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When working with multiple Excel workbooks, you'll often find yourself needing to reference numbers from one workbook in a separate workbook. Luckily Excel has plenty of built-in tools to accomplish this exact thing.
Contents:
How to Link Workbooks Together in Excel
Let's go step by step and write a formula that includes data from two separate workbooks.
By creating a formula that incorporates cells from two different workbooks, we are effectively linking them. Any changes to the second workbook, will be reflected in the first.
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1. Open both workbooks:
Start Excel and open both workbooks that you want to link together. For this example, we will use "Total Sales.xlsx" and "West Sales.xlsx".
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2. Select the workbook for the formula
Decide which workbook you want to input your formula into. For this example, let's use "Total Sales.xlsx".
3. Select the cell for the formula: Click on the cell where you want to enter the formula that adds a number from the other workbook. Let's use cell C3 for this example.
4. Start writing the formula: In cell B3, type =SUM(
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5. Switch to the other workbook: Without closing the parentheses or pressing Enter, click on the other workbook. Your formula from the first workbook will still be open and editable.
6. Select the cell to link: In your second workbook click on the cell or cells that you want to link to the first workbook. For this example, let's use cell C3:C9.
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7. Finish the formula: Excel will automatically insert the correct reference to the cell or cell range in your second workbook. Press Enter to complete the formula. It should look something like:
= SUM('[West Sales.xlsx]Monthly Sales'!$C$3:$C$9)
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Now you have linked and summed the cells from "West Sales.xlsx" to the cell C3 in "Total Sales.xlsx". Now, whenever the value of any cells in the range C3:C9 on the "West Sales.xlsx" changes, the value in C3 of "Total Sales.xlsx" will automatically update to reflect that change.
Formula to Reference a Cell in Another Workbook
Let's take a closer look at how the formula works and its syntax.
= '[Book1.xlsx]Sheet1'!A1
In this formula we are referencing the cell A1 in Sheet1 of Book1.xlsx.
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The square brackets [ ] around the workbook name allow Excel to know that we're referring to a different workbook.
This is followed by the sheet name containing the cell you're referencing.
The exclamation mark ! separates the workbook and sheet names from the cell reference which act just like a typical cell reference.
Sometimes single quotation marks ' ' are used when a workbook name or worksheet name contains spaces or non-alphanumeric characters.