Microsoft discontinued support for Visual Basic for Applications (aka VBA) in Office for Mac 2008 –much to the dismay of its cross-platform customers – but I’ve confirmed that the feature will make its triumphant return in Excel 2011 for Mac, which will ship at the end of October 2010.
Office 2004 for Mac had it, Office 2008 for Mac lost it:
In Office 2004, you could create a button that, for example, triggered several search-and-replace steps in a row, shuffled things around on a spreadsheet, or magnified what’s on your screen to 150 percent. In 2008, it’s all gone.
Microsoft clarified its stance on VBA support in early 2008 after a rumor circulated that it was also being removed from the Windows version of Excel:
While it’s true that VBA isn’t supported in the latest version of Office for the Mac and the VBA licensing program did close to new customers last year, we have no plans to remove VBA from future versions of Office for Windows. We understand that VBA is a critical capability for large numbers of our customers; accordingly, there is no plan to remove VBA from future versions of Excel.
In May 2008 Microsoft announced that it would restore VBA in the next version of Office for the Mac and the good news is that it won’t happen on Microsoft’s typical four-year cycle — which would mean 2012. We can look forward to the return of macros to the Mac version of Office, in 2011.
I’ve confirmed that the MacBU will be bringing the latest version – VBA 6.5. And files will be compatible with the Windows version.
Good news indeed.
