PERSONAL macro workbook not opening

Using Excel 2003 SP3

When opening an instance of excel from explorer or from a desktop shortcut, the PERSONAL macro workbook opens correctly and my macros work fine.

I work with Morningstar Office which has an export function. When I export from Morningstar to excel, excel opens a new instance and the PERSONAL macro workbook does not open. If I have other instances of excel open, the Morningstar excel export does not "see" that the PERSONAL macro workbook is open. Therefore, none of my macros work on the export.

I've tried a work around by using an Add-in, but with similar problems. The Add-in works fine except for when used on the Morningstar export. This might be the most confusing, because when I go to tools-Add-ins it shows that the Add-in is there and selected. If I deselect it, then click okay, then go back and reselect it, the Add-in miraculously works. However, I'm looking for a way to have it work immediately after export in order to save time.

I've contacted Morningstar customer support who has put in a query to the developers, but I figured there might be something I haven't tried yet on my end.

Thanks,

Stephen

That absolutely works and is what I've been doing, but when exporting hundreds of individual lists that require formatting it ends up taking a surprsing amount of time. Since this is such a repetitive task, any time savings on an individual task will have a large overall time savings.

So given that Personal won't open when an instance is opened programmatically, is there a reason the Add-in won't work on the exported workbook? Or perhaps a way to force the Personal workbook to open when an instance is opened programmatically?

Thanks.

Okay, thanks for the explanations and help. I have some ideas to make the process a little more efficient.