duplicate a workbook

[Ike]

Suppose I have a workbook with N sheets in it.

Is there a relatively (easy) painless way I can re-create that workbook by
having each cell in the new workbook reference the cell in the old workbook,
if there is a value at that cell?

What would be the easiest way to automate such a task? Thanks, Ike

 

[Dave Peterson]

If you select a cell in a worksheet in one workbook and then copy it.

Then go to your other worksheet/workbook and
do edit|paste special|click the Paste Link button, then you'll have a formula
that refers to that other cell.

But you'd want to change it:

=[book1.xls]Sheet2!$A$1
to something like:
=IF([book1.xls]Sheet2!A1="","",[book1.xls]Sheet2!A1)

Notice that the $a$1 changed to a1. Now I can copy it to the right and down and
fill the sheet with the formula.

And I check to see what's in the cell, too. If it's empty, then show "" (so it
looks empty).

Make sure you drag to the right and down far enough to include any cell that's
been used.

But I don't think I'd do this. Why do you want to do such a thing--maybe
there's a better way.