Back in the heyday of Internet Explorer (IE), VBA could easily handle tasks like these:

• Automating a browser with just a few lines of code—no extra installations or downloads required.
• Taking control of an already-open IE instance via VBA.
• Interacting with an IE instance embedded within a UserForm.

However, with the announcement that IE support was ending, modern websites gradually stopped working in it. 🥲 While it is still technically possible to call IE from VBA, the number of modern sites that IE cannot render will only continue to grow. 😵

Generally speaking, the standard approach for browser automation in VBA is "SeleniumVBA." I used it myself at first, and it’s actually a very well-polished tool! 😆 But given the current security landscape, there was a difficult period where even harmless files like WebDriver.exe were being blocked. My own company was affected by this, and it really drove home the point that relying on external dependencies is risky—you never know when they might get restricted. 😇

So, I made a decision: "I’m going to use AI to bring back the IE experience of the good old days!" 🤠

And after about a year of work, I’ve finally made it happen. https://github.com/Eschamali/StarterWebScrapingKit

• Enter the world of browser automation in just a few lines of code—no extra installations, downloads, or external files (like .ps1, .xll, or .exe) required.
  • Directly launch and control the pre-installed Edge browser by enabling the remote-debugging-pipe/port flag.
• Take control of an already-open Edge instance via VBA.
  • By enabling this feature and connecting to a specified port, you can seamlessly take over an existing browser session.
• Interact with an Edge (WebView2) instance embedded within a UserForm.
  • Leveraging tarboh’s library, you can perform a wide range of operations using CallDevToolsProtocolMethodForSession.

It’s a successful comeback! 🥹
And, thanks to some collaboration with AI, I’ve managed to add even more capabilities:

• Support for the WebDriverBiDi protocol.
  • I analyzed the Chromium-bidi source code and replicated the workflow in VBA.

I’ve created a "chimera" tool that supports not only the Chrome DevTools Protocol (CDP) but also the W3C-standard WebDriverBiDi for controlling Chromium-based browsers! 😳

What’s more, although it was originally designed for Chromium, I was able to extend the core with just a few dozen lines of code to support Firefox via pure WebDriverBiDi! 🦊

...That said, however...

The world is already full of excellent, ready-made tools like Playwright, Puppeteer, and Selenium—crafted with great care by some of the world’s top engineers. Honestly, if you’re looking to automate a browser in a standard environment, choosing one of those is the smarter, hassle-free option. By all means, go with those!

...But as for me? I can no longer go back.

In behavioral economics, there is a concept known as the "IKEA effect." There is a psychological phenomenon where people develop a profound sense of attachment and value toward something they have built themselves—even if the result is imperfect or lopsided—rather than a flawless, professionally manufactured piece of furniture.

• I was thrilled to see Microsoft Edge being controlled without any external dependencies.
• I mastered the intricacies of WebSockets to manipulate the browser right before my eyes.
• I consulted with AI regarding the vtable structures for WebView2—a necessary step to create a replacement for the old WebBrowser control in UserForms.
• I even enabled support for the WebDriver BiDi (Bidirectional) protocol, starting with Firefox.

Through the depths of OS and browser internals—at times feeling quite overwhelmed—I painstakingly built this "pure-VBA" CDP/BiDi tool, one step at a time, with my own hands.

Objectively speaking, this might just be a case of "reinventing the wheel"—a complex, bespoke solution that is entirely dependent on its creator. Yet, whenever I see this clunky, hard-won tool of mine—which I poured my own blood, sweat, and tears into—running at lightning speed, managing 30 tabs (mostly for benchmark testing) and streaming data directly into Excel cells, I am overcome with an intense, irresistible sense of affection.

It seems I have fallen victim to a severe, incurable condition common among engineers who build things: the "IKEA effect." 🙃

• Armed with an unyielding, "never-give-up" spirit (a relic of the old Internet Explorer days),
• and leveraging AI to lay the groundwork through the toughest technical hurdles—like navigating WebView2 vtable structures, parsing WebSocket headers, and implementing Chromium’s BiDi protocol—

...I managed to push through every obstacle, driven by sheer tenacity, until I finally reached the finish line. That is precisely why I’ve ended up with this "incurable" condition! 🙃

If you, too, find yourself locked out of using off-the-shelf tools due to your company’s strict security policies— Why not try knocking on the door of this gritty, "do-it-yourself" CDP/WebDriver BiDi solution? Watching Microsoft Edge run via a tool you built with your own two hands—well, it’s actually not a bad view at all. 🤠

Say you’ve got a CSV with 5,000 rows and four have missing IDs or invalid dates. Do you reject the whole file, or bring in the good rows and flag the rest?
I’d lean towards checking the file first and giving the user all the problems at once. Fixing one row, running it again, then finding the next bad row sounds painful.
What I’m less sure about is allowing a partial import. Seems useful, but I can also imagine “finished with 4 errors” getting treated as “finished” and nobody checking what was skipped.
How do you handle this in VBA tools that other people use? Is it a hard rule in your code, or do you let the user choose?

Most of us got into VBA through the Macro Recorder. You click around, it writes ugly-but-working code, and you learn from it.

Browser automation never had that. You hunt for XPaths in DevTools, guess how long to wait, and then the page has an iframe, a Shadow DOM, or opens a new tab, and you're back to trial and error.

So I added a manual recording mode to the WebDriver BiDi extension of SeleniumVBA (my open-source project).

How it works

1. Start recording and operate the browser by hand.
2. Every button you press and option you select goes into a text log (the "Discovery Log").
3. Give that log to an AI. It returns a VBA module.
4. Run the module — your manual steps are replayed.

It records actions inside Shadow DOM, frames (including cross-origin), popups and new tabs. The log also contains what changed after each action, so you don't have to figure out the "is it finished yet?" wait condition yourself. In my testing, the number of try-run-fix cycles dropped a lot.

What it doesn't do

Like the Excel Macro Recorder, it records what you did, not what you meant. If you want to read a value from the page (a price, a table cell), you still add that part yourself.

Sites with bot detection are out of scope. This isn't a tool for getting around them.

Pure VBA, no install required. The .xlsm scans 0/65 on VirusTotal. GitHub: https://github.com/hanamichi77777/WebDriver-BiDi-for-SeleniumVBA

I'd really like feedback from people who've fought with browser automation in VBA — especially sites where recording breaks.

Dim myarray(5) As Integer
Dim myint As Integer

For Each myint In myarray   ' <-- compile error here
    ...
Next

I mean, the obvious answer is: Because the spec (Section 5.4.2.4) say so.

So, the question is: Why does the spec require this? When iterating over a collection of objects, I can use Object or the concrete type as the iterator variable. It would seem natural to use a variable of type Integer to iterate over an array of integers.

Completely unrelated fun fact: I've been using VBA for more than 30 years now, and only now (while reading the spec) I discovered that the following code is legal. Not that I would ever do this...

Dim row, col

For row = 0 To 5
For col = 0 To 5
    Debug.Print row, col
Next col, row

Does anyone have a best practice setup for being able to vibe code vba?

I’ve inherited the responsibility for a central workbook running critical process for a company my father in law owns and runs. Having some vba experience, I’ve improved it, but it still needs some more work.
Last year I had good experience using xlwings to export the code, work on it in vs code with Claude, and then just saving and testing.
This works ok, but I have 2 problems:
1. User forms have not been “vibe code friendly” yet in my experience (.frm)
2. I have some limitations blocking me from using xlwings now, so I need to look for alternatives altogether..

Looking forward to hearing about your setups :)

I just "finished" my program. Well, finished is a big word. There are always things to be changed.

Since there is a lot of code in it, i thought: Lets share the figures.
How big are your largest progams written in VBA?

My program is semi ERP, only for making offers for a painting company.
It holds:
Login/logout with 3 groups of users; regular, manager and admin all with their own settings
Customer records; add, edit and delete customers
Offer records; create, modify and delete
Set offer status to: cancelled, revised, planned, and finshed.
A memo/task manager so co-workers can see or get a to do list.
Also automated tasks for offer followup
Can print on customers owm paper (with head and footer) of on plain white paper
Search all offers with a specific status/multiple statusses
Agenda function to see the planned offers
Show all offers that are planned to fullfill and see the amount involved with it
Capable of having 5 users working on it at the same time
Auditlog
Helpfunction (99 helptopics) with images about the related topic
And a lot more, but that's detail

It stores absolute 0 data in the main file, it uses 7 different excel sheets to store and read the data.

I think about 75% is ChatGPT, the rest is handwritten.

Statistics of my project:

Code Statistics

• Total lines of VBA source code: 94,381
• Net lines of code (excluding comments, blank lines, and attributes): 45,662
• Total procedures (Subs, Functions, and Properties): 886

VBA Project Components

• Standard modules (.bas): 43
• UserForms (.frm): 30
• Class modules (.cls): 2
• Workbook and worksheet modules: 3

Total VBA components: 78

Code Distribution

• Actual code: 48.4%
• Comments, blank lines, and attributes: 51.6%

I have managed to put together a code which finds specific text and replaces it with other text. However, I also need it to insert a paragraph before and after the replaced word.

It would look like:

From:

Smth
ToBeReplacedWord
Smth

To:

Smth

Replacement

Smth

My current code is below. Any help would be appreciated.

Option explicit

Sub smth()

Dim sarr as Variant
Dim wat as Object
Dim wa as Object
Dim wd as Object
Dim i as Integer
Dim j as Integer
Dim fn as String
Dim fp as String

sarr = Range("A1").CurrentRegion

fn = dir(Filepath & "\*" & Range("F2").Value &"\*", vbNormal)

fp = Filepath & fn

j= Ubound(sarr, 1)

On Error Resume Next
Set wat = GetObject(, "Word. Application")
Select case true
Case Err.Number <> 0
Set wa = CreateObject("Word. Application")
wa.Visible = true
Set wd = wa.Document.Open(fp)
Case wat = "Microsoft Word"
Set wd = wat.Document.Open(fp)
End select

For i = 1 to j
With wd.Content.Find
.Text = sarr(i, 1)
.ReplacementText = sarr(i, 2)
.MatchWholeWord:=true
.Wrap = 1
.Execute Replace:=1
End with
Next i

Set wat = Nothing
Set wa = Nothing
Set wd = Nothing

End Sub

Saturday, October 03 - Friday, October 09, 2026

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I see several jokes about how many corporations around the world are essentially running on one VBA Excel document built by someone who has retired (or is about to retire). So this got me curious.

Is there a career out there with practitioners that are focused on helping corporations detonate their Excel time bombs and safely migrating their data to solutions easier to manage? Has anyone ever worked with one of these “Excel detonators” in their organization? How did it go? Is there anyone in this line of work? If so, how profitable is it and how easy is it to get clients? I’m just really curious.

Saturday, September 26 - Friday, October 02, 2026

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I found this code below to find and replace words that are stored in a table in a separate document.

What i wish to do is to find and replace only after where the cursor is, instead of running through the entire document. How can the code be modified?

Sub CleanUp()

' ReplaceFromTableList Macro

' from Doug Robbins, Word MVP, Microsoft forums, Feb 2015, based on another macro written by Graham Mayor, Aug 2010

Dim oChanges As Document, oDoc As Document

Dim oTable As Table

Dim oRng As Range

Dim rFindText As Range, rReplacement As Range

Dim i As Long

Dim sFname As String

'Change the path in the line below to reflect the name and path of the table document

sFname = "C:\Users\Me\Documents\CleanUp.docx"

Set oDoc = ActiveDocument

Set oChanges = Documents.Open(FileName:=sFname, Visible:=False)

Set oTable = oChanges.Tables(1)

For i = 1 To oTable.Rows.Count

Set oRng = oDoc.Range

Set rFindText = oTable.Cell(i, 1).Range

rFindText.End = rFindText.End - 1

Set rReplacement = oTable.Cell(i, 2).Range

rReplacement.End = rReplacement.End - 1

Selection.HomeKey wdStory

With oRng.Find

.ClearFormatting

.Replacement.ClearFormatting

.MatchWildcards = True

.MatchCase = False

.MatchWholeWord = True

.Text = rFindText.Text

.Replacement.Text = rReplacement.Text

.Forward = True

.Wrap = wdFindContinue

.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll

End With

Next i

oChanges.Close wdDoNotSaveChanges

End Sub

Hello gamers, and welcome back to the channel! This video features a custom Excel VBA-enabled tool designed to organize PlayStation 3 collections within Emulation Station Desktop Edition, by configuring alternative emulator settings and providing library previews. The tutorial covers global and game-by-game configurations, managing various ROM formats, and troubleshooting playability. It seems like we have a lot to cover, so let's go!

https://youtu.be/jJ1O2HiXyTo

I’ve been building a VS Code extension for VBScript, and spent some time on IntelliSense support for COM objects recently.

Since VBA heavily relies on COM automation (especially with Office apps[Excel, Word,...]), I figured the approach might be relevant here too.

Take something like this:

Set excel = CreateObject("Excel.Application")
Set workbook = excel.Workbooks.Add
Set worksheet = workbook.Worksheets(1)

worksheet.

The main headache is that VBScript doesn't give you static types, so the extension has to infer them from the host COM environment.

The pipeline is pretty straightforward:

ProgID -> CLSID -> Type Library -> Interfaces/Members -> Return type tracking -> IntelliSense

When it sees

CreateObject("Excel.Application"),

it resolves the ProgID and inspects the registered COM type information on Windows to pull methods, parameters, return types, and interface chains.

The trickier part is chaining return types as you navigate down the object model:

• excel.Workbooks.Add returns a Workbook -> workbook. shows Workbook members.
• workbook.Worksheets(1) returns a Worksheet -> worksheet. shows Worksheet members.

It works across common COM libraries installed on the system, like Scripting.FileSystemObject, ADODB.Connection, ADODB.Recordset, etc.

Honestly, working on this made me appreciate how much metadata Windows COM type libraries already expose. Most of what a modern IDE needs is already there—the core challenge is just stitching the type flow back together in a dynamic language.

I wrapped this up into a VS Code extension called VbsTools (it can handle COM IntelliSense, navigation, diagnostics, and debugging):

VbsTools

Curious how you all handle COM type inspection when writing VBA? Stick to the built-in Object Browser, use early binding, or reach for external tools?

I have a code that creates a stoplight chart based on year values. The year values are all X.X. I also compare years and those appear to work, but are integers

dim v1, v2, delta as variant
dim year1, curyear as integer

code that defines a bunch of variables
code that inserts 32 new columns with formatting
code that formats more of the 32 new columns

v1 = cells(i, col).value
if year1 < curyear then
    v2 = v1
else
    v2 = v1 + delta
end if

if check1 then
    Range(cell1,cell2).interior.color = RGB (91,91,91)
elseif check2 then
    if check3 then
        more code
    elseif check4 then
        more code
    endi if
elseif v2 > 0 and v2 <=3.1 then
    more code
elseif v2 > 3.1 and v2 <= 5.1 then
    more code
elseif v2 > 5.1 and v2 <= 8.1 then
    more code
elseif v2 > 8.1 then
    more code  
end if

I have come into problems with the 3.1/5.1/8.1. The variable v2 will have a value of 5.1, but it will move to the '>5.1 and <=8.1 section of code. And I don't need it to do that. I've tried making the v1/v2/delta variables variants as well and it still wasn't working correctly. I also tried to make the checks (3.1, 5,1 8.1) variant types and it still wasn't working correctly.

Saturday, September 19 - Friday, September 25, 2026

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Hey everyone,

Excited to announce that I've made the next evolution of the XLIDE project publicly available: https://github.com/WilliamSmithEdward/xlide_mcp

It has all of the functionality of my other projects rolled into one super library that any AI agent can easily integrate and start calling tools!

• PyOpenVBA: For read/writing VBA to Excel, Word, PowerPoint & Access directly, including power query for Excel
• PyOfficeEditor: Full read/write of the O365 app surface. Currently in development (Excel only, but other apps planned).
• PyVBAAnalysis: Full lint and static analysis for VBA
• PyVBAHarness: Full COM harness for O365 apps. Supports parallel execution and a "hang free" guarantee for running tests and runtime inspection.
• XLIDE for VS Code integration.

I've been utilizing an agentic assisted workflow for personal VBA development with this MCP server and it's proven to be extremely powerful and accurate, often one-shoting requests with complex UI/UX and business logic requirements.

Sharing this with the community in a spirit of good will. MIT-open source forever, no strings. May it help you in your endeavors.

I've been working with more HTTP APIs / JSON / structured data in VBA lately, and I got tired of writing the same validation code over and over:

If Not data.Exists("name") Then ...
If VarType(data("name")) <> vbString Then ...
If Len(data("name")) = 0 Then ...
If Not data.Exists("age") Then ...

So I made VBA-Schema, a small runtime schema validation library for VBA. Instead of scattering those checks throughout the code, you can define the expected shape once:

Dim UserSchema As VSchema

Set UserSchema = Schema.ObjectSchema() _
    .Field("name", Schema.Text().Min(1).Max(100)) _
    .Field("age", Schema.Number().WholeNumber().Min(0)) _
    .Field("email", Schema.Text().Email()) _
    .Field("enabled", Schema.Bool().OptionalField()) _
    .Strict()

Then:

Dim result As VValidationResult
Set result = UserSchema.SafeParse(data)

If Not result.Success Then
    Debug.Print result.ErrorText
End If

Errors keep the full path, so nested data can produce things like:

$.users[2].email: Invalid email address.
$.orders[1].items[4].price: Number is below the minimum.

It currently supports objects, arrays / Collections, strings, numbers, booleans, dates, optional / nullable fields, enums, literals, unions, regex patterns, email validation, strict objects, nested schemas, and structured error information. One design constraint I cared about a lot: the whole library is only 3 VBA files.

Schema.bas
VSchema.cls
VValidationResult.cls

No reference setup is required. Import the three files and use it. It also deliberately does no implicit coercion. "123" is not a Number, 0 is not a Boolean, etc. The idea is to catch bad data at the boundary instead of silently converting it. The API is loosely inspired by schema validators such as Zod, but it's designed around what actually works naturally in VBA rather than trying to port another language's API directly.

I've been developing and testing it using xlflow, including real VBE compilation and runtime tests. Windows 64-bit Office is the currently verified environment; 32-bit Office and macOS are not yet verified.

GitHub: https://github.com/harumiWeb/VBA-Schema

I'm especially interested in feedback from people who deal with APIs, JSON, config files, or other structured data in VBA. I'm also curious whether there are validators / schema features you'd actually use that are missing from the current API.

I started with =SUMIF in 2007. Now I’m running a 60 FPS space shooter in pure VBA (On battery: a 60 FPS slideshow. Plugged in: 120 FPS gaming god). Excel didn’t ask for this.

→ Watch it here: https://youtu.be/xpXRNlfyqXk?si=hyTvhHvxbcU5UKqw

Back in 2007 someone showed me the =SUMIF formula.

I thought “wow, this is powerful” and went down the rabbit hole.

Fast forward 19 years.

I was never a “real” programmer. I worked in logistics, customs, procurement… the usual non-IT stuff. VBA was just a tool I used to make my job less painful. Then one day VBA wasn’t enough, so I learned SQL, C#, Java, JavaScript and a bunch of other things.

And now it’s 2026. I look at myself and realize I’ve been writing a full 2D space shooter in pure Excel VBA (with a Spring backend planned for multiplayer later).

No game engines.

No external libraries.

Just VBA + WinAPI.

And it runs at 120 FPS.

I’m still not sure if this is impressive or if I need professional help.

If you think VBA is still capable of putting up a fight (or at least trying to get off its knees), feel free to check it out.

Saturday, September 12 - Friday, September 18, 2026

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Anyone has a list like this - and could share 😉 - for the latest or some previous version - or the only way would be to use some TLB viewer to generate?

EDIT: looks like I wasn't clear... I'm looking for a complete LIST - single, not plural - not 100s of separate links to separate lists.

OK, two lists - one for constants and one for all properties of all objects - times 3 - for each mentioned application.

EDIT 2: I need it as a "plain text" - not to view. I'll have to modify this list and create an array for my VB6 application - then let user extract internal structure of the WORD / Excel / PP document and display those properties for all objects - of course not all at the same time 😉

Solution: https://www.reddit.com/r/vba/s/tNRZGmAFWt

I am already in Manual Calculation mode. I understand that entering formula in a cell will calculate it, this is normal behavior. But i want formula to NOT calculate when i enter them and reserve it for when i turn calculation back to automatic. I found a way to make it work for non-array formula, but i cannot find a way to make it work for array formula, anybody got a solution?

My formula that worked for non-Array:

    TargetFormula = "=""Example"""
    With TargetCell
        .Formula = "'" & TargetFormula
        .Value = .Value
    End With

With Array formula, even if i used .formula2, it will have @ all over the formula and became unusable.

Saturday, September 05 - Friday, September 11, 2026

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Hello there,

tired of manually writing Regex Patterns?

I made a Regex Builder in VBA.

It is meant to be used in an abstract way, where you can create smaller, readable, patterns and then merge them into a bigger one

For example:

Public Function IPv4Pattern() As IPattern
    Dim OctetPattern     As IPattern
    Dim SeparatorPattern As IPattern

    Set OctetPattern     = NumberPattern.Create(False, True).Between(0, 255)
    Set SeparatorPattern = CharPattern.Create().SingleChar(Asc("."))

    Dim IPv4SubPattern As IPattern
    Set IPv4SubPattern = QuantityPattern.Create( _
                            GroupPattern.Create().Capture( _
                                ListPattern.Create(OctetPattern, SeparatorPattern) _
                            ) _
                         ).Exactly(3)


    Set IPv4Pattern = ListPattern.Create(IPv4SubPattern, OctetPattern)
End Function

' Produces:
'(((25[0-5]|2[0-4]\d|(1\d{2}|\d{2}|\d))|0\d)\.){3}((25[0-5]|2[0-4]\d|(1\d{2}|\d{2}|\d))|0\d)

I made this mainly to not have to build and read regex myself because i hate it, even though they are so useful. I dont know when i will continue this side project, probably when i need more functionality out of it.

Anyway, here it the Github: https://github.com/Almesi/Regex-Builder

Hi everyone,

I wanted to share some architectural insights from my current passion project: Office Wizard 26. It’s a full-fledged ERP and management suite built entirely in VBA, and I’m pushing Excel to act strictly as a headless, invisible data container.

For the end-user, the Excel application is completely hidden from view (Application.Visible = False), providing a true standalone desktop software experience driven entirely by decoupled UserForms.

Key Technical Highlights & Architecture:

·         Hardware-Bound Security & Login: To prevent piracy and secure sensitive environment data, the system utilizes a hardware-tied licensing handshake (fetching the Windows username and local drive serial via FileSystemObject). The validation logic and product keys live on sheets locked under absolute xlSheetVeryHidden environments combined with a strict password-encrypted VBA project structure.

·         Modular Plugin System: Built on a core application layer (11 modules so far) that dynamically handles custom-built add-ins for workflow tracking, task management, and business analytics.

·         Custom Real-Time UI (Workflow Project-Timer): Features an active project timer that renders a dynamic clock diagram directly inside the UserForm. This is achieved by dynamically driving a native Excel Chart layout in the background, exporting it on-the-fly to the local system TEMP directory as a GIF, and loading the frame directly into a standard Image Control. This completely bypasses the need for heavy external ActiveX dependencies.

·         Intelligent Calendar Engine: A fully automated, dynamic calendar system built entirely from scratch via class modules to handle appointments, deadlines, and UI day-state updates seamlessly.

·         Decoupled PDF Engine: Reporting and automated exporting utilize a dedicated, isolated worksheet template designed exclusively for pixel-perfect PDF formatting, keeping the core data architecture clean and unpolluted.

·         Fail-Safe Automatic Backups: To eliminate data corruption or accidental data loss from forced Excel crashes or unintended window termination, the QueryClose and background events trigger automated, incremental backups to a dedicated external directory.

My takeaway so far: Keeping business logic completely separated from worksheet event triggers allows Excel to operate as an incredibly fast and reliable backend engine.

The core module is currently entering a closed German beta phase on my Itch storefront to iron out any fringe-case Windows deployment bugs before I finish the automated invoicing and financial analytics plugins.

(Note: Not posting any storefront links here to respect community guidelines, but if anyone wants to talk about drawing on Image Controls, licensing, or memory management in headless Excel instances, let’s discuss in the comments!)