You could break your long process into a number of sub-processes. You
could then show the list of processes and indicate progress by visibly
checking each when it is complete. Alternatively, you could estimate
what proportion of the total time is taken by each process and
increment a conventional progress bar (Robin Hammond's looks quite
nice <g) when each is complete.

The important thing is to reassure the user the machine hasn't crashed
an that something is happening. IE has a progress bar which simply
counts up in seconds and shoots up to max when complete!

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"Denny Behnfeldt" wrote in message ...
I have a lengthy procedure for which I would like to display a progress bar.
I have seen several excellent variations based on "percentage done".
My problem is that this procedure does a lot of different things that can't
be easily translated to a percentage. Examples:
It opens another file, formats it by deleting various columns and rows based
on certain criteria (the number varies between files), closes the file,
then goes from worksheet to worksheet (8 total) in the original and deletes
rows to match the new number, opens a different file for another purpose,
etc.
In other words, couId I use a progress bar to indicate events being
performed, instead of percentage done? Would I estimate the percentage, and
then update the progress bar (jumping maybe 10% at a time) after each
procedure is done? If this wouldn't work, maybe just keep updating a
MessageBox??
Any ideas on how would I do this?

I know I can use the status bar with text, but it's not very noticeable.

Any help is greatly appreciated,
Denny