Well, a "program" in general is a series of instructions or steps. Something
like this:
1) Create a variable, call it "base" and set it to 1
2) Ask the user to type in a number, and call the number "power"
3) Do the next two steps "power" times:
4) Multiply "base" by 2
5) Display a window showing the new value of "base" (ie 2, 4, 8, 16 etc)
6) Display a window saying "That's all!" and stop
A program like the above would get you to type in a power, and it would then
display two to each power from 1 up to the top limit you typed in. That's a
pretty simple program, but there's no theoretical limit to how complex and
intelligent a program you can write: As long as you can figure out what
instructions will accomplish your purpose, you can write a program to do it.
Doing what you want to do in this case wouldn't be very hard, once you know
how it works -- simpler, in my opinion, than doing the same thing with Excel
worksheet functions and formulae.
VBA is a particular language for doing this kind of thing -- a "language" in
the same sense that the Excel worksheet functions themselves could be
considered a "language" -- and it comes with Excel, so you already have the
tools you need to do much fancier things than the Excel worsheet functions
can do for you. (Don't get me wrong; I think the Excel worksheet functions
are pretty darned useful.) What you may not have is the interest it takes to
learn to write these programs: Some people think it is the neatest thing
since codes and decryption, and other people burst into tears of misery after
the first half hour's exposure. I'm one of the former, and so are a lot of
other people here, but if you're not then you're probably stuck with using
the formulae, which for your purpose is possible but pretty complicated; a
program would be simpler, but only if you find you have any interest in
writing program at all.
(Me, I thought it sounded boring back when my best friend described it; I
took a class in it only reluctantly, thinking in my chosen profession I
should know something about it. To my surprise it was utterly fascinating; I
still routinely find myself up at three in the morning because I "just want
to figure out this one thing".)
So here's the thing: If you want to get an introduction to VBA programming,
contact me via email and I can take you far enough a) to discover whether
this sort of thing is for you, and if it is then b) to get your program
written. No need to feel reluctant on my behalf: I make such offers it's
fun for me, so you won't catch me complaining later, and if I get too busy
I'll just say so.
If learning how to make Excel do much fancier things than you've thought of
so far sounds boring, too much like work, there's no shame in that; I'll give
you a brief outline of how I'd do it with formulae and we'll see whether you
like that option better. Me, I think learning more programming stuff is just
plain neat, so don't let my enthusiasm talk you into trying something you'd
really rather not bother with.
