Hi Bob and RD

I guess I've got a bit of tunnelvision there!

You are right of course, however, where I work we really don't have
to be concerned about these sort of issues as all our spreadsheets are
very small. A 100 x 100 sheet would be fairly large to us.

Our sheets handle some very complex equations but any data analysis
and data storage is handled by a couple of database programs.

Basically we use Excel like a very powerful programmable
scientific calculator. Rather than looking for a smart solution that will
encompass all possibilities. It is quite often simpler to break a
calculation
down to small workable components with the use of helper cells
and put it all back together at the end.

Due to the fact that we are only using a very small part of the program's
capabilities we can take a lot of freedoms that would be unthinkable
in other disciplines (as you both quite rightly pointed out.)

The bottom line is it works for us very very well. I'm sure there are
plenty of other users who use Excel with the same cavalier attitude
as ourselves but collectively we would be a very small minority group.

Kind Regards
Martin