Linking to other worksheets and replacing

[sam_1]

Hi,
I have a master workbook that contains links to a bunch of other workbooks. Primarily, I am just linking to the data themselves, which are numeric. My links currently look like =[source_file.xls]sheetname!A5
I would like to do a few different things here:
1) incorporate replacing in this formula so that, for instance, if the source cell has a value of "." (the whole cell), then replace it with a blank "" in the master workbook. Also, if there is no data in the source cell, I want it also to be a "" in the master (currently under the formula it shows up as zero).
2) The first is more important, but if possible, it would be good to have some variable for the source workbook name. For instance, I have master1 (the master workbook) that has links to workbooks source1a through source1z, and I eventually need to have in addition master workbooks master2 thorugh master5, with links to source2a-source2z, ..., source5a-source5z (the indices are not numeric 1-5, by the way, they will just be strings). The master workbooks are large so I'd rather not do a whole lot of manual work. Solving the first would help lessen the work for the second problem.
Thanks

 

[RonB1111]

Use this formula to return blanks if cell is blank or contains only a period:
=IF([source_file.xls]sheetname!A5="","",IF([source_file.xls]sheetname!A5=".",""[source_file.xls]sheetname!A5))

I'm not sure what you're asking in item 2.

 

[sam_1]

Great thanks I think that solved my problem. Forget about the second thing, I think I was getting confused, it doesn't really make sense anyways.