Forum Discussion
ActiveX buttons unresponsive or having to be clicked twice to run macro
Hello, community! I inherited two Excel files that come with a bunch of ActiveX buttons. In some cases the buttons don't do anything: I click them, it shows kind of a duplicate image of the button ...
oi tudo bem Celia_Alves I have this issue too. I don't think it's W10 per-se as they were fine until recently - so it's something to do with a recent update I would say. I did look at replacing them with ordinary buttons but there was some disadvantage to that - which I can't recall right now. I'll try the "delete and replace with new" approach to see if that works, though, even if it does, it's hardly satisfactory. I don't recall a recent update coming with a disclaimer from MS saying that activeX macro buttons may not work (properly) anymore (mind you I expect what the small print actually says is that if their update causes Armageddon it's still not their fault!).
ActiveX buttons have never been very reliable in my experience. Given that it is unlikely that Microsoft will fix that issue I always advise:
1. Use the forms controls instead
2. Even better, avoid controls to begin with.
1. Use the forms controls instead
2. Even better, avoid controls to begin with.
- They worked reliably enough until recently for what I use them for which is generally to display and hide text boxes. I find this useful as you can display text to explain what a workbook/worksheet is doing/what it is for/how to sue it etc. and then hide the text so that it doesn't obscure the data. I don't know of another way to do that. I guess an ordinary button may work, but, as I say there is a snag to using them - which may be that I'd just have to edit all that worksheet vba I have. What a pain.
- As far as I know, regular shapes mostly behave themselves. You can assign macro's to a shape too, so it might fit your need?
- Maybe, I did look into it before and as I say there was a snag, I can't remember what it was, - I don't have time to look into it again right now - but, if, as you say, MS have now broken activeX controls and are unlikely to fix them, then I'll have no choice but to try that eventually.