Drop-down lists in Excel 2003

[Guest]

I think I already know the answer to this, but I need independent
verification to defend a decision I made.

If you are validating a drop-down list from another Excel file, that file
must be open, correct?

Also--and I'm a bit unclear on this--if multiple users open workbooks that
reference the same external file for drop-down lists, the lists will not be
populated, correct.

Thanks in advance for your advice!

 

[Guest]

Hi

Tried to test this

If you are validating a drop-down list from another Excel file, that file
must be open, correct?

Result - You may not use references to other worksheets or workbooks for
Data Validation criteria.

More than that I dont know

 

[Guest]

The trick is to maintain an image of the list in one workbook in the other
workbook.

Say we have a list in some sheet somewhere in b1.xls.
We copy it and paste/special link to a place in b2.xls.

Now the data validation will work on a cell in b2.xls

 

[Guest]

I'm more worried about several workbooks that reference the same workbook.
Here's a breakdown of my project:

I've created several identical workbooks for project/time tracking. There
are two fields that must be drop-downs. The workbooks are on a network drive.

Now--what happens if multiple users open their workbooks simultaneously?
Will all workbooks have the correct data in the drop-down lists? Also, to
save the users the time of opening the workbook containing the data for the
lists, I created an autorun macro to open the file upon launch.

The problem I ran into was that opening up other users' workbooks worked
once--and then never again.