Thanks you all for your inputs, K_Macd made me laugh...
I was able to get away with what I needed... actually was a series of three
files. I did the following and it worked fine

Public ElectronicFile, LaunchFile As String
Public wElectronicFile, wLaunchFile As Workbook

Private Sub Workbook_Open()
Dim DevDir, DevFile, DevFileMtr As String
Dim lDir, lFile, lFileMtr As String
Application.ScreenUpdating = False

ElectronicFile = ThisWorkbook.Name

lDir = Sheets("Electronic").Range("B2") & "\"
lFile = Sheets("Electronic").Range("B3") & ".xls"
lFileMtr = lDir & lFile

Workbooks.Open Filename:=lFileMtr, ReadOnly:=True
Set wLaunchFile = Workbooks(lFile)

DevDir = wLaunchFile.Sheets("Launch").Range("B2") & "\"
DevFile = wLaunchFile.Sheets("Launch").Range("B3") & ".xls"
DevFileMtr = DevDir & DevFile

Workbooks.Open Filename:=DevFileMtr, ReadOnly:=True

wLaunchFile.Close False
Workbooks(ElectronicFile).Close False
Application.ScreenUpdating = True

End Sub


"JLGWhiz" wrote:

I got the same results. The variable was empty when the second workbook
opened. So, if you go to the VBA help file for "Option Private Module", the
very last sentence in the last parragraph says you cannot reference across
projects in Visual Basic. Now that confuses me, the way it is written into
that paragraph. There is no menu selection for the Option Private Module,
it is VBA access only.


"K_Macd" <kmacdonald "A_T" activ8 ''D O T'' net [ST OP] au wrote in message
...
Then why the hell did the the good folk at Microsoft ever use the term
'public' ?
--
Ken
"Using Dbase dialects since 82"
"Started with Visicalc in the same year"


"Barb Reinhardt" wrote:

IIRC, public variables are valid within a project, not from project to
project.
--
HTH,

Barb Reinhardt



"Alberto Ast" wrote:

I need to open a file(2) when I open file(1) and then close file(1)
File(1) name can change so I need variables.

sequence will be
Open File(1)
Open File(2)... I do it by the following macro:

Public LaunchFile As String 'in this public variable I want to keep
file(1) name
Private Sub Workbook_Open()
Dim lDir, lFile, lFileMtr As String
lDir = Sheets("launch").Range("B2") & "\" 'direction of my file
to open
lFile = Sheets("launch").Range("B3") & ".xls" 'file name to openm
lFileMtr = lDir & lFile 'complete string of file(2)
LaunchFile = ThisWorkbook.Name 'filename file(1)
Workbooks.Open Filename:=lFileMtr, ReadOnly:=True
End Sub

then on file(2) I have
Private Sub Workbook_Open()
msgbox LaunchFile 'I did it to be sure value stays but it is blank
so
next line fail.
workbooks(LaunchFile).close false
End Sub

Any idea where am I failing?





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