managing 2 workbooks at once

let say i have 2 workbooks. i just want to manage my data on one workbook but i need specific data to populate on a separate entire workbook. i have heard that it is posible as long as you open the 2nd workbook and then close it. is this possible? if so how? i am tired of copying and pasting all this data.

A1 = [workbook2.xlsx]sheet1!A1

In this case, A1 will pull the same value as A1 on sheet1! from the xlsx file named [workbook2] in the same folder.

If it's somewhere else, specify the file path, like

A1 = C:\folder\[workbook2.xlsx]sheet1!A1

This is called creating an external reference.

alright that worked great. now lets say i got a list of names in colum A and i want them to show up in colum D and AB in the same workbook and same sheet).