Excel UDF

This page is still a work in progress.

The Excel UDF offers functions to control and manipulate Microsoft Excel workbooks.

Features

New versions of Microsoft Office have been released since the last changes were made to the Excel UDF. The new extensions (e.g. xlsx) were not (fully) supported, new functions were missing etc. The current version of the Excel UDF lifts this limitations.

Works with as many instances of Excel as you like - not just one
Works with any Workbook - not just the active one
Works with any Worksheet - not just the active one
Only does what you tell it to do - no implicit "actions"
Only one function to read from a cell or a range
Only one function to write a string, a 1D or 2D array to a cell or a range
Support for every file format Excel supports
Speed enhancements when transferring data from/to an Excel sheet (20 - 100 times faster)

Concepts

Range

A Range is a rectangular block made of one or more cells that Excel treats as a unit. The functions of the UDF mainly work with ranges. A range - unlike a selection - is not visible on the screen.

Cell reference

The UDF only supports the A1 form (example: B7) to reference cells. The R1C1 form (example R7C2) is not supported. But the UDF provides functions to translate a cell reference between this two forms.

Examples

Single cell: B7
Multiple cells: A1:B7
Row(s): 2 or 3:5
Column(s): B or D:F

Script breaking changes after AutoIt version 3.3.10.2.

New versions of Microsoft Office have been released since the last changes were made to the Excel UDF. New file types and new functions needed to be supported, hence the UDF was complete rewritten.

Some functions/parameters have been removed or renamed, new functions/parameters have been added. A detailed list of changes can be found here.

General

All function names have been changed from _Excel* to _Excel_*.

@extended no longer contains the number of the invalid parameter. The code returned in @error tells exactly what went wrong.

The following list shows the old/new function/parameter name (a "-" is shown if the function/parameter has been removed) and some example scripts how to mimic the behaviour of the "old" UDF. If there is no entry for a removed function/parameter then there is no need for this functionality.

Function -/_Excel_Open

It's mandatory now to call function _Excel_Open. This function didn't exist in the old UDF. @extended is set if Excel was already running.

Parameter $s_FilePath/-

Optional parameter to specify the file to open upon creation. Use _Word_DocOpen or _Word_DocAdd now.