Hey guys, welcome back. So in this video, we're going to speak about how to record a basic macro. So in order to record a basic macro, you need to go to the developer tab on the ribbon, and then click on record macro. So this way you're able to record some actions and then play them back whenever you want. So as you can see, here, I've got a dialog box that enables me to name the macro, so I can name it my macro, for example. And the naming of the macro has some restrictions.
So for example, you cannot put a space on the name of the macros. So if I put a space here, and click OK, you're gonna get this error here the syntax of this name is not correct. So basically, you cannot put a space you cannot put an exclamation mark $1 sign. So basically, there are some signs here on the keyboard that you cannot use. However, you can actually use an underscore if you want to. So I can emit more Micro this way, and here you can assign a shortcut key.
So it can be Ctrl and any other key on the keyboard and you can make it Ctrl and Shift and n here for example. Also, you have the option to store the macro either in this workbook, which is this workbook that is currently open here, there's cold book one, or you can store in a new workbook. So this way if you click OK, a new workbook will be opened and the macro will be stored in that workbook. Or if you choose to store it in the personal macro workbook. This way it will be stored in a workbook called the personal macro workbook. And this enables you to have the macro available in each and every workbook that you open in Excel from now on.
I'm just gonna choose to start in this workbook and I'm going to click OK. So this way I've started recording the macro what I'm going to do, I'm going to select cell A one and type my name, and then press enter and then I'm going to stop recording. So now I've recorded a macro and all it does is that it puts you My name in cell A one. Now to examine that macro, you can go under the developer tab here, you can go to macros, and here on my macro, you can click on edit, and then you can have a look at the code of the recorded macro. You can also click on alt n f 11 on your keyboard. And here on module one here, you will find the macro and a module is basically a container for your macros.
Think about it this way, we'll speak about it as well later on in the course. Okay, so we've recorded a macro and excel vba has just recorded our actions and transform them into some code. So now I can actually delete here, the contents of cell 81. And if I just go to macros again and here on my macro, I click on Run, a macro is going to run and it's going to put my name in cell A one. So as you can see our Excel just repeated our actions again and our actions here are to basically select cell A one put my name in the cell and then because when you press enter, you go to the cell just below it. So here, we've gotten to sell a two cell A two has been selected.
And if you do not understand what this code does, do not worry by the end of the course or even by the middle of the course, you'll be able to understand it perfectly fine. So don't worry about the code at the moment. Okay, one more thing I want to tell you as well is that if you need to save a workbook that contains a macro, so if I press Ctrl S to save my workbook here, and here on Save eyes, if I click on browse, you can see here I have the chance to save the workbook, you need to make sure to save it as an Excel macro enabled workbook. You cannot save it as an Excel workbook, because a normal Excel workbook will not save a macro. One more thing I want to show you as well is how you can assign a macro to a button or a shape.
So you can insert a simple button here by going to the Insert button. button here under the developer tab and clicking on button and here you have a button and then if you click OK, the button will be inserted. So in order to assign a macro to that button, you can right click on the button itself and click on assign macro and then assign your macro here that you recorded called my macro for example, and then click OK and then whenever you press that button, the macro is going to run you can also do it with a shape so you can insert any shape here insert a shape and then right click on it assign macro and assign the macro as well. And this works with any form control here on there, the developer tab on the Insert button here so you can insert any active extra form control and then assign the macro to that control using the same way.
And if you need to edit the text insights, you can right click here, click on edit text and you can edit the text as well. Okay, so that's it. for recording a basic macro thank you very much watching this video and I'll see you on the next one.