and welcome to teachers Tech today  I want to show you how to record your very own   macro in Microsoft Excel if you've never heard  of macros or maybe you thought they were too   advanced to use I'm going to show you in this  beginner's tutorial how they could be used by   anyone let's get started on these step by steps  on how to create your very own macro in Microsoft Excel so to start with let me run this macro  here that I already created and we're going   to go through and create this same one I have a  button here that I'm going to click and it's going   to run so let's go ahead and do this right away  in a second it goes through it created a chart   and it did some formatting for me all with that  little click now the whole idea of using macros is   it makes things a lot more efficient if you have  that same task that you have to do over and over   and over again so let's say in this example here  maybe the boss gives you a monthly sales report   and you have to do certain things like formatting  or creating a chart if you go ahead and create the   macro once every time it comes to you can just  click the button and it's done in a second so it   just saves you time with those repetitive tasks  so now let's go ahead and find out where do you   even start with you might be wondering where do we  even go to in Microsoft Excel to record macros now

I'm going to show you a couple different ways at  the very bottom of my workbook here notice I have   this icon this is record a macro right here so if  I go ahead and just hover over it you can see no   mackerels are currently recording but if I click  it would start if I right click right beside   it right here is I have it turned on you might  not so if I uncheck this notice   it's not there anymore I like to have that quick  access to it the other way to access it is to add   it up top to your tabs and to do that if I go into  any place in the ribbon and just right click I'm   going to go customize the ribbon I'm going to  just move over to this side under my main tabs   and scroll down a little bit and I'm looking for  developer I'm going to check that and hit okay so   now if I look across at the tabs if I click  on developer and look at this I have the ribbon in   here that's dedicated for these different items  and it's record macro is what we're going to be   using if you want to follow along with today's  workbook it is down below in the description you   can click on it download it and we can create  our macro together we're going to be creating   some very simple macros here today in Microsoft  Excel at the very beginning I showed you one click   where it did the formatting and created the chart  all at once I'm going to break this down a little   bit more and we're going to make two macros out  of this here's my first tip for you start with

simple task before moving on to more complex ones  and we're going to start with simple formatting   here so I'm going to go up and click record macro  and what is it do I want to call this naming is   really important because inside this workbook you  could have multiple macros and you just don't want   it to be called macro 1 2 3 you need to be able to  recognize it with meaningful names so for me right   now I'm just going to call this format because I  won't have too many macros in here I could create   a shortcut key for it if I put a letter after it  then I could just hit control in that letter and   it's going to be stored in this workbook I'm going  to just hit okay and right now my macro is being   recorded I can go ahead and stop it up here or I  could hit the square down here to stop this macro   as well now what's the first thing that I want  to have happen well let's say I want to insert   a new row so that's being recorded and I want to  write monthly sales in here so just like this and   I'm going to go for my next step it's going to  be to uh just go through here I'm going to go   over to my home and I'm going to merge and center  this now I can add some cell styles to this this   and let's say I'm going to Accent this with this  one and I even want this to be bold and we'll go   through and I'm going to give this also a format  here as well and it will just make this one orange   and I like the Bold again now I have some tips  here for you so when I want to say let's say I   want January all bolded I'm going to go ahead and  just select with my mouse and hit bold now this   isn't the proper way to do this because when  I show you when we run the macro I'm going to   show you what happens when I highlight it like  that but what you should be doing is if I just   go to here and I'm going to use my control shift  and I'm going to hit the down arrow to select and   this time I'm going to format it with my dollar  signs and let's say bold as well so we have some   formatting here I'm going to go now just down  below here and hit uh the stop it so as soon as   I stop it I have a macro I'm just going to move  over to the developer back again and if I look at   the macro right here notice I have this one called  format if I screwed up on it or something and if   I didn't want it I could go to delete or notice I  have the options of edit as well but I think this   will work for me here now I'm going to go ahead  we have February here I'm going to make a copy of

this I'm just going to hold control down and drag  because we're just going to be running this macro   a few times now if I go here I'm going to run this  so how do I run this I can click on macro remember   we haven't made the button yet I'm just going to  go and click run so now look at this so notice how   I said uh a couple different ways look at February  here it stopped right at it's not bolded here but   this column is I in this one I just selected  the data range in here in this one I used the   control contr shift and I put down arrow on it so  this was dynamic because this list over here was   shorter than this list here so it's important to  be used in the control shift in the arrows when   you're selecting because if they're not matching  up these different uh these maybe you have more   rows or if you have more columns then this way  it's going to be dynamic and it will adapt let's

move over to our copy here and we're just going  to add a button so when we click on it it's going   to perform the macro I'm going to just make one  more copy hold control uh when we come back and   add the charting to this now to add a button make  sure you're under developer here we're going to go   to the insert this is the button form control I'm  going to check this and go and draw it I'm going   to leave everything here so this is what the macro  is going to be connected to I'm going to hit okay   so at this point do I want it to be called button  five I can go and change this so if I was just   going to call this format like this as soon as I  click this now it will perform the macro so it's   very easy to add those buttons before we add our  chart in with the macro I want to talk about how   to edit a macro and in this case you know where  I made the mistake where it says January and it's   not bolded to these ones here I want to be able to  correct that so I'm going to go to my macros here

and this is the one that I want to edit I'm just  going to go and select edit this opens up BBA and   it shows me this is our macro that we created the  coding for it now what went wrong with this one   if I take a look at it says uh this is where  that I'm putting it to be bold and it's picking   the range A3 to A10 select and then down here  it says when I did it correctly notice that it   says range D3 select and then it has this line  right here what I'm going to do is actually   copy this line and I'm going to go back up here  and hit uh just enter and I'm going to paste it   in uh right in here and now I'm going to go and  change this to just A3 so it looks very similar   now it's selecting that A3 and it's going to go  down and be able to select everything in here   so it's just a little edit here let's go ahead now  I'm just going to close this out and we'll go back   and let's go and we'll just run it one more time  notice when I do run it again uh what happens this   time it all becomes formatted in here but when  I do run it a second time uh this changes here   it added another one but you can always go back  and delete but on any Futures ones now with that   edit that we did these will be all be bolded but  I'll do another tutorial talking more about VBA   and how to do more edits in that but let's let's  move over to January now let's go ahead and start

our second recording of a macro I'm going to click  record again this one is going to be called chart   and we're going to put a uh shortcut we'll do  contrl M I'm going to go and hit okay what is   the area I'm going to select uh product category  this is where I'm going to use my control shift   and down and now shift  and right for my Dynamic selection I'm going to go   to insert up on the tab what chart do I want I  think a combo will work best I'm going to select   this one right here do I want a title what do I  want for format I'm not going to change things   too much I'm just going to go ahead and click off  chart title and leave everything else the same   now I'm going to go ahead and just stop my macro  from being recorded let's move over to February   and let's run it and see what happens so if I go  up to my developer look for my Mac Ros here's   my chart let's hit run and here we have the uh  chart instantly placed in here so now do we want   to have another button for this so if I go over  to this one where I already had the format button   I can go and insert another button and this time  I'll just place it right underneath this is going   to be chart and I hit okay change my name on this  one we'll just call this one chart so we have two   different macros when I click this now I have my  chart added here as well so I can bring this into   the picture or wherever I want to have it so it's  some simple ways to add some macros breaking it   down step by step let's talk about how you save  this now so you've set up these macros you have

January February now your boss gives you march  and you can create a new sheet and copy paste   it and then run your Macros because they're  based on this uh workbook that you have when   you go ahead and save this I'm just going to go  to file and we'll go to save as I want to point   out that when we look at the file types here I'm  going to drop down we need to make sure we save   this as Excel macro enabled workbook so at this  point you can uh keep the same name if you want   I'm going to do that and I can hit save so this  uh will save it as a macro enable workbook that   these macros I'll be able to open them back up  again and then copy and paste the information   that I have for the next month quickly click on  one of those buttons and run the uh macro and get   my job done in a hurry so I hope this helped you  with an explanation of how to use macros and why   you'd want to use macros in Microsoft Excel let  me know what else you're looking to learn thanks   for watching this week on teachers Tech I'll see  you next time with more Tech tips and tutorials