Sluggish Macro Execution

[Joe G]

I'm running Excel 2000 under Win 2000 on a 500 MHz P2
machine with 384 MB RAM. Everything runs plenty fast,
except macros that I've recorded in Excel to format
worksheet pages. The macros set margins, put simple text
in headers/footers, and turn on "shrink to fit" and "black
and white" options. I can "feel" the macro executing each
step in excruciatingly slow fashion, as if it's working
hard to display each small change before moving to the
next. It seems to me that things would move faster if I
could tell it to work in the background and then display
the final result.

My 166 MHz P1 laptop running Excel 2000 under Win95
executes the same macro at about the same speed, but
sometimes moves 10 times faster, depending on how it feels
on a given day.

Ideas?

 

[J.E. McGimpsey]

Page Setup takes forever using VBA.

For an XL4Macro solution based on one posted by MVP John Green, take
a look here:

http://www.mcgimpsey.com/excel/pagesetup.html

 

[Joe G]

Thanks for the help. I got part way down the road to
writing some new Excel 4 macros, but decided instead to
try another approach. The McGimpsey site indicated that
VBA seems to reach out to the printer driver before/after
each mod. to Page Setup. The elegant solution is to
select a fast printer before activating the macro. The
WinNT fax printer is just what the doctor ordered - it
runs the macro 5-10 times faster than my HP driver.

Joe