SOLVED: Late Binding File Dialog in VBA Example

I have been trying to figure out a solution to late binding the file dialog object for a long time. I have played with the code, googled for examples and haven’t had much luck until today when a generous visitor of ours posted the solution in the comments of our Select or Open a file in VBA with file dialog post.

The original FileDialog post referenced above shows an example of how to use the FileDialog object with the requirement of adding a reference to the Microsoft XX.X Office Object Library. When using late binding, no reference is needed. The code just works.

Our visitor’s comment of the example originated from an accepted answer on a StackOverflow thread: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1091484/how-to-show-open-file-dialog-in-access-2007-vba. For the purposes of this post, I modified the StackOverflow example to better handle when users cancel out of FileDialog. This example works across all office products (Word, Excel, Access, Outlook, etc…) and Office versions 2007, 2010, 2013.

Late Binding File Dialog in VBA

'--------------------------------------------------
' File Browse Code
'--------------------------------------------------
' NOTE: Late binding version needs no
' MS Office Object Library Reference
'--------------------------------------------------
Function selectFile()
    Dim fd As Object
    Set fd = Application.FileDialog(3)
    
    With fd
        If .Show Then
            selectFile = .SelectedItems(1)
        Else
            'stop execution if nothing selected
            End
        End If
    End With
    
    Set fd = Nothing
End Function

For example-sake, here is the example that uses early binding:

Early Binding File Dialog Example With VBA

'--------------------------------------------------
' File Browse Code
'--------------------------------------------------
'NOTE: To use this code, you must reference
'The Microsoft Office 14.0 (or current version)
'Object Library by clicking menu Tools>References
'Check the box for:
'Microsoft Office 14.0 Object Library in Access 2010
'Microsoft Office 15.0 Object Library in Access 2013
'Click OK
'--------------------------------------------------
Function selectFile()
    Dim fd As FileDialog
    Set fd = Application.FileDialog(msoFileDialogFilePicker)
    
    With fd
        If .Show Then
            selectFile = .SelectedItems(1)
        Else
            'stop execution if nothing selected
            End
        End If
    End With
    
    Set fd = Nothing
End Function

As mentioned above, this is something that has been driving me crazy for a long time. The reason this example works is because of the enumeration of msoFileDialogFilePicker to 3. Without the MS Office XX.X Object Library reference, the language interpreter doesn’t know what msoFileDialogFilePicker means.

Please comment with any suggestions, improvements, banter, etc…