Macro vs. Add-In

[mark1]

What's the difference between a macro and an add-in? I
downloaded an Add-In off the internet and it seems like
it's basically just a macro.

If this is true then how do you convert a macro into an
Add-In?

 

[Jim Rech]

What's the difference between a macro and an add-in?

What's the difference between gasoline and a car? Gas makes a car go.
Macros make an add-in go.

A macro is a computer program (in the case of Excel) written in Visual Basic
for Applications (VBA). The code can be saved in an Excel file. The file
can be saved in several forms depending on your goals - a regular workbook,
a template file or an add-in. Each has its own purposes/advantages. An
add-in is generally intended to provide additional capabilities to Excel.
Say you want to enhance Excel with a "convert text in the current selection
to all lower case" command. You could write a macro to do that and save it
as an add-in and have it load automatically when Excel starts. And you
could write additional code in the add-in to add a command to the Excel
menus to run this convert macro. Add-ins open invisibly; you don't see
their worksheets. That's because you don't care about its worksheets, all
you want is to have the code available to work on whatever workbook is
active.

--
Jim Rech
Excel MVP
| What's the difference between a macro and an add-in? I
| downloaded an Add-In off the internet and it seems like
| it's basically just a macro.
|
| If this is true then how do you convert a macro into an
| Add-In?