Selecting a Range of Cells Relative to the Current Cell

Sometimes in a macro it is helpful to select cells relative to whichever cell is currently selected. For instance, let's say you want to select the first three cells of the current row. You can do that by using the following VBA code:

Range(Cells(Selection.Row, 1), Cells(Selection.Row, 3)).Select

The Cells property returns an object that represents a specific row and column (individual cell) of a worksheet. In this usage, Cells is used twice to determine a specific range of cells. The first instance returns the first cell of the current row, while the second returns the third cell of the current row. Thus, the range becomes the first through third cells of the current row.

Instead of using the Cells property to specify a location, you can use the Offset property to accomplish much of the same task. Consider the following code:

Range(ActiveCell.Offset(-3, 5), ActiveCell.Offset(0, 10)).Select

This uses the Offset property of the ActiveCell object to specify a range relative to the currently selected cell. The Offset property takes an argument that represents the row and column of the offset. A negative value represents up (for the row) and left (for the column). A positive value is down (for the row) and right (for the column). You can also use a value of 0, which represents the current row or column.