Excel stability with large number of links

[talksalot81]

Hi guys,

I am nearly done on my latest project but now have the 'summary' sheet to do. Basically I have several hundred workbooks, each relating to a different product and I want a summary costs sheet. Now I can do this without too much trouble getting excel to lookup cell values in the individual workbooks meaning the whole thing is dynamic should a raw material (for instance) change. My concern is that there will be 6 links per product and perhaps 150 different products meaning nearly 1000 linked cells to 150 different workbooks. I know excel can handle half a dozen products because I have tested it but will it remain stable when scaled up?

Do you think I would be better just to get vba to do the lookups in a macro and print numbers to the sheet and accept the need for frequent updating and re-running of the macro? How fast/stable would a macro be to do this much looking up?

Many thanks

Adam

[tony h]

I wouldn't use links.

But I can think of at least a dozen ways to handle it using VBA depending on how the workbooks are to be used. If you want help with VBA post in the programming thread with a good description of how people will use the books and attach a sample of the product and summary.

Cheers