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General discussion

Scripting in Excel

Jun 25, 2007 6:32AM PDT

I have ~300 excel files with three sheets each that I need to merge into one 3 sheet file. The information is in rows. I also need to eliminate duplicates, because there will be a few.

I have a good amount of experience in Java, and although this is very different from whatever scripting language I would use, I can learn new things quickly.... so I have a few questions:

Should I script, or is this too hard for someone who is completely new to this?
How can I get started?
Are there any sites I should look at?
Any specific commands I should know?
Any other advice you can give?

If anyone responds, thank you very, very much.

Discussion is locked

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I would take the slow approach
Jun 26, 2007 3:39AM PDT

I would probably start a new sheet. Copy and Paste the information from each sheet. Use the sort function and look at the duplicates and delete them manually. Once you have all the sheets on one sheet, still save the other 300 for a set period, just in case you made a boo boo. If they're taking up too much space, burn them to a CD/DVD or put them in a storage area. Remember once you delete them, they're gone.

Rick

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It's not called scripting, it's called VBA.
Jun 26, 2007 5:47AM PDT

That's Visual Basic for applications. Lot's of books and websites about it. Lots of objects, methods and properties in a spreadsheet.

Write a nice macro, put it in your personal macro file (personal.xls in your office startup folder), and off you go.

Kees