Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016. If you are using an earlier version (Excel 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Excel, click here: Using the Status Bar.
Typically, one of the first things you do when you create a macro is use a command that turns off updating the screen display. This is done because the macro will run faster when it does not have to update the screen. When this is done, one of the most important things you can do is provide feedback to the user so they don't think their system has gone out to lunch.
A common method of providing feedback is through the use of the status bar. Using VBA, this is done with a code line similar to the following:
Application.StatusBar = "Updating past months..."
This line causes the message Updating past months... to display on the status bar of the application program. This message remains there until another message is written to the status bar, either by your macro or by Excel.
If you want to erase the message on the status bar, there are two ways you can do it. The first is to write an empty string to the status bar, as in the following code:
Application.StatusBar = ""
In this case, there is nothing between the quote marks, so an empty string is displayed on the status bar, erasing whatever was there before. The other method is to use the following line:
Application.StatusBar = False
Writing the logical value FALSE to the Application.StatusBar property erases whatever you wrote on the status bar before and restores the default status bar text.
ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (12319) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: Using the Status Bar.
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2016-05-24 11:21:20
Glenn Case
When you do this, it's a good idea to include the Application.StatusBar = False statement as part of your error recovery routine so that you don't end up with a frozen status bar with a bad message after a crash.
If you don't normally use error recovers, to do this, you can just include
On Error GoTo ERR_RECOV
at the front of the procedure and
ERR_RECOV:
Application.StatusBar = False
just before the End Sub statement. Be sure that the flow of the procedure is such that you normally execute the Application.StatusBar = False statement if there is no error. If you get an error, execution will divert to that statement and the macro will end with the display status bar reset to normal conditions. This is something good to do with any conditions which might not reset if an error causes a crash, such as manual recalculation or Application.EnableEvents = False.
2016-05-21 11:35:23
Brian Lair
One more useful tidbit in this tip would be to say HOW to turn off screen updating. Fortunately, an Excel guru has already written about that: http://excelribbon.tips.net/T009151_Turning_Off_Screen_Updating.html
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Please Note:
This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016. If you are using an earlier version (Excel 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Excel, click here: 
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