How to refer to Excel objects in Access VBA?

Question

What declarations I have to make in order to be able to use Excel objects and constants from my Access 2007 VBA script?

Dim wb As Workbook

or

Set objExcelApp = New Excel.Application

or

.Borders(xlEdgeBottom)

Answer 1

I dissent from both the answers. Don't create a reference at all, but use late binding:

  Dim objExcelApp As Object
  Dim wb As Object

  Sub Initialize()
    Set objExcelApp = CreateObject("Excel.Application")
  End Sub

  Sub ProcessDataWorkbook()
     Set wb = objExcelApp.Workbooks.Open("path to my workbook")
     Dim ws As Object
     Set ws = wb.Sheets(1)

     ws.Cells(1, 1).Value = "Hello"
     ws.Cells(1, 2).Value = "World"

     'Close the workbook
     wb.Close
     Set wb = Nothing
  End Sub

You will note that the only difference in the code above is that the variables are all declared as objects and you instantiate the Excel instance with CreateObject().

This code will run no matter what version of Excel is installed, while using a reference can easily cause your code to break if there's a different version of Excel installed, or if it's installed in a different location.

Also, the error handling could be added to the code above so that if the initial instantiation of the Excel instance fails (say, because Excel is not installed or not properly registered), your code can continue. With a reference set, your whole Access application will fail if Excel is not installed.