VBA Cell Value – Get, Set, or Change

This tutorial will teach you how to interact with Cell Values using VBA.

Set Cell Value

To set a Cell Value, use the Value property of the Range or Cells object.

Range.Value & Cells.Value

There are two ways to reference cell(s) in VBA:

• Range Object – Range(“A2”).Value
• Cells Object – Cells(2,1).Value

The Range object allows you to reference a cell using the standard “A1” notation.

This will set the range A2’s value = 1:

Range("A2").Value = 1

The Cells object allows you to reference a cell by it’s row number and column number.

This will set range A2’s value = 1:

Cells(2,1).Value = 1

Notice that you enter the row number first:

Cells(Row_num, Col_num)

Set Multiple Cells’ Values at Once

Instead of referencing a single cell, you can reference a range of cells and change all of the cell values at once:

Range("A2:A5").Value = 1

Set Cell Value – Text

In the above examples, we set the cell value equal to a number (1).  Instead, you can set the cell value equal to a string of text.  In VBA, all text must be surrounded by quotations:

Range("A2").Value = "Text"

If you don’t surround the text with quotations, VBA will think you referencing a variable…

Set Cell Value – Variable

You can also set a cell value equal to a variable

Dim strText as String
strText = "String of Text"

Range("A2").Value = strText

Get Cell Value

You can get cell values using the same Value property that we used above.

Get ActiveCell Value

To get the ActiveCell value and display it in a message box:

MsgBox ActiveCell.Value

Assign Cell Value to Variable

To get a cell value and assign it to a variable:

Dim var as Variant

var = Range("A1").Value

Here we used a variable of type Variant. Variant variables can accept any type of values.  Instead, you could use a String variable type:

Dim var as String

var = Range("A1").Value

A String variable type will accept numerical values, but it will store the numbers as text.

If you know your cell value will be numerical, you could use a Double variable type (Double variables can store decimal values):

Dim var as Double

var = Range("A1").Value

However, if you attempt to store a cell value containing text in a double variable, you will receive an type mismatch error:

Other Cell Value Examples

Copy Cell Value

It’s easy to set a cell value equal to another cell value (or “Copy” a cell value):

Range("A1").Value = Range("B1").Value

You can even do this with ranges of cells (the ranges must be the same size):

Range("A1:A5").Value = Range("B1:B5").Value

Compare Cell Values

You can compare cell values using the standard comparison operators.

Test if cell values are equal:

MsgBox Range("A1").Value = Range("B1").Value

Will return TRUE if cell values are equal. Otherwise FALSE.

You can also create an If Statement to compare cell values:

If Range("A1").Value > Range("B1").Value Then

  Range("C1").Value = "Greater Than"

Elseif Range("A1").Value = Range("B1").Value Then

  Range("C1").Value = "Equal"

Else

  Range("C1").Value = "Less Than"

End If

You can compare text in the same way (Remember that VBA is Case Sensitive)