Thanks chip,

I'm downloading Microsoft VisualC, VisualBasic, and Visual C++ to have a
look at.

I'm sure I can write my program to function without having excel or similar
on the target machine, its being done for tens of thousands of programs
worldwide every day. Excel is a program, and it doesn't need any other
program on the machine to execute....In a very basic sense I want to be able
to store text and numeric values, then the program to present these in a
variety of list formats, drawing chart information and such from them. But I
need to be able to store the users entries in a database file to be reopened
when the program is again executed.

I can probably do most of this in Excel by learning more about Macros and
Visual Basic, and that would be great since it would significantly reduce my
learning curve, but I think then I'm still limited to the screen looking like
Excel, as opposed to opening with a nice video to start, and then leading
onto a welcome screen, and then giving selections for where the user wants to
go etc etc

If you think I can achieve all this without moving away from Excel please
let me know, because although very eager to learn and expand my capabilities,
I'm very much out of my depth at this point! :-)

Thanks.

"Chip Pearson" wrote:

Using Visual Basic can I compile self executing program files (.exe etc)
for
which the user will not have to own Excel or any other program?

There is nothing you can do to make your workbook(s) function fully on a
system without Excel. You can't package it up as some sort of exe. You can,
of course, compile your own DLLs or EXEs in VB, (6/NET/VSTO etc) but they
won't function without Excel being present on the target machine.


--
Cordially,
Chip Pearson
Microsoft MVP - Excel, 10 Years
Pearson Software Consulting
www.cpearson.com
(email on the web site)


"dim" wrote in message
...
Thanks for the answer Pranav,

I've been looking at Visual Basic and I think using it with Excel might
give
me the capabilities I want. I know this is an Excel forum, but I just
mentioned C++ as an example of a different road I could go down completely
moving away from Excel. I'm not saying I want to do this, I'm just open to
all options, and trying to figure out which is the best.

Using Visual Basic can I compile self executing program files (.exe etc)
for
which the user will not have to own Excel or any other program?

Thanks.