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 by using Visual Basic. See the application's documentation for more information.

To create a 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 about 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

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