Unable to link!

[Guest]

I'm unable to link cells between different workbooks and worksheets, I hope
somebody can help me with this as the linking worked fine before this problem
appeared. However, linking within the worksheet is ok. I get either a
circular reference message (even when there is no circular reference) or the
cursor appears in another cell in the worksheet that I'm trying to
reference/link to. Is there some setting that I've accidentally changed?
thanks!

 

[Dave Peterson]

If excel thinks you have a circular reference, I bet dollar to doughnuts you do!

And my guess is that the reason your technique fails is that you have each of
the workbooks open in separate instances of excel.

Close one of the instances.
In the remaining open instance, use File|Open to open the second workbook
Then try creating the link.

 

[Guest]

Hi, maybe an example of the problem that I'm having will be clearer.
Unfortunately I can't paste a jpeg file of the screen capture. The following
illustrates the problem:

Sheet 1:
Cell A1 : 12500

Sheet 2:
Cell A1 : =Sheet1!A1

Press enter.

Result that I get in Excel:

Sheet 1
Cell A1 : #REF! (the formula shows =Sheet1!#REF!)

Sheet 2
Cell A1 : Blank

Cell A1 in sheet 2 should show 12500 if the link works.

I get the error message:
moving or deleting cells caused an invalid cell reference, or function is
returning refernce error.

I sometimes get the circular reference error message instead from the above
illustration. I get it also if I try to add, multiply, subtract or divide
different cells in different worksheets with no circular referencing issue.

This happened only recently as I never have such linking problems. This
really baffles me!

 

[Dave Peterson]

I don't have another guess.

Does the problem occur in a brand new workbook?

 

[Guest]

Hi Dave,

Thanks for your help. I'm using Excel 2003. The problem occurs in new and
existing workbooks. Funny thing is, if I use copy and paste special function,
the link works. But I cannot then use different cells for multiplication,
subtraction, etc. I'm now trying to uninstall and reinstall again, hopefully
the prob is solved.