Comments on: Different approaches to retrieve data from underlying workbooks

By: Max

Max — Sun, 04 May 2008 20:42:00 +0000

Hi
I'm looking for a piece of code whih is checking the file name first before opening and operating on it. File name format is filenameyyyymmdd.xls but the problem is files in that directory are saved irregularly (couple times a week) and I need to retrieve the latest one.
Any ideas?

By: Mike Rosenblum

Mike Rosenblum — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 01:20:00 +0000

Hey Brian,

I'm pretty sure that you cannot. You'd have to open the workbook to do that. You could open a copy of the workbook, for example, if you had to be careful of other processes that might be writing to the workbook at the same time.

But ADO retrieves values only, not formulas.

Btw, if you are the same Brian as here: http://www.xtremevbtalk.com/showthread.php?p=1282370#post1282370, then feel free to continue within the thread if you have more questions...

Mike

By: Brian

Brian — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 16:42:00 +0000

Very helpful indeed. I was wondering though, is it possible to get the actual Formula value from a closed workbook, or just the numeric/text value?

By: Mike Bunyan

Mike Bunyan — Mon, 27 Feb 2006 21:57:00 +0000

Using ado or similar seems to pull the data very well, but what about obtaining the whole sheet and its characteristics.
I would be interested to see a vba solution to importing a worksheet from a closed workbook that would include the original worksheet name and all the worksheet attributes.

By: Quandan

Quandan — Mon, 20 Feb 2006 17:30:00 +0000

I found that the limit of 16375 (not 16384) rows is not caused by the ExecuteExcel4Macro itself. It is a limit to the rownumber that can be linked to in a closed workbook. At least, I cannot build a link to a cell above row 16375 in a closed workbook, without getting an error…

By: Quandan

Quandan — Mon, 20 Feb 2006 13:55:00 +0000

I'm affraid I already found the cause of the empty textcells in another subject: External Data - Mixed Data Types:
http://www.dicks-blog.com/archives/2004/06/03/external-data-mixed-data-types/#comments

By: Quandan

Quandan — Mon, 20 Feb 2006 13:32:00 +0000

Another bit of information about the ExecuteExcel4Macro solution:

In my experience, this solution is not able to import data from sourcerows above 16384. It will return errors in stead of the expected content.

Another bit of information on the ADO solution:

When a column you want to import has got mixed types (alternating between text and numbers) and it is starting with numbers, it does leave the cells in which you would expect the text EMPTY.

At least... that's my experience (maybe I make some mistake?)

Kind regards,

Marcel Kreijne

By: XL-Dennis

XL-Dennis — Wed, 25 Jan 2006 14:25:00 +0000

Remco,

I know but since I dislike all kind of links I gracefully avoid them and it will never be part of any solutions I deliver.

Kind regards,
Dennis

By: Rembo

Rembo — Wed, 25 Jan 2006 13:17:00 +0000

Hi Dennis,

Just for the record, if you need to reference a particular cell or range from another workbook you could also do it without using VBA.
For example:

Retrieve a cell value from another workbook:

='D:SomeDir[OtherWKB.xls]Sheet1'!A1

Or to sum up a range in another workbook:

=SUM('D:SomeDir[OtherWKB.xls]Sheet1'!$A$1:$A$9)

These formula's will work fine even if the source workbook is closed.
To my knowledge not all functions can be used on a closed workbooks though. For example the OFFSET function will only work on an opened workbook. So using a dynamic range in your sum (that uses the OFFSET function) won't work on a closed workbook.

Rembo

By: XL-Dennis

XL-Dennis — Wed, 25 Jan 2006 11:11:00 +0000

Jamie,

That’s quite impressive and it works excellent – thanks.

In order to answer Your question I believe that it will be a third option (!) – my ability to keep tracks when creating it

Kind regards,
Dennis