Microsoft Access VBA is a programming language that can greatly enhance the functionality of your Microsoft Access database. With it, you can automate tasks, create macros to help manually enter repetitive data and make your database easier to use and maintain.

VBA stands for Visual Basic for Applications and is a subset of the Visual Basic programming language. Microsoft Access database development with VBA can manipulate text, dates, numbers, and even graphics, control your mouse movements and position for the screen and change how data is displayed or entered. You can also create custom objects from scratch or import objects from other development environments such as Visual Basic or Visual FoxPro.

Microsoft Access Understand VBA code

The users can compile macros and code written in Microsoft Access with VBA into a stand-alone executable file called an “acdb.” It is an extension and can then be invoked by name. When the code is run, it executes it as if it were being executed from within Access. It can access the database that it is running in, including tables and forms. It permits an act to do things that Access cannot. An additional benefit of using macros as an addition to a form or report is that the code will run entirely client-side—the user will not need to have an Access application open or have the appropriate components installed on their system for the code to work.

VBA and its Codes 

Code can be written in VBA using a variety of techniques. A large part of VBA is manipulating objects you are working on in your window or form. For example, sentences can be made bold, or a table can be made wider by one row. Keep in mind that the items you have selected when writing code are not saved on the computer—all state changes what is going on in your window will be lost when you close your application. 

To preserve your code, you need to copy it from the Access window into a text editor like Notepad or a word processor such as Microsoft Word or Microsoft Publisher. Then you can either paste the code back into the embedded VBA editor within Access or remove it and save it in an encrypted format.

VBA Functions And Methods

Even while editing a table in Microsoft Access database development with VBA or report, the VBA that is being written is not saved in your database. So, unless you have an acdb version of your VBA code, it will be lost when you close down Access.

Turn on the Developer tab if you want to save your VBA code while working on a form. Within this tab, there is an option for Macros. The Design view option will appear in the drop-down by selecting this option. It allows saving and even editing your macros much like a word processor would. The method used to access the objects within Access is called VBA syntax. Visual Basic for Applications has several commands that you can use in Access macros. All of the commands are built-in and are not in any way programmable. 

Complex multi-step processes use objects on the Access database rather than just processing data in a table or form. As a result, it allows you to reuse code that has been written and tested many times, with the only limits being on how much space is available to save the expanded code file.

Conclusion 

VBA is an initialism for Visual Basic Application and a name of the language used to program Microsoft Office Applications such as Excel, Access, and Outlook. Microsoft Access with VBA helps these applications be programmed to how users want them to behave. The VBA is usually written in a macro, also called a code module. A macro can contain many subroutines.

VBA is one of the languages supported by Windows Script Host used in conjunction with HTML, JavaScript, or any other scripting language that supports WSH.

So, if you need specific functionality in your application and can’t find an extension that provides it out of the box, you may want to consider developing a custom one; integrate your application with MS Office OneNote.