Cells not updating automatically

  • Thread starter Thread starter Tom
  • Start date Start date
T

Tom

I have a couple of very large Excel files, each of which
has cells that refer to cells in the other worksheet. I
have been experiencing a problem with values not being
updated from one worksheet to the other, even after
automatically recalcing each workbook.

Even worse, I just copied a separate worksheet from a
third file into one of these spreadsheets and changes made
in that worksheet are not being carried through to other
worksheets in the same spreadsheet.

I thought the whole purpose of an electronic spreadsheet
was that when you changed something, everything updated
automatically with no problem. If you can't rely on this
basic feature, what's the point?

Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks.
Tom
 
Mark,

Sorry I wasn't very precise. This is the first time I've
ever posted to a message board. Here is an example:

EXAMPLE
In one .xls file (call it File A, wksht A1), I have a
column of numbers that represent different levels of
investment for a building 1=low, 2=medium, 3= high.

In another .xls file (File B), each building has one cell
which is a flag to indicate whether the level should be
low / medium / high.

When I change the level in File A/Wksht A1 (say from a 1
to a 2), the corresponding flag in File B should change,
thereby changing the total investment amount in File B,
which should then update the investment amount in A. It's
not circular, but there are references from each file to
the other, which may be the problem. Anyway, when I
change the cell in File A/Wksht A1, the formula that
references it in File B does not change, even if I recalc
both files.


I don't know if it makes any difference, but I should note
that both files are very large (one is about 7.6KB, the
other about 2KB).

I hope this is a little clearer.

Tom

-----Original Message-----
Tom,
What do you mean by "values not being updated"? Do you
Click to expand...
have formulas that aren't recalculating? If so, give a
few examples.
 
Tom

Depending upon your formula(s) which you haven't given an example of, you
could be a victim of improperly formatted data.

i.e. your flags are looking for a numeric, but your 1, 2, etc could be Text.

Lookup and Match formulas are two types that will either error out or return
nothing if data is not exact.

Also "IF" formulas look for exact data

e.g. =IF(A1=1,"hoo","hah")

If A1 is numeric return is "hoo", if text returns "hah"

Gord Dibben Excel MVP
 
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