Such can be the nature of the beast.
I'm guessing that the two which work quickly are quite small files.
I can think of very little that can be done to improve this. One option
would be to create your self a macro to open the offending file take a copy
of the data into a spare tab and refer to that. The down side is that you
have to remember to 'update'.

I've been at the point where you are and sometimes you just have to have
your reference files open.

Giz



"Sean" wrote:

I have a spreadsheet that I have three Vlookups into external spreadsheets.
Two of them work brilliantly, but one takes ages to complete, unless the
file is open.
I have checked and I can't see any reasons why this should be. I have used
findlink.xla and made sure that the links are correct and there are no
duplications.
There are also a number of macro's run that are also very slow unless the
problem spreadsheet is open

If anyone can help or give advise it would be greatly appriciated