Relative links for emailed files

[RBW]

I have created a workbook (A) that pulls data from workbooks (B) and (C). If
I combine A with B or C or both, the resulting workbook becomes too large to
email. If I email the files separately to other users (who are not
especially Excel literate), the links in A fail to update, since they are
pointing to files on my computer, not theirs. I'm very reluctant to ask
users to edit the links in A to point to the correct files; I've got little
confidence that will be successful.

Is there a way to specific relative, not absolute file path names, so that
as long as B and C are in the same directory as A, a remote user can download
all three files into one directory and have the links in A work correctly?

Many thanks in advance for your help.

 

[MyVeryOwnSelf]

I have created a workbook (A) that pulls data from workbooks (B) and

(C). If I combine A with B or C or both, the resulting workbook
becomes too large to email. If I email the files separately to other
users (who are not especially Excel literate), the links in A fail to
update, since they are pointing to files on my computer, not theirs.
I'm very reluctant to ask users to edit the links in A to point to the
correct files; I've got little confidence that will be successful.

Is there a way to specific relative, not absolute file path names, so
that as long as B and C are in the same directory as A, a remote user
can download all three files into one directory and have the links in
A work correctly?

I suspect that's how it works already.

As a test, there were two workbooks in folder f1. Book1 has links to Book2.
I sent two workbooks as separate attachments in an email message to myself.

After saving the two received attachments in folder f3, I could open Book1
and the links were updated to point to ...f3\[Book2.xls]... automatically.

I'm not sure exactly why or how this works. Maybe Excel keeps track of how
a link originally was defined in order to be helpful in this way. Granted,
it might work differently going from one computer to another.

(I have Excel 2003.)

 

[mattgoof2005]

If it's too large to email, just use WinRar to create smaller,
self-extracting .rars
This way you don't have to worry about links.

 

[Ron de Bruin]

If you use Winzip use my mail add-in or the code examples from my site
http://www.rondebruin.nl/mail/add-in.htm
Use version 3

Or see
http://www.rondebruin.nl/zip.htm