All,

I'm trying to set up a display workbook that will automatically refresh itself every thirty seconds to display data entered in a master workbook that is located on the network but closed 90 percent of the time.

I've got it updating the cell data with no problems. My problem is now my customer wants to match the cell formatting from the master sheet; specifically the cell fill (CELL.interior.colorindex)

There is no way to link cell formatting, nor any way to do it in a formula, so I'm working on some VBA code to make it happen. I'm having no luck reading back the interior.colorindex property from a closed workbook. I can read it back when the workbook is open, but not when it's closed.

I'm currently brute-forcing it by creating a sheet in my linked file that has only the color values, then linking those values to a sheet in my display workbook and setting the colors on my display sheet using the cell values in the sheet with the color values.

Is that confusing enough?

Is there a more elegant way to do this?