I understand that DIM is the same as VAR in JS and that SET adds a reference to the object. I also understand that "set object = nothing" frees up memory, correct? With that said, I know you don't want to move too fast with my 101, but I have a question.

all that is correct, including moving to fast in this post.

I'm a little familiar with VBA in Excel within Excel and that is it. That is sort of what  got me into scripting. I started messing around with JS because it was cross-platform.

me too, Basic got me hooked to programming, it was ok for my own needs, then I moved to JS to do cross-platform scripting.

Could an XLSM file read....?

yes, it can. Let's do this, to try to keep this organized, start a new thread with your more advanced question and I'll try to help you there. You can copy/paste from here to the new thread.

Lesson 3: Create a new document, create a new layer, transfer data from Excel to AI

In lesson 2, I mentioned illustrator reversed the Y axis. That means that in CS4 and earlier, the origin was at the bottom left of the document and positive Y values went "up" from the bottom. In CS5, the origin moved to the top left corner of the document and positive values went "down" from the top.

are you confused yet? No? let me try harder. In order to keep existing scripts from breaking, if you create NEW documents in CS5, the axis will be at the bottom/left (just like CS4).

got it? cool, let's put our newfound knowledge to good use. In the next exercise, we will create a new document, add a second layer, a text frame to this new layer, and get the data in the first Cell in the Active Excel Document to add to the text frame

to create a new document with defaults, use the add method

idoc = iapp.documents.add

next we will create a new layer

Dim ilayer As Illustrator.Layer
Set ilayer = idoc.Layers.Add

and rename our newly created layer

ilayer.Name = "Data from Excel"

then add a text frame to the layer, as opposed to the document in the previous post

Set iframe = ilayer.TextFrames.Add

before we populate our text frame, go to Excel and type "Hello from Cell A1!", in Cell A1 in the Active Book.

declare a variable to hold Cell 1

    Dim myRange As Range
    Set myRange = Range("A1")

now use that to populate the text frame

iframe.Contents = myRange.Value

that's it!!,

last, we update the top position, to accommodate for the "new" document issue

    iframe.top = (docHeight / 2) + (frameHeight / 2)

here's the complete code

Sub helloWorld3()
    Dim iapp As New Illustrator.Application
    Dim idoc As Illustrator.Document
    Dim iframe As Illustrator.TextFrame
    Dim ilayer As Illustrator.Layer 'new
 
    Dim myRange As Range ' new
    Set myRange = Range("A1") ' new
 
    Set idoc = iapp.Documents.Add 'updated
    Set ilayer = idoc.Layers.Add 'new
 
    ilayer.Name = "Data from Excel" 'new
 
    Set iframe = ilayer.TextFrames.Add ' updated
 
    docWidth = idoc.Width
    docHeight = idoc.Height
 
    iframe.Contents = myRange.Value 'updated
    frameWidth = iframe.Width
    frameHeight = iframe.Height
 
    iframe.top = (docHeight / 2) + (frameHeight / 2) 'updated
    iframe.left = (docWidth / 2) - (frameWidth / 2)
 
    Set myRange = Nothing 'new
    Set ilayer = Nothing 'new
    Set iframe = Nothing
    Set idoc = Nothing
    Set iapp = Nothing
End Sub

Lesson 4: Creating Shapes, Working with Selections, writing data to Excel

In the Illustrator world a shape is a....well, I'm not going to bore you with technical terms only rocket scientists would understand....let's just say a Circle is a shape, as well as a Rectangle or a Star, there much better than the actual definition. Then in the scripting lingo all shapes are pathItems.

There are a number of ways of creating shapes, in this exercise well focus on using the various Methods of the PathItem Object.

to create a Circle we'll use the Ellipse Method, all arguments are optional, if we don't supply any, the method uses default values.

Ellipse

([top as Double]

[, left as Double]

[, width as Double]

[, height as Double]

[, reversed as Boolean]

[, inscribed as Boolean])

Dim icircle As Illustrator.PathItem
Set icircle = idoc.PathItems.Ellipse(300, 300, 100, 100)

similarly, to create a square, we use the Rectangle Method

Dim isquare As Illustrator.PathItem
Set isquare = idoc.PathItems.Rectangle(200, 200, 100, 100)

and to make a star we use the...hum...the Star Method

Dim istar As Illustrator.PathItem
Set istar = idoc.PathItems.Star(400, 400, 100, 50, 5)

now lets select the square and read some of its properties and write them down to Excel

isquare.Selected = True

get properties of the top most selection, in case we have many items selected, for now it should only be the square

    w = idoc.Selection(0).Width
    h = idoc.Selection(0).Height
    y = idoc.Selection(0).top
    x = idoc.Selection(0).left

and lets write those values to Excel, using the Cells object this time. Make sure you have a blank Excel book open, it will write data to the first 4 rows, 2 first columns

    Cells(1, 1) = "width: "
    Cells(1, 2) = w
    Cells(2, 1) = "height: "
    Cells(2, 2) = h
    Cells(3, 1) = "top: "
    Cells(3, 2) = y
    Cells(4, 1) = "left: "
    Cells(4, 2) = x

here's the complete code, from now on, we'll start every exercise with a blank Excel book and a blank Illustrator document, so please do that before runing.

Sub lesson4shapes()
    Dim iapp As New Illustrator.Application
    Dim idoc As Illustrator.Document
    Dim icircle As Illustrator.PathItem
    Dim isquare As Illustrator.PathItem
    Dim istar As Illustrator.PathItem
 
    Set idoc = iapp.ActiveDocument
 
    Set icircle = idoc.PathItems.Ellipse(300, 300, 100, 100)
    Set isquare = idoc.PathItems.Rectangle(200, 200, 100, 100)
    Set istar = idoc.PathItems.Star(400, 400, 100, 50, 5)
 
    isquare.Selected = True
    w = idoc.Selection(0).Width
    h = idoc.Selection(0).Height
    y = idoc.Selection(0).top
    x = idoc.Selection(0).left
 
    Cells(1, 1) = "width: "
    Cells(1, 2) = w
    Cells(2, 1) = "height: "
    Cells(2, 2) = h
    Cells(3, 1) = "top: "
    Cells(3, 2) = y
    Cells(4, 1) = "left: "
    Cells(4, 2) = x
 
    Set istar = Nothing
    Set isquare = Nothing
    Set icircle = Nothing
    Set idoc = Nothing
    Set iapp = Nothing
End Sub

Note that the code we just wrote is not the most efficient way of doing things, we don't have to select an object in order to work on it (get the properties for instance). We did it for illustration purposes, we could also use a loop to write data to Excel. We'll do that in the next lesson.

also, note that the top/left values don't match exactly with the values we entered (200, 200), homework, can you tell why?

thanks for your interest, more will come for sure...shortly.