thanks for the pointer, not sure if you mean its not possible to write to a
closed workbbok as rons page is about retrieving from a closed book,not quite
what i was looking for but some interesting stuff on rons page. im sure ill
be back there in the future. i also today found the text i had read and
believe i had miss read it anyway

thanks for taking the time to respond

"KC Rippstein" wrote:

The old XLM language can retrieve a value from a closed workbook
(ExecuteExcel4Macro) and can be run via VBA, but it does not write to a
closed workbook.

Ron deBruin has a site which discusses using ADO to accomplish
reading/writing with closed files.
http://www.rondebruin.nl/ado.htm
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"pete the greek" wrote:

hi all

is it possible to update the value of a cell in an unopened work book, im
sure i have read it somewhere but cant seem to get the code right. i seem to
remember you have to use the full path something like

c:myfolder\myworkbook\myworksheet\mycell.value=10

cant rememberif it requires application.execl in front of it

does anyone known how to do this as im feedup of waiting for workbooks to open

many thanks


pete