Q: Can a formula reference a cell to get the file name to link to for data?

[mgarcia]

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!

[[email protected]]

1. Please try Indirect(A1). Regards.

[mgarcia]

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....

[Dave Peterson]

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