Making changes across workbooks

**Matt_W** · 03-25-2009, 07:03 PM

Hi,
I need to have 9 identical workbooks with a variety of worksheets in them. They all have different data. What I'd like to be able to do is change the format or formulas in one workbook and have it affect all the others, without using macros. Is this possible? If not, is there something I can do to speed up the process? At the moment I'm editing each one at a time.

**Richard Buttrey** · 03-25-2009, 07:39 PM

Hi, and welcome to the forum.

I suspect not. Macros are the obvious choice. If your workbooks' data had been contained in different sheets of the same workbook, you could have grouped the sheets together, and then one change would automatically adjust the others. That does mean however that the layouts would have to be the same.

Is it possible for you to re-organise the 9 workbooks into 9 sets of worksheets in a single workbook?

Regards

**Matt_W** · 03-29-2009, 08:26 PM

It's possible, but not feasible. Its a common markbook for 9 classes, with about 6 or 7 different sheets in each book. There is one workbook per class. If I group them all together, it would become too cumbersome and difficult for some of the teachers who aren't particularly computer savvy to find what they're looking for.

Thanks for the quick reply
Matt

**Richard Buttrey** · 03-30-2009, 05:26 AM

Hi,

The only other thing I can suggest is a fundamental redesign which starts with the principle of a database, or table of all data on a single sheet. This would contain one row records for all teachers and classes. You would then have front end menus to maintain the database, i.e. Add, delete and edit record items. For presentational purposes, one or more report templates could be linked to the underlying database, and populated by choosing appropriate items from a menu and having macros which automatically filter the data for the templates.

Regards