How's it? I've learned a lot by surfing through this forum but haven't been able to resolve this problem on my own.

I've recently created a macro which takes a .csv file and scrubs the data and dresses it up for a report. I've finally got it running without any problems and have added it individually to 5 different user accounts on my network as an add-in, but need a way to share it across a computer network without allowing others to edit the file.

The report is generated multiple times a day by the different users, none of whom are very computer literate (not that I am much better, myself), and the macro over-writes the old file each time. I've read that it's possible to simply create a shortcut to the file that automatically opens the spreadsheet in read-only format, which would be perfect for what I'm trying to do, but I haven't been able to get it to work so far.

My current shortcut pathway is similar to this:

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office15\EXCEL.EXE" /R "C:\Users\Ben\Documents\OT Master.xlsx"

On my computer at work (Windows 7) the shortcut simply opens the spreadsheet so that anyone can edit it, instead of as a read-only file. On my computer at home (I'm trying to experiment) (windows 8.1) it won't even let me save the shortcut, saying I need to provide administrator permission & then cutting to a window that says "access denied".

I won't have the pathway for the actual file I'm trying to create a shortcut for until tomorrow when I get back to work, but I've formatted it essentially the same, directing to the excel.exe file, running the switch "/R", and then directing it to the actual file location. Anything I'm missing?

The ultimate goal is to have multiple people be able to view the file without locking out those who need to update it. I'd prefer not to have to go back into the macro as I'm likely to mess it up rather than fix it, but I can try that if there is an easier/better way to do this.

Thanks!