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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-08T10:01:36+00:00

I am producing a sheet to calculate prices. The sheet has to have a

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I am producing a sheet to calculate prices. The sheet has to have a reference to several other workbooks to get the prices for different components. This works fine on my computer but when I move them to the server or another computer, it can’t find the references.

My folder is structured like:

Folder
|-- prices.xlsx
|-- Fixed Components
|   |-- ComponentsA.xlsx
|   +-- ComponentsB.xlsx
|
+-- Variable Components
    |-- ComponentsC.xlsx
    +-- ComponentsD.xlsx

prices.xlsx is the main sheet that references the other sheets. On my computer it builds the references with an absolute path, so when I copy the files the path stays fixed to my machine, instead of referencing the the files on the other PC.

Is there any way to make the references relative so that I can put in the main sheet something like ='\Variable Components\[ComponentsC.xlsx]Sheet1'!A1. I would not want to use VBA for this as people don’t tend to trust Macros and then complain the functions don’t work.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    The only solutions that I’ve seen to organize the external files into sub-folders has required the use of VBA to resolve a full path to the external file in the formulas. Here is a link to a site with several examples others have used:

    http://www.teachexcel.com/excel-help/excel-how-to.php?i=415651

    Alternatively, if you can place all of the files in the same folder instead of dividing them into sub-folders, then Excel will resolve the external references without requiring the use of VBA even if you move the files to a network location. Your formulas then become simply ='[ComponentsC.xlsx]Sheet1'!A1 with no folder names to traverse.

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