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trovatore

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"Flattener" for Excel?

Does anyone know of either an Excel
feature, or a separate utility, that
given an Excel book in several worksheets
will "flatten" them into a single worksheet,
with all references correctly preserved?
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Gudare

Could you describe the reference to 'flattening' in more detail?

The process of moving multiple sheets to a single sheet will, by nature, automatically change the references, if that's what you're meaning, because the sheettab is part of the reference, just inferred to mean the current sheet when not included.  This act of moving everything to one sheet is what I must assume you mean by flattening.

To that end, no, I don't know of any software that does it, nor would I think you'd find it outside of custom VBA on a per file basis due to the limitations in rows/columns that's impressed on Excel by Microsoft, it'd be very easy to run them over with a few sheets of large data.

-Craig
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garethd

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garethd, would that require opening the Excel
file, or would it be possible to make a batch
file that could be run from the command line
that would produce the "flattened" sheet
as an output?
You can open and manipulate an excel spreadsheet programatically (I have used VB to do this) and then close it without actually seeing it. Or make it create a new spreadsheet as output. If that is what you mean ?

It is hard to be more precise without knowing a little more of what you are actually trying to acheive, what programming environment that you are using etc.



Like Gareth, I agree, without more information, we can't tell you either the ability or complexity for 'flattening' your file. If you can give us an idea of the specific file you're working with (or if there's a bunch, the general data structure), and tell us how you'd like it flattened, either Gareth or myself can probably come up with the VBA code you need for this instance.

-Craig
Hi,
Are you refering to Consolidating data.

Harsha
Not sure what to do about grading this question.  I got the information I needed from a newsgroup; there's nothing very specific in the comments.  Not worried about the points, but what's considered fair in this case?
Basically, that's your decision, trovatore.

I'll do whatever you want to do. How about 25 point to gudare and 25 to garethd? Just a suggestion without merit.

amp
Community Support Moderator
Awarding 25 to garethd.

Gudare: Please see a new question with 25 points for you as well at https://www.experts-exchange.com/jsp/qManageQuestion.jsp?ta=msoffice&qid=20253833

thanks
amp
community support moderator