How to use MacID function in VBA?

The MacID function in VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) is used to return a constant that represents the Macintosh file type. However, it’s a function that was provided for compatibility with Macintosh versions of Microsoft Office prior to Office 2011, and it’s most likely not needed or supported in current VBA versions for Windows. Mac-specific VBA is not commonly used now due to the unification of Office across platforms with Office 365 and subsequent versions. The MacID function was used to supply file type constants to the Dir function to specify file types on a Mac, primarily because Macintosh systems used type codes to identify file types before macOS X. Here is a simplified example of how it could have been used (presumably in older versions of Office for Mac):

Dim fileType As String
fileType = Dir(MacID("TEXT"))

While fileType <> ""
    ' Do something with the file
    fileType = Dir() ' Get next file
Wend
The MacID(“TEXT”) part is where the MacID function is used to specify that you’re interested in files of the text type. Please note that in modern VBA, particularly on Windows, you would instead use file extensions to work with files of a certain type, and the MacID function is not available or required. For example, to find .txt files, you would do:

Dim fileType As String
fileType = Dir("*.txt")

While fileType <> ""
    ' Do something with the file
    fileType = Dir() ' Get the next .txt file
Wend
If you are working on a Mac and developing macros with Office for Mac 2011 or later, you do not need to use the MacID function as file identification is handled differently now. For current development on Windows or Mac, you should use standard file extension filters and methods provided by VBA that are cross-compatible between both operating systems. If you are working with an extremely old version of Office for Mac, you might need to refer to the specific documentation for that version or upgrade to a newer version that provides a consistent VBA experience across Windows and Mac computers.

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