Getting the Workbook Name in VBA and Calling It from R

code
rtip
operations
vba
excel
Author

Steven P. Sanderson II, MPH

Published

July 24, 2024

Introduction

When working with Excel, it’s often useful to know the name of the workbook you’re working in, especially if you’re managing multiple files. Today, we’ll look at how to retrieve the workbook name using VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) and then call this VBA code from R. This post will walk you through the steps with clear examples and explanations. Let’s get to it!

Example

Getting the Workbook Name Using VBA

First, we’ll start with a simple VBA script to get the workbook name. VBA is a powerful tool integrated into Microsoft Office applications, allowing you to automate tasks and interact with various elements in your documents.

Here’s a basic example of VBA code that retrieves the name of the active workbook:

Sub GetWorkbookName()
    Dim wbName As String
    wbName = ThisWorkbook.Name
    MsgBox "The name of the active workbook is: " & wbName
End Sub

Explanation:

  1. Sub GetWorkbookName(): This line defines a new subroutine named GetWorkbookName. A subroutine in VBA is a block of code that performs a specific task.
  2. Dim wbName As String: This line declares a variable wbName that will hold the workbook’s name as a string.
  3. wbName = ThisWorkbook.Name: Here, we’re assigning the name of the active workbook (the one where this VBA code is being run) to the wbName variable.
  4. MsgBox “The name of the active workbook is:” & wbName: Finally, we use a message box to display the workbook name.

Calling VBA Code from R

Now that we have our VBA macro, the next step is to call it from R. This is particularly useful if you’re integrating Excel operations into your R workflows.

We’ll use the RDCOMClient package in R, which allows us to interact with COM (Component Object Model) objects, such as Excel. If you haven’t installed this package, you can do so with:

install.packages("RDCOMClient")

Here’s a simple R script to call our VBA subroutine:

library(RDCOMClient)

# Create an instance of the Excel application
excel_app <- COMCreate("Excel.Application")

# File Path
f_path <- "C:/path_to/workbook_name.xlsm"

# Open the workbook (replace 'f_path' with the actual path)
workbook <- excel_app$Workbooks()$Open(f_path)

# Run the VBA macro
excel_app$Run("GetWorkbookName")

# Close the workbook without saving changes
workbook$Close(FALSE)

# Quit Excel
excel_app$Quit()

# Release the object
rm(excel_app)

Explanation:

  1. library(RDCOMClient): This line loads the RDCOMClient package.
  2. COMCreate(“Excel.Application”): We create an instance of the Excel application.
  3. workbook <- excel_app\(Workbooks()\)Open(“f_path”): This line opens the specified workbook. Replace "f_path" with the path to your actual Excel file.
  4. excel_app$Run(“GetWorkbookName”): Here, we call the VBA subroutine GetWorkbookName to display the workbook’s name.
  5. workbook$Close(FALSE): We close the workbook without saving any changes.
  6. excel_app$Quit(): This closes the Excel application.
  7. rm(excel_app): Finally, we release the Excel application object to free up resources.

Here is a picture of the message:

VBA Workbook Name

Conclusion

With these simple steps, you’ve learned how to retrieve the name of an Excel workbook using VBA and how to call this VBA code from R. This combination can be quite powerful, especially when automating data processing tasks that involve both Excel and R.

Feel free to try this on your own. Experiment with different VBA scripts and see how you can integrate them into your R workflows. It’s a great way to streamline your work and make the most of both tools.

Happy coding!