Question

I’m trying to dynamically transpose a Recordset over a Range in Excel using VBA. I can do the transposition succesfully when I give it a static range such as this:

Range("A1:C16").Select
Range("A1:C16").Value = Application.WorksheetFunction.Transpose(scores)

When I try to use an equivalent string and pass it in to the Range function, however, it fails. My variable trange when printed out is “A1:C16” (including the double quotes). The reason I need to pass it a string is because the string is derived from a length variable which could be any value.

This code below fails:

Dim trange As String
trange = """A1:C" & slength & """"
MsgBox (trange)
Range(trange).Select
Range(trange).Value = Application.WorksheetFunction.Transpose(scores)

Unfortunately, escaping double quotes in VBA is ugly and that’s why my trange assignment expression looks strange but when I MsgBox it, it is in fact giving me the correct value.

Answer 1

Using string concatenation to construct range addresses is a bad idea. It’s messy and error-prone (as your example illustrates!).

Instead of Range("A1:C16"), you can say any of the following:

Range("A1").Resize(16, 3)
Cells(1, 1).Resize(16, 3)
Range(Cells(1, "A"), Cells(16, "C"))
Range(Cells(1, 1), Cells(16, 3))

There are probably more possibilities. The key is that none of them involve string concatenation.

Replace 16 by slength in any of the examples above to make your variable-size range.

Also, it’s good practice specify what worksheet you’re referring to. Instead of plain Range(anything), use e.g.

Sheet1.Range(anything)
Worksheets("Sheet1").Range(anything)

or even better,

With Sheet1
    .Range(anything)
    ' other stuff on Sheet1
End With