Originally Posted by macropod

Hi Dave,

If you open the workbook without allowing it to update the links, they'll
retain the same amount of displayed data as when they were last saved. This
may allow you to open just those source workbooks that have been updated
since the target workbook was last saved. If you then open and close the
updated source workbooks sequentially, that should keep the performance hit
to a minimum. To make life easier, all this is possible through code. For
example, MS provides sample code for opening linked workbooks at:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/213647/en-us
For your purposes, you'd probably want to modify the MS code to test the
source workbook's date/time stamp before opening it and to it again before
moving on to the next one.

Cheers

--
macropod
[MVP - Microsoft Word]


"Dave H" wrote in message
...

I am linking a master spreadsheet to numerous spreadsheets. I am
pulling in text back to the master spreadsheet. I know that excel has
a 255 character limit for linked cells. I noticed however that when I
initially establish the link I can pull in 700+ characters. I have
realized that you get all the characters when the source spreadsheet is
open. In my case opening that many large spreadsheets would probably
overload my computer. Is there a way to trick excel into getting all
this without opening all these files?


--
Dave H