Relative References when Recording Macros

Hi Pete,
I mostly now use the recorder now just to get any tricky syntax which I have forgotten.
It is a good thing to learn to use at an early stage, but can lead to bad habits, - as you say picking out the key parts can be a bit difficult and tedious sometimes if you record too much. - I still have some old code I did with the recorder when I was a beginner, .. and I have never got around to tidying it up and removing all the unnecessary stuff and putting bits into a loop, etc.. ..
I think a good initial lesson in learning VBA would be to learn the recorder, but very importantly also to re write all that the recorder gives in a more efficient form. I think that last point is what is often neglected.

It is annoying when Microsoft change things for no apparent useful reason. Maybe they are just running out of useful new ideas, Lol… :)

_.....
Here a few discussions on the macro recorder and relative recording option:
https://www.excelforum.com/the-water-cooler/1097141-i-need-a-macro-that-is-so-simple-it-could-be-written-with-the-macro-recorder-8.html#post4195741
https://www.excelforum.com/the-water-cooler/1097141-i-need-a-macro-that-is-so-simple-it-could-be-written-with-the-macro-recorder-10.html#post4620960

Cheers,
Alan

HI, Alan. I think I compressed too many ideas into a short space and gave the wrong impression. I often use the macro recorder to learn how to code up a function; I didn't want to imply it isn't useful or that macros aren't useful -- quite the contrary. But it's only worth the time to build a macro if a task involves many steps or, especially, many repetitive steps. Since the recorder saves every single step, it can become quite a job to select the key parts of the resulting code and wrap one or more loops around them. But the coding would still be that much simpler if the relative-references option were available on the Mac. Indeed, the coding would be much easier if the IDE retained the features it had in Excel 2011! Thanks for the links you provided. I'll look through them!

Hi Pete Zicari,
Are you saying that macros are not possible with Excel 2016 for the Mac, or Recording Macros or just Relative References when Recording Macros.
Here some references from Microsoft on macro recording.
https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Create-or-delete-macro-in-Excel-2016-for-Mac-5bd3dfb9-39d7-496a-a812-1b5e8e81d96a
https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Enable-or-disable-macros-c2494c99-a637-4ce6-9b82-e02cbb85cb96
https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Run-a-macro-in-Excel-2016-for-Mac-957ba274-66cd-432f-ae30-120e9ad7115f
At first glance I do not see the relative referencing button, so possibly that is what you are referring to as missing in mac Excel 2016.

I think this following article is suggesting the relative referencing has disappeared with version 2016:
https://excel.uservoice.com/forums/304933-excel-for-mac/suggestions/10323087-bring-back-relative-references-in-macro-recording
How very strange of Microsoft to do that. ???
But not a lot of people use that in macro recording. I have reminded a few professionals about the relative recording option in macro recording. Possibly a Microsoft software engineer responsible for something in the mac 2016 Excel forgot about the relative recording option in macro recording and so it got left out by mistake!!!

The macro recorder is actually still used , I believe, by many very experienced professionals. It can be very helpful to get a start, or , in particular, to get tricky syntax correct. It can save a lot of time, and avoid having to memorise or keep a record of the almost infinite syntaxes.
I am not sure what you mean by converting a macro recording into something useful. ?? The basic idea is you use it to record the steps of something as you do it manually. Then either, as that recorded code is, or after some modifying of it, it will do that task for you. So whether it is useful or not will depend to some extent on how useful it was what you did manually.
As regards modifying / converting a macro recording to a better code… - Just bear in mind that the recorder simply copies exactly what you do. As humans we need to see and select things. Excel / VBA doesn’t.
You will typically see recordings looking like, pseudo code:-
Something.Select
Selection.DoSomething
To improve that you would simply modify / convert it to
Something.DoSomething

In brief, the macro recorder is , in my opinion very useful. It seems that a lot experienced computer programmers find it useful also.
Alan

This feature isn't available in Excel 2016 for the Mac -- where Microsoft evidently assumed that the artists and snowflakes who buy Macs wouldn't want to use macros. If you have a lesson on how to convert macro recordings into something that might be useful, I'd love to read it!