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Part of my job right now is to build some dynamic functionalities into Microsoft Office documents. The only means I've found to do this is through VBA - and thus, the VBA editor which comes built in to Office docs.

The VBA editor is awful. It's missing a million different functionalities that modern development environments need to support. But the worst part is that I'm a hard-core Vim lover, and the VBA editor is barely any better than notepad.

So: Is there any way I can effectively use Vim to do VBA programming? Short of copy-pasting my code into the VBA editor from a different window when I want to try it?

Austin R
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  • I'm sure the answer is "no." If by dynamic functionality, you mean events, how about VSTO or something along those lines? Then you could use Visual Studio's IDE, which does have some kind of vim addin. I know because I thought it would be good to learn vim, and installed it. (I failed). – Doug Glancy Dec 03 '12 at 03:11
  • possible duplicate of [Is there an alternative IDE for VBA development?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/40741/is-there-an-alternative-ide-for-vba-development) – SeanC Dec 03 '12 at 19:33

2 Answers2

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I've never used the VBA editor, but here's something I've done with MS Visual Studio. (MSVS's editor does have some nice features, but I still prefer vim for most editing.)

I open or create the source file in MSVS. I then get the full path to the file (by right-clicking on the tab and selecting "Copy Full Path"), and open the same file in vim in a different window.

I use alt-tab to bounce back and forth between vim and MSVS. When I make a change in vim, I use :w to write the change, then alt-tab back to MSVS. The MSVS editor notices that the file has changed on disk and offers to read the updated version.

Alternatively, if I change the file in MSVS, I write the file (File > Save ...), then alt-tab to vim and use :e! to read the updated file into the vim buffer.

There's no need to copy-paste the code, since both editors are operating on the same disk file. I just have to be very careful not to make changes in both vim and MSVS without writing the file to disk.

It's ugly, and it's not for everyone, but it works for me. Maybe it will work for you.

I use Cygwin, so it's actually a little more complicated; Cygwin programs, including vim, don't recognize Windows-style paths. I can do this:

vi $(cygpath 'WINDOWS_PATH')

where WINDOWS_PATH is pasted from the full path I get from MSVS. The single quotes are necessary to keep the shell from interpreting the \ characters. If you're using a Windows native vim, this step isn't necessary.

Keith Thompson
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    I've considered this, but unfortunately any VBA code you write for an Office doc is embedded into it - the code doesn't appear in it's own file anywhere on disk. – Austin R Dec 02 '12 at 23:58
  • Also - do you actually use vi for your editing rather than vim? That's interesting :-) – Austin R Dec 02 '12 at 23:59
  • @AustinR: Ok, then I guess this won't work for you, at least not without some extra work. On my system, the `vi` command invokes `vim` (in text mode, not GUI). – Keith Thompson Dec 03 '12 at 01:24
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That's an interesting opinion. I used VI briefly about fifteen years ago and based on that I contend that the VBA editor is far more suited to its purpose than VI (or VIM?) would be. Is there one particular piece of functionality that it is missing from the VBA editor that precludes you effectively using it for its purpose (editing VBA)? VBA has not been enhanced for many many years, but the fact is it can't be killed off because everyone finds it so easy to use.

If you wish you can write some piece of code in your preferred language that manipulates your word document via COM objects (if it supports that). Then you can call your external piece of code from a simple stub within your Word document. You need to get around some security constraints though in your Word document.

For example I could write some code in VBScript or VBA or Powershell or .Net that manipulates a word doc. I can call that from a small piece of VBA (that might be attached to a button or something in the standard word toolbar)

Nick.Mc
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    I actually agree - I find VBA fairly easy to use, and it certainly does everything I need it to. I find the environment to be pretty outdated, but that doesn't mean it doesn't work. My complaint is that I'm unable to use Vim to edit VBA code, since it's embedded into the doc itself. – Austin R Dec 03 '12 at 14:33
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    Best answer I got - I think what I'm really looking for is impossible. – Austin R Dec 10 '12 at 15:34