Hi,
I've been looking around quite a bit for this and I keep running into
comments that state you cannot search a closed spreadsheet.

I have a file on a network drive that contains a mapping of item
number to description.

I'd like to have a distributable add-in (.xla) file with a function in
it that allows a user to put in a simple formula to lookup these
values.

Currently, every user has their own local spreadsheet which is a
snapshot taken at differing times and is subject to inconsistencies.

My thought was to create a formula so we can say
=sku_description(<sku number)

People are using VLOOKUP and INDEX MATCH with mixed success.

Here is one tip that almost works for me:
http://www.exceltip.com/st/Read_info...Excel/473.html

This tip is nice, but I'm missing why we can't do some kind of
workbook.Open to activate the workbook and then close it afterward?

As you may have guessed, I'm a rookie when it comes to VBA but I've
worked in a couple of other languages.

Thanks for any suggestions you can offer. I really appreciate the
generosity of your responses.