How do I activate and inactivate worksheets?

[daughteroflight]

I have 30 worksheets within a workbook, and want to summarize the information
found on them on the front worksheet. However, when I open the workbook, I
will only plug numbers into about 5 of the worksheets. And I want only the
information on those five worksheets to summarize on the front sheet. HELP!

 

[Spiky]

I have 30 worksheets within a workbook, and want to summarize the information
found on them on the front worksheet. However, when I open the workbook, I
will only plug numbers into about 5 of the worksheets. And I want only the
information on those five worksheets to summarize on the front sheet. HELP!

If you want specific help, you'll have to give specific info here.
Otherwise, there's really no way to say anything. Maybe start with
questions like these:

Are the 30 sheets all the same? What's the same? What's different?
What kind of summarizing? Adding? Counting? Listing data?
Why are there 30 if you only need 5 at once?
Are you keeping the data in there and adding to it each time? Or is it
kept blank and you just put in all new data each time?
What formulas do you already have? What isn't working?

 

[daughteroflight]

Gosh, thank you for that direction!

Ok, what I need:

I am creating an invoicing system. The front page will summarize the
information found on the following 30 worksheets. I have created all thirty
worksheets with information and formula's specific to the types of jobs they
represent. Each invoice will have one to five totals that need to be pulled
to the front page, depending on the type of work we do. The other
spreadsheets are for our information only, but are a breakdown of all of the
internal costs that go into a job. Basically, when I type a number into a
cell on a particular worksheet, I want the front page to recognize that
particular sheet is "active" and pull the total at the bottom from the
particular sheet and post it, along with the sheet's title on the cover. So
maybe I need some kind of formula like:
if sheet "back flow" d:26 = $0.01 - $1,000,000 post on front page

does that make sense? I know what I want to do, but am a bit illiterate as
far as writing formula's go...

 

[desertres]

You might want to look at the following:

On the cover sheet, add a helper cell with the formula..=cell("filename"),A1
Then add another helper cell with the formula..=cell("filename")

When you make a change to a worksheet, the second one will be the previous
sheet name...you will have to enter in a complex formula on the cover sheet
for the total...
-An IF formula to see if the two helper cells contain different names(and
only to the names of the 5 worksheets) and if they do then grab the contents
as conditionalized.

Needless to say, its better to setup a form for the invoice or to insert
some textboxes onto that cover worksheet w/code....but I think that formula
will work.