How to Create and Use Your Own Excel Add-Ins

Excel add-ins can provide plenty of additional features for you. You may even create and use your own add-ins for your Excel. So now let’s see how to realize this.

There are numerous Excel add-ins available in the market. If you need to use Excel to finish your tasks quite often, you might have already utilized certain add-ins. On the other hand, even though the add-ins are beneficial, they cannot meet all the requirements. Therefore, you can create your own add-ins for your Excel. Follow the next part and see the techniques.

Create Add-ins

Suppose now we need to format cells with special formats. The special format includes changing the background color, changing the fine into bold and setting borders for cells. In order to quickly finish the long task, you can create such an add-in.

Open a new workbook.
And then press the shortcut keys “Alt +F11” on the keyboard.
In the Visual Basic editor, insert a new module.
Here input the VBA codes for the target task into the new module. We will use the following example:

Sub FormatSelectedCells()

  Application.ScreenUpdating = False

  'Change background color and the font
  With Selection
    .Interior.Color = RGB(230, 184, 183)
    .Font.Bold = True
  End With

  'Set the border for the cell
  With Selection.Borders
    .Color = vbBlack
    .Weight = xlMedium
    .LineStyle = xlContinuous
  End With
End Sub

Of course you can input other codes into the module.

After that, press the shortcut keys “Ctrl +S” on the keyboard to save this file.
In the “Save As” window, choose the option “Excel Add-In” for the “Save as type”. The path of this file will automatically appear. Therefore, you don’t need to choose by yourself.
And then input a name into the text box of the “File name.
After that, click the button “Save” and save this file as add-in.

Next if you close this file, Excel will still ask if you need to save this file. At this moment, you can choose according to your need. We suggest that you can save this file as a backup file in your computer.

Thus, you have finished all the settings. In the following parts, you will know how to use this add-in.

Use Add-Ins

In this part, you can learn how to use this add-in in your Excel.

Open the target file that you need to format cells with the special format.
And then click the tab “Developer” in the ribbon. If there is no such a tab, you can add it into the ribbon.
After that, click the button “Add-Ins” in the toolbar.
In the “Add-Ins” window, check the option “Format Cells”.
And then click the button “OK” in the window.
Now click the small button in the quick access toolbar.
After that, choose the option “More Commands”.
In the “Excel Options” window, choose the “Macros” for the “Choose commands from”.
Next you will see the name of the macro. Here click this macro.
And then click the button “Add”.
After that, click the button “OK” in the window. Now you will see the symbol for the macro in the quick access toolbar.
Next you can have a try in the worksheet. Click a cell that you need to change the format.
And then click the button of the macro in the quick access toolbar. You will see the new format in the worksheet as soon as you click it.

Delete Add-Ins

When you will never need to use the add-in, you can delete it from your computer.

In any of a workbook, repeat the first 3 steps in the previous part and open the “Add-Ins” window.
And then uncheck the target add-in.
Next click the button “OK” to save the setting.
In this step, remove the symbol for the add-in in the quick access toolbar.
Now open the folder of the file. You can find this folder in step 6 in the first part “Create Add-ins”.
In this folder, delete the target add-in.

Thus, you have deleted the add-ins in your computer.

There is one more thing that you need to remember. If you don’t perform the first 3 steps and directly delete the file, you will see this window the next you open an Excel file.

It will remind you that the file cannot be found in your computer. Therefore, you still need to uncheck the add-in in the “Add-Ins” window.

Rescue Data from Damaged Excel Files

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Author Introduction:

Anna Ma is a data recovery expert in DataNumen, Inc., which is the world leader in data recovery technologies, including repair corrupted doc file and outlook repair software products. For more information visit www.datanumen.com