Okay I see the point, they want to make it seem like a data base
application which would be already open elsewhere, and you will
not see any indication that the file is being opened to get a value.
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HTH,
David McRitchie, Microsoft MVP - Excel [site changed Nov. 2001]
My Excel Pages: http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/excel.htm
Search Page: http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/search.htm

"Harlan Grove" wrote in message ...
"David McRitchie" wrote...
In other words it is not an Excel file so you can't access the data
without opening the file. (Even if I understood the concept of
looking at a file without opening it.)
...

People access values in closed workbooks pretty regularly. Do you understand
that concept?

It's possible to access values in closed CSV files using SQL.REQUEST and the
text file ODBC driver. I don't know the details, but there may be something
on this at

http://www.bygsoftware.com/Excel/sql.htm

Picking nits, SQL.REQUEST would open the file in background in order to pull
data from it then close it, but the file wouldn't need to be open in
foreground in Excel.