Working Across Applications

Visual Basic can create new objects and retrieve existing objects from many Microsoft applications. Other applications may also provide objects that you can create using Visual Basic. See the application's documentation for more information.

To create an new object or get an existing object from another application, use the CreateObject function or GetObject function:

' Start Microsoft Excel and create a new Worksheet object.
Set ExcelWorksheet = CreateObject("Excel.Sheet")

' Start Microsoft Excel and open an existing Worksheet object.
Set ExcelWorksheet = GetObject("SHEET1.XLS")

' Start Microsoft Word.
Set WordBasic = CreateObject("Word.Basic")

Most applications provide an Exit or Quit method that closes the application whether or not it is visible. For more information on the objects, methods, and properties an application provides, see the application's documentation.

Some applications allow you to use the New keyword to create an object of any class that exists in its type library. For example:

Dim X As New Field

In this case, Field is an example of a class in the data access type library. A new instance of a Field object is created using this syntax. Refer to the application's documentation for information about which object classes can be created in this way.