Pausing execution

When you use Office Scripts to write a program that depends on external processes, you may sometimes want to pause processing for a certain amount of time.

This article explains how to use Office Scripts to implement a wait for a specified number of seconds.

About asynchronous processing

To implement a wait, we use an asynchronous function with async/await.

For details on asynchronous functions, see the following page.

Implement asynchronous processingThis article gives an overview of asynchronous processing with async/await and with Promise, and explains how to implement it in Office Scripts, with sample code.

Define a function that waits for a specified number of seconds

Define a function that returns a Promise object that completes after the specified time (in milliseconds) has passed.

Function that waits for a specified number of seconds

/**
 * @param ms Time to wait (in milliseconds)
 */
function wait(ms: number) {
  return new Promise<void>((resolve) => setTimeout(() => resolve(), ms));
}

Sample code

Add async to the main function, and call the wait function defined above with await.

Sample that continues after waiting for a set time

async function main(workbook: ExcelScript.Workbook) {
  console.log('Processing started');

  await wait(1000);

  console.log('1 second has passed');
}

Loops (iteration)Explains how to implement loops in Office Scripts using for statements, while statements, and forEach, with sample code.