vba - Excel: Recalculating every x seconds

Question

One of my spreadsheets deals with various calculations involving, among other things, the current date and time and it would be nice to have it automatically refresh itself once in a while instead of manually having to either press F9 or altering one of the cells.

Is there some way in Excel to set a spreadsheet to automatically recalculate itself every x seconds?

I haven't been able to find a setting in Excel itself, perhaps indicating that no such feature exists. If not, can this be achieved with VBA? (The latter may or may not sound like a silly question, but I have no prior experience with writing Excel macros and as such have no idea what its capabilities are in terms of manipulating spreadsheets.)

Answer 1

This code will create a clock, updated every 10 seconds.
Note that it only refreshes specific cells, and not the entire workbook - this means that you can leave the calculation options at whatever you are happy with:

Dim SchedRecalc As Date

Sub Recalc()
'Change specific cells
Range("A1").Value = Format(Now, "dd-mmm-yy")
Range("A2").Value = Format(Time, "hh:mm:ss AM/PM")
'or use the following line if you have a cell you wish to update
Range("A3").Calculate

Call StartTime ' need to keep calling the timer, as the ontime only runs once
End Sub

Sub StartTime()
SchedRecalc = Now + TimeValue("00:00:10")
Application.OnTime SchedRecalc, "Recalc"
End Sub

Sub EndTime()
On Error Resume Next
Application.OnTime EarliestTime:=SchedRecalc, _
        Procedure:="Recalc", Schedule:=False
End Sub

and, to make sure it stops, in the This Workbook module:

Private Sub Workbook_BeforeClose(Cancel As Boolean)
EndTime
End Sub