I am attempting to simplifiy some template files I created for other
non-Excel users. I would like to make it easier to have users update
formulas, by having the formulas reference a cell for the tab or file
to pull data from. Eample formula:
COUNTIF(*_'DATAFILE.XLS'_*!$J$2:$J$8000,C4). I would like to repalce
DATAFILE.XLS to reference a cell vaule. This way all formulas would
ppoint to one cell where the user would type in the name of the file to
use.

Hope this makes sense....

Anyone ever try this?

Thanks!


--
mgarcia
------------------------------------------------------------------------
mgarcia's Profile: http://www.excelforum.com/member.php...o&userid=30584
View this thread: http://www.excelforum.com/showthread...hreadid=502342

1. Please try Indirect(A1). Regards.

I could not seem to get that to work correctly. It seems whatever I put
in as a reference for the file name ('FILENAME.XLS'! - tried
INDIRECT(A1)!) just would not work. The formula thinks the reference
is the file name it's looking for. I may have miss understood that
function as well....


--
mgarcia
------------------------------------------------------------------------
mgarcia's Profile: http://www.excelforum.com/member.php...o&userid=30584
View this thread: http://www.excelforum.com/showthread...hreadid=502342

The function you'd want to use is =indirect() (well, and include the worksheet
name, too.)

But =indirect() won't work with closed files.

If you can open all the files you need, maybe it would be a solution you could
use.

The other bad thing is that =countif() won't work with closed files, either.
But there are other formulas that will.

mgarcia wrote:

I am attempting to simplifiy some template files I created for other
non-Excel users. I would like to make it easier to have users update
formulas, by having the formulas reference a cell for the tab or file
to pull data from. Eample formula:
COUNTIF(*_'DATAFILE.XLS'_*!$J$2:$J$8000,C4). I would like to repalce
DATAFILE.XLS to reference a cell vaule. This way all formulas would
ppoint to one cell where the user would type in the name of the file to
use.

Hope this makes sense....

Anyone ever try this?

Thanks!

--
mgarcia
------------------------------------------------------------------------
mgarcia's Profile: http://www.excelforum.com/member.php...o&userid=30584
View this thread: http://www.excelforum.com/showthread...hreadid=502342

--

Dave Peterson