The current project, which uses open wbks, solves all those issues
satisfactorily - even dealing with flawed UsedRanges. What I am trying to do
is extend the current use of ADO and also work from closed wbks. It saves a
great deal of time.

And the beauty of using ADO (from a closed wbk) is that I can ignore having
to undo hidden rows, autofilters etc etc. In one experiment I hid all data
rows and columns, ran the process and it still produced the same final
results as if the wbk had been open BUT as I said a great deal quicker. On
average using ADO on a folder of closed wbks reduces processing time by half.
It is a prize worth pursuing as this application is only part of a wider
process.

Can you produce a flawed UsedRange wbk? I can't.
My only understanding of the phenomenon is they can be caused by "a frequent
change of data area, cutting and pasting" but who knows?

Geoff

"RB Smissaert" wrote:

hidden rows, hidden columns, autofilters, merged cells, wordwraps, end of
line characters
- some even without any field names

OK, I hadn't tested for all that.
Did you try the latest ADO code I posted?
Can't you produce a demo wb that has (all of) the above problems and make it
fail with ADO code?