sign up log in tour help

x Dismiss

Join the Stack Overflow Community

Stack Overflow is a community of 6.6 million

programmers, just like you, helping each other.
Join them; it only takes a minute:

Sign up

Comparing cells in a loop with VBA

I was asked to write a quick macro in VBA for comparing the values in two different cells in an Excel spreadsheet, then changing one of the
cells red if the value was less than the other. I was able to do this for one set of cells, but have not figured out how to do this for multiple cells.
In my macro, I'm comparing "E37" with "C40". I need to do this same comparison with "E44" and "C47", etc., each time I'm moving down 7
rows for each value. I also need a command to stop the routine if the cells are blank since not all of our spreadsheets are the same length.

I've already gotten a macro that executes this macro each time a value is entered into the spreadsheet. I assigned it at the sheet level, just
need to find a way to keep comparing the cells. Please see code below.

Sub colorcellMacro()
'
' colorcellMacro Macro
' change background color according to ref length
'

Range("E37").Select
If Range("E37") < Range("C40") Then
Range("E37").Select
With Selection.Interior
.Pattern = xlSolid
.PatternColorIndex = xlAutomatic
.Color = 255
.TintAndShade = 0
.PatternTintAndShade = 0
Range("H24").Select
End With
Else
Range("E37").Select
With Selection.Interior
.Pattern = xlNone
.TintAndShade = 0
.PatternTintAndShade = 0
End With
End If
End Sub

This is what I ended up using, it's a combination of the two suggestions.

'Sub colorcellMacro()
'
' colorcellMacro Macro
' change background color according to ref length
'

'
Dim firstIndex, secIndex As Integer

firstIndex = 37
secIndex = 40

Do While Range("E" & firstIndex).Value <> "" And Range("C" & secIndex).Value <> ""
If Range("E" & firstIndex).Value < Range("C" & secIndex).Value Then
Range("E" & firstIndex).Select
With Selection.Interior
.Pattern = xlSolid
.PatternColorIndex = xlAutomatic
.Color = 255
.TintAndShade = 0
.PatternTintAndShade = 0
Range("H24").Select
End With
Else
Range("E" & firstIndex).Select
With Selection.Interior
.Pattern = xlNone
.TintAndShade = 0
.PatternTintAndShade = 0
End With
End If
firstIndex = firstIndex + 7
secIndex = secIndex + 7

Loop

End Sub

excel vba excel-vba

edited Aug 4 '15 at 19:17 asked Jul 17 '15 at 18:44

Constuntine Mike Mc
438 1 15 13 3

Do the comparisons start at E37 and C40? As in, there are no comparisons higher up on the sheet?
Constuntine Jul 17 '15 at 18:47

2 Would conditional formatting not be a simpler approach? nbayly Jul 17 '15 at 18:48

2 Answers

Dim firstIndex, secIndex as Integer

firstIndex = 37
secIndex = 40

while Range("E" & firstIndex).Value <> "" and Range("C" & secIndex).value <> "" Then
` Do the comparison here
` Change the color here
firstIndex = firstIndex + 7
secIndex = secIndex + 7
next

Try this. If this doesn't work it will be something like this or close to it.

answered Jul 17 '15 at 18:51

Constuntine
438 1 15

this should work. I included the coloring code that you informed:

Sub colorCellMacro()

Dim firstRow As Integer

Dim secondRow As Integer

firstRow = 37
secondRow = 40

Do While Cells(firstRow, 5) <> "" And Cells(secondRow, 3) <> ""

If Cells(firstRow, 5).Value < Cells(secondRow, 3).Value Then
Cells(firstRow, 5).Select
With Selection.Interior
.Pattern = xlSolid
.PatternColorIndex = xlAutomatic
.Color = 255
.TintAndShade = 0
.PatternTintAndShade = 0
Range("H24").Select
End With
Else
Cells(firstRow, 5).Select
With Selection.Interior
.Pattern = xlNone
.TintAndShade = 0
.PatternTintAndShade = 0
End With
End If
firstRow = firstRow + 7
secondRow = secondRow + 7
Loop

End Sub

answered Jul 17 '15 at 19:54

fgalvao
57 9

This is the code that I went with and it seems to work just fine. Mike Mc Jul 21 '15 at 15:07

@MikeMc can you please accept the answer then? Thanks :) fgalvao Aug 3 '15 at 14:16