Error: Formula is too long!


Posted by Dave on July 05, 2001 7:27 AM

Sorry if this is a redundant question. I searched the archive to no avail. My knowledge of Excel is very limited!
I'm trying to SUM the totals from the same cell of 56 different .xls files, but continue to get this error and don't know how to resolve it. My formula is : =SUM[abc.xls]Stuff!$H$7+[def.xls]Stuff!$H$7+ [ghi.xls]Stuff!$H$7....etc(with 56 total links). Is there a way to link ALL the .xls files like [*.xls] (i know * is another function and won't work)in a given directory? What other options are there?
All help is greatly appreciated as I'm failing miserably!!!

Posted by Aladin Akyurek on July 05, 2001 8:03 AM

Dave

First collect all values one by one in a column where you used the formula that gives trouble.

Thus,

in A1: =SUM(A2:A57)
in A2: =[abc.xls]Stuff!$H$7
in A3: =[def.xls]Stuff!$H$7

etc.

BTW, you might be running up against the limit of 255 chars that is allowed in a cell.

Aladin

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Posted by Dave on July 05, 2001 8:45 AM

Thanks! The only part that scares me about this, is that I have several hundred cells to total this way! :o(