Actually, I do like macros, used in the right place at the right time. Excel macros can be incredibly powerful, but I try to avoid using them if possible. Why? Well, there are several reasons:
- Undo – There are a few things that break the ‘undo’ chain, by which I mean that you can’t undo anything done before them. Guess what – running a macro falls into that category. And it doesn’t matter how good you are at Excel, being able to Undo is useful!
- Audit trails – you can’t audit actions taken by a macro, unless you’ve written the macro to create its own audit trail. Once run, things have changed on your workbook, and there’s no evidence as to why. Which means trying to work out why that key result looks odd is very difficult!
- Time – unless you’re a whizz with Visual Basic (the language of macros), anything but the simplest recorded keystrokes take a while to work out.
Having said all that, there’s a time and a place. Yes, I’ve used macros, and yes, they save you time if used correctly. If you want to start using macros in anger, why not take a look at our suggested starter book.