Excel VBA on a MAC

[korrywheeler]

I just finished an excel VBA project and now I need to share it with a colleague. The only problem is he has a MAC and we have not been able to load it on the MAC. Do we need to package it first into some format? What can we do to get the file open? Please let me know our best course of action.

 

[sijpie]

What Excel version is your colleague working with? As I understand it not all versions support macros. Apple had decided they did not need VBA as there is a good Apple macro system. Portability was obviously not in their mind. The latest version of Excel supports macros again, i am lead to believe.

 

[korrywheeler]

He is actually running numbers. Is it possible to get it to work on numbers?

 

[sijpie]

Pass, I know nothing about the Mac, other than the info I gave above. I don't understand what you mean with 'he is actually running numbers'.

 

[korrywheeler]

Sorry, that was a confusing statement. I meant that he is running the MAC spreadsheet program 'Numbers'

 

[sijpie]

Do a check: does his Excel support macros at all? (not the Mac macros but VBA macros) See this link

MS Excel: Open the Visual Basic Editor in Excel 2011 for Mac

 

[RoryA]

Numbers compatibility with Excel is not that great. As best I recall VBA won't work at all.

 

[sijpie]

Ah, now I understand what this Numbers is.
If it is an Apple product for sure it will only support AppleScript. See also this page - no mention of macros, only compatability with .xlsx workbooks
https://www.apple.com/mac/numbers/compatibility/

 

[Jim Gordon]

VBA is supported in Excel 2011 (the current version) and all previous editions except Excel 2008 on the Mac.

Numbers is a very simple spreadsheet program provided by Apple. Numbers has no support for VBA. The Numbers interface is simple and attractive, but its capabilities are minimal.

The mac version of Excel supports .xlam .xlsb so your projects can be made to work cross platform. You have to be careful you don’t accidentally force your code to be Windows-only. Hard coding file paths is a dumb idea. Including any Active-X controls will fail, as this open source technology was never ported to the Mac. Excel for Mac does not support slicers or PivotCharts. Almost everything else is the same as it is on the PC.