XL97: "Run-time error '4599'" Running DDE Macro to Control Excel (176265)

RESOLUTION

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NOTE: If the Assistant is hidden, click the Office Assistant button on the Standard toolbar. If Microsoft Excel or Visual Basic Help are not installed on your computer, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: To work around this behavior using DDE, write a Visual Basic procedure or macro in Microsoft Excel to rename the sheet and have the DDE procedure run the Microsoft Excel procedure or macro to change the sheet name.

The following example uses Microsoft Word 97 as the program that contains the DDE macro that controls Microsoft Excel. It assumes that you are initiating a DDE channel to an existing workbook ("Book1.xls") and you are changing "Sheet1" to "New."

1. Start Microsoft Excel.
2. Save the new workbook as Book1.xls.
   
   Make sure that a sheet named Sheet1 exists.
3. Press ALT+F11 to start the Visual Basic Editor.
4. On the Insert menu, click Module.
5. Type the following code in the new module sheet:

          Sub Change_Name()
             Sheets("Sheet1").Name = "New"
          End Sub
   						

6. On the File menu, click "Close and Return to Microsoft Excel."
7. On the File menu, click Save. (Do not close Book1.xls.)
8. Leaving Microsoft Excel open, start Microsoft Word.
9. Repeat steps 3-4.
10. Type the following code in the new module sheet:

           Sub DDE_to_XL()
    
              ' Opens a DDE channel to Book1.xls in Microsoft Excel.
              Chan = DDEInitiate(App:="Excel", Topic:="book1.xls")
    
              ' Sends a DDE command to Microsoft Excel to run the
              ' Change_Name macro.
              DDEExecute Channel:=Chan, Command:="[Run(" & Chr(34) & _
                 "Change_Name" & Chr(34) & ")]"
    
              ' Closes the DDE channel to Book1.xls in Microsoft Excel.
              DDETerminate Channel:=Chan
    
           End Sub
    						

11. On the File menu, click "Close and Return to Microsoft Word."
12. On the Tools menu, point to Macro, and then click Macros. In the Macros dialog box, click "DDE_to_XL," and then click Run.
    
    After the macro executes, "Sheet1" should be changed to "New" in the workbook.