I am doing simple cell references from another file. I'm not using
any formulas or functions or anything; just using a simple cell
reference. However, it does not work (returns #REF) unless the file
is open. Now, I should mention that this is not an Excel file but
simply a text file with rows. The cell referencing does in fact work
if the text file is open, but not if it's closed. (as a test, I also
checked to make sure I am able to reference cells from .xls files and
that also, of course, works regardless of whether they're open or
closed).

Does anyone know if referencing from closed text files is supposed to
work or not, and why? And does anyone have any ideas for a
workaround?

Thanks much