(
Visual
Basic for
Applications) A subset of Visual Basic that provides a language for customizing Microsoft applications. It is typically used in Excel to format cells and generate reports. VBA supports COM, which allows a VBA script to invoke internal functions within Excel, Word and other COM-based programs or to make use of stand-alone, external COM objects.
VBA evolved into a common language to consolidate earlier macro and scripting languages. Since 1996, VBA has been licensed to third parties for use in non-Microsoft applications within the Windows environment. See
COM,
COM automation and
application programmability.