Forum Discussion
How to update unlinked columns according to content of a column linked to a external source file?
Hello to all of you.
Situation: I have created an excel file with about 20 columns, of which the first 4 columns (A to D) are linked (external references) from a source file. When I update the source file, columns A to D in the target file automatically update as desired, but all the rows of the other columns from column E onwards do not follow, which makes sense. Currently, I have to manually move the data by copy and paste (values) from column E down from the new row created in the sourche file to get each row to line up with the correct data. Having conditional formatting rules all over the place, I have to be careful not to do normal copy and paste. I can't use VBA (and anyway, I have no idea how to do it, my Excel knowledge being basic), my company doesn't allow me to.
Question: Does anyone know how to make the columns from E onwards always stay up to date with the content of the columns from A to D? I tried "formatting as a table", thinking that the rest would "understand" what happens when the source file is updated, but it did not work. Maybe I should use a formula instead of a link to get the source data from another file?
Your help is greatly appreciated and I thank you for your support.
7 Replies
- Thanks, I'll give it a try and will come back to you sometime next week.
Do the columns from E on have an explicit relationship with columns A to D - do they have a value in common, for example?
Hi HansVogelaar thanks for your question.
No, the columns after E do not get/fetch any infos from the columns A to D. I just need the ranges to be correctly aligned to oneanother, whenever A - D are updated from another excel file.
I don't see how that would be possible if there is no link between the two sets of data.
