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Excel VBA Course
[80% Discount] Excel VBA Course - From Beginner to Expert

200+ Video Lessons
50+ Hours of Video
200+ Excel Guides

Become a master of VBA and Macros in Excel and learn how to automate all of your tasks in Excel with this online course. (No VBA experience required.)

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Opening Two Separate Instances Of Excel

My users (who are accountants) use dual monitors and would like to open a
different Excel file on each monitor for the purposes of reviewing changes
between the two. I know that one method of doing this is by opening Excel
twice with its shortcut, then highlighting one Excel window and opening an
Excel file, then highlighting the other window and opening the other Excel
file. Unfortunately, the software that my users use to organize the Excel
files does not allow this to be done; it always opens every Excel file in the
first Excel window no matter which instance is highlighted. We had a similar
problem with Adobe Acrobat, but there is a command line switch that forces
Acrobat to open a new instance for each file.
Is there a similar switch for Excel, or some other method of forcing Excel
to open a new instance of itself for each file? We are running Excel 2003 on
Windows XP. Thank you in advance for your replies.



Excel VBA Course
Excel VBA Course - From Beginner to Expert

200+ Video Lessons 50+ Hours of Instruction 200+ Excel Guides

Become a master of VBA and Macros in Excel and learn how to automate all of your tasks in Excel with this online course. (No VBA experience required.)

(80% Discount Ends Soon!)

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Similar Topics







I'm trying to open a pdf file from within excel vba. I have tried using the followhyperlink method but adobe acrobat opens very briefly then immediately closes Code:

Sub OpenPDF()

'Dim pdf As String

    On Error Resume Next

    'pdf file to open
    pdf = "K:\PDF\mypdf.pdf"

    'open the pdf file
    ActiveWorkbook.FollowHyperlink pdf

End Sub


So then I tried to create an instance of acrobat by setting a reference to the acrobat object but I can't get this to work either!

The code I'm using is Code:

Sub OpenPDF()

    Dim pdf As AcroPDDoc
    Dim strPDF As String

    Set pdf = CreateObject("AcroExch.PDDoc")
    
    'pdf file to open
    strPDF = "K:\PDF\mypdf.pdf"

    'open the pdf file
    pdf.Open strPDF

End Sub


Any ideas what could be wrong with either approach?

Thank-you


I have a file that became too big due to phantom bloat, unused range saved by Excel and all that kind of reasons. Thank to previous posts on that board tackling that issue, I was able to find how to proceed to reduce the file back to its normal size.
But I did so in a beta file (test file). The real file has become so big (103MB!) that Excel cannot even open it anymore! The file contains archive info that we do not have anywhere else.
Is there anyway then to open the file or to reduce its size without opening it (through magics...)? I just honestly don't know how to retrieve that info before deleting that file.

Thank you very much for your help.


Hello,

I have a number of different files that I often need to run a macro on. In order for me to do it on the 75-100 files I have at any given time, I need to open one, run the macro, close and save, then open the next one.

Is it possible to write a macro that will start with the first file in a folder, open it and update links, run a macro, save and close, and open the next file in the folder until it has open all the files in the folder.

I have experience with creating macros that reference different workbooks, but not sure how to go about opening files with different filenames (without referencing the exact filename).

I'd like to be able to have basic code for opening, saving and closing, opening next file, saving and closing, etc. and input the macro I'd need to run in each file in the appropriate location. Is this possible? Any help is greatly appreciated!!

Thanks,
Jason


We have an Excel spreadsheet that sits on the network.
People need to open the file to be able to sign up for various duty rosters.
We would like for the file to open for the first person.
And then for any others after that, get a message that the file is in use
WITHOUT the option to open a read-only copy.
Our staff can't read and they keep opening additional copies of the file!
I have read about sharing the file and I don't think that would make things
any better.
Thanks,
Lynn



I know this question has been asked a bajillion times, so I apologize for the redundancy.

I am working with an Excel spreadsheet and saving it as a .csv file in order to upload to an application that parses out the .csv data as transactions. The system requires .csv files, so this is how I need to save my doc (with this extension). I have been successful at preventing Excel from coverting that long number into scientific format. I have saved as a TXT file, pasted the longer number and it displays correctly. That is all good. But I have to save as a .csv. So if I do that, close the Excel window, and then open again (as the .csv file), the numbers are back to being displayed in scientific format. I have tried creating an Excel doc from scratch and entering text in Text format, to see if this created a cleaner file. But again, the second I save as .csv, close the window and then open that file up again, that dang scientific format is back.

Does anyone have any idea of how to work around this? Once I have successfully gotten the numbers to display as the long-chain number, how can I get them to "stick" so that they don't revert back to scientific format when I reopen the file?

Thanks so much for your help!


Hi, I'm trying to get some macros to combine data from two open workbooks, and I can't figure out the commands to switch from the active workbook to the other open workbook and back. I'm new to VBA and just learning the ropes. All I can figure out is how to switch to another workbook with an exact name. If I record the macro to go to a recent file, for example Window > 1 (filename), the code that I get in VBA is Windows("filename").Activate. This doesn't translate to when I have two different workbooks with different filenames open.

Make sense? I'm a bit confused myself. Maybe just a list of basic workbook-switching techniques or commands would be useful.

- Michael


Hi all,

I've been getting this error on occasion recently.

- It's a shared document
- There is usually 10-12 people using the file at the same time

I've read on the Microsoft Help site that the issue is that somebody is accessing the file while another is trying to open it.

Is there a way, perhaps through VBA, that I can not allow a user to save while somebody else is opening the document? Other suggestions on how to avoid this error?

Thanks!

I have a problem sometimes. I will click on a cell to add information.
The cell turns blue and then wherever I move, it highlights those to.
No matter where I go on the page. If I Alt-Tab and work in another
program on my computer, that excel page keeps highlighting wherever
I move even in those other programs (I know this sounds confusing).
When I return to excel thousands and thousands of cells are blue.


The biggest problem is that the highlighting won't turn off, no matter
what. I can't select anything from the tool bars, do any work on the sheet or close the program.
I can close it only with the task manager but when I open it again,
the cursor is still stuck in the highlighting mode and won't perform any
other functions.

Do you think this is a problem with my computer, the excel program? I have changed my mouse and this didn't help.
Is there some shortcut to turn off this highlight feature other than restarting
my computer. Which is the only current way I can get rid of it.

Thanks for any advice,


Posted this on the Ozgrid forums, but haven't gotten any help yet, so I thought I'd try here too!

I've been having a strange problem lately. I have a fairly lengthy macro that works perfectly most of the time. Occasionally it will run as expected but as soon as the macro ends, excel becomes unresponsive to mouse-clicks. When I click anywhere (trying to select a cell, or an excel menu item...clicking anywhere in excel) I'll get the a 'ding' system sound and nothing will happen. BUT, if I use the keyboard arrow keys, I can see that the active cell selection moves accordingly. Then it gets really strange - when I have a cell highlighted and press any key to input text, it gets duplicated. So if I press "s' it will input "ss" into the cell, and then when I press enter it will auto-move to the next cell down, but nothing ends up getting saved into the previous cell.

I don't understand what's going on at all. I can't think of anything in my macro that would have these kinds of effects. I've made sure that screenupdating is turned back on at the end of every procedure. If I go into the VBE, I can manually run procedures and they all work fine. The only way I've been able to get back to normal is by force closing excel altogether and re-opening. Any ideas?

______________________

Still having trouble, and the same thing is happening with this workbook on two different computers, so I don't think it's a hardware, or OS specific issue. When it gets locked up like this, I can still do anything in the VBE (edits cells, run macros, etc.) with no problems. If I'm in the excel window, I can click alt on the keyboard and the shortcut keys for the menu come up, but I can't go deeper than that by clicking the letter shortcuts, they do nothing. If I use the delete key to delete the contents of a cell, then it gets deleted. But if I type anything else (numbers, letters, or symbols) then it types 2 instances of the key every time, yet when I hit enter, nothing changes in the cell. I also can't really bring focus to the excel window if something else (ie. the VBE) is on top of it, clicking into the excel window just gives the little system 'ding' sound and nothing happens.

If I hit the save button in the VBE (since I can't click anything in the excel window), then it seems to snap out of it and go back to normal. I tried searching for anything simmilar to this and can't find anything...

Any help would be much appreciated. This is driving me nuts!


I have an excel 2007 file sitting in a shared network folder. I only want one user to be able to make changes at a time (any other users would get a read-only). For some reason it currently does not do this, and I have multiple users with the same doc open. I'm concerned that changes will get over-written when 2 people are saving their changes. Can anyone help me with the settings for this.


I have a VBMacro Excel file loaded on a Server that numerous people access. A Macro in this file creates a Copy of a specific Sheet within the Active Workbook and I want to Save it to the individual's Desktop.

How do I find out what the current User's desktop folder path is each time the Marco is run by a different User?

Example User's path: 'C:\Documents and Settings\jfarc\Desktop'

Where 'jfarc' is the name of the current User which, will of course change with every different User that runs the Macro.

Also, is there a way to pull out of Excel what is the current User's 'Options | General | Default File Location' entry? Which may differ from the above directory.

I am familiar with and use the following coding for Opening/Saving files to the current directory of the opened workbook, but it only gives the path of the existing Excel workbook and not the current User's Directory Path:

Dim wbThis As Workbook
Set wbThis = ThisWorkbook
ChDir wbThis.Path


How do I grant only specific people to be able to open, view, edit an excel file? I don't want anybody else besides these two people to be able to even open the file, so I'm not talking about password protecting to prohibit editing a file. I would assume I need to go to the properties, security settings but I'm not sure?


I need help desparately. Last night I spent several hours working on an
Excel 2002 spreadsheet and it has disappeared.

I saved it routinely as I was making many changes updates etc. I opened
original file --stuff.xls --- made changes and saved it as again as
stuff.xls. I have done this several times before.

Today, when I go to open stuff.xls, it is nowhere to be found!!!!! I have
done a search, for any file modified since Thurs and nothing has appeared. I
have checked the recycle bin, this did not go into auto recover nothing of
the like. I am just traumatized, because I have NEVER had anything like this
happen before.

I even thought perhaps I didn't save it as often as I thought, (I know that
I did) but I remembered that I saved it at least once and I can't even find
an Excel file that has been modified since Thurs!!!

Does anyone have any idea what could have happened to this file?? BTW, I
have prayed, rebooted, run spybot, called witch doctor, all with no success.

I have never had a file to just disappear with no trace. Any help would be
greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance---



Is there a way to force Excel to stop calculating a formula?
Excel showing "Not Responding" and is grayed out. I've tried to use Task Manager to stop the application, but as soon as open up Excel it goes right back to opening the spreadsheets and starts calculating again. I have spreadsheets saved, so don't have to recover.
thanks...Dean


I cannot edit an excel spreadsheet that I had made. When I open up the file I can view everything but change nothing. The file is not saved as read-only. What can I do?


Dear Sirs,

Am in need for this solution very badly and what could be a better place than excelforum !

I have an MS Excel File (2007 version) sample file attached, which has name, designation, blood group and so on. The last column is for hyperlinking photographs of individuals.

In the same folder where I have saved this excel file, are lying photographs of individuals. While scanning the photographs, I have saved them serially i.e. 1,2,3 and so on.

In the Excel file, in last column, I have given the respective serial numbers. In order to hyperlink one has to select that particular Cell, press Ctrl K and you automatically go to the folder containing individual photographs, you select that photo and OK.

Problem :

I have to do this hyperlinking one by one and if there 1000 photos, lot of time is wasted.

Solution Needed :

Just in case of excel formula, which we copy and paste, Can I get a command by virtue of which the column titled Photo or column next to it gets automatically Hyperlinked to respective photo WHEN I copy and paste such command to all cells in that column.

Thanks a million and warm regards ::: Jack


I have an excel form, I want my users to be able to open the form, fill in appropriate data, then click the save button. When the button is clicked, the data in the form should be saved to a new file and then the original form should be reset (clear all values) for a new set of data entry. When the data is saved, I want the new excel sheet to be saved to a location specified within the macro so the user doesn't have any options and I want the title of the new file to be the value of one of the cells.

I'm new to macros and would appreciate any help this board can offer. Thanks...


I have excel sheets that cross link with each other. I've just migrated to Office 2007. When I open my excel sheet I always get the question at the bottom of the tool bar Security Warning Data connections have been disabled. And then I have to click on option and enable content.

My question is, how do I always enable the content?

Thanx


file locked for editing , can I kick the other user out if its my file?

I have made an excel file where other people have to go in and update it. This process takes 2 secs but some people forget and stay in it over lunch etc causing a great annoyance.
Is there anyway I can "kick" them out my file? Im not concerned if they lose any data they've entered as I'm sure this will help them get the message to get out the file quicker..
Its really doing my head in... pls help


Okay, so I tried (for hours) to find a solution to this and have finally gotten frustrated to the point where i think asking here will be my best bet.


Basically I want to export data from excel worksheets to various places on a word document I had. I have created a word template as well as bookmarks for that template, as that seems to be the recommendation for performing such a task with excel.

My problem is ... Now what?

I basically have 1 constant worksheet that contains all my affiliates info (Name, Address etc), which i'd like to use to populate some bookmarks in my word template, and then i have another worksheet for the previous month, indicating sales etc for that affiliate. I intend on adding a new worksheet every month that i would use to create new invoices.

Furthermore, i'd really like to be able to update a new file (or perhaps a new page on the same file) for each company with the use of a button, similar to the one's you'd see in an access form.

Can anyone help? Let me know if you need me to clarify.

Thanks!

Matt