» Read information from a closed workbook using VBA in Microsoft Excel

VBA macro tip contributed by Erlandsen Data Consulting offering Microsoft Excel Application development, template customization, support and training solutions With the macros below you can read values and text from cells in closed workbooks.
The example macros shows how you can read the value from cell A1 in Sheet1 in all workbooks in a given folder.

Sub ReadDataFromAllWorkbooksInFolder()
Dim FolderName As String, wbName As String, r As Long, cValue As Variant
Dim wbList() As String, wbCount As Integer, i As Integer
    FolderName = "C:\Foldername"
    ' create list of workbooks in foldername
    wbCount = 0
    wbName = Dir(FolderName & "\" & "*.xls")
    While wbName <> ""
        wbCount = wbCount + 1
        ReDim Preserve wbList(1 To wbCount)
        wbList(wbCount) = wbName
        wbName = Dir
    Wend
    If wbCount = 0 Then Exit Sub
    ' get values from each workbook
    r = 0
    Workbooks.Add
    For i = 1 To wbCount
        r = r + 1
        cValue = GetInfoFromClosedFile(FolderName, wbList(i), "Sheet1", "A1")
        Cells(r, 1).Formula = wbList(i)
        Cells(r, 2).Formula = cValue
    Next i
End Sub

Private Function GetInfoFromClosedFile(ByVal wbPath As String, _
    wbName As String, wsName As String, cellRef As String) As Variant
Dim arg As String
    GetInfoFromClosedFile = ""
    If Right(wbPath, 1) <> "\" Then wbPath = wbPath & "\"
    If Dir(wbPath & "\" & wbName) = "" Then Exit Function
    arg = "'" & wbPath & "[" & wbName & "]" & _
        wsName & "'!" & Range(cellRef).Address(True, True, xlR1C1)
    On Error Resume Next
    GetInfoFromClosedFile = ExecuteExcel4Macro(arg)
End Function

This method has some limitations on how many cells you can return information from since the Excel4-macro creates
links to the closed workbook. You can use a similar example using ADO if you need to retrieve a lot of data from
a closed workbook.

It is often much easier to open the workbook and get the information from it. If you set the Application.
ScreenUpdating to False, the user will probably not notice that the workbook is opened and closed again.

Sub GetDataFromClosedWorkbook()
Dim wb As Workbook
    Application.ScreenUpdating = False ' turn off the screen updating
    Set wb = Workbooks.Open("C:\Foldername\Filename.xls", True, True) 
    ' open the source workbook, read only
    With ThisWorkbook.Worksheets("TargetSheetName")
        ' read data from the source workbook
        .Range("A10").Formula = wb.Worksheets("SourceSheetName").Range("A10").Formula
        .Range("A11").Formula = wb.Worksheets("SourceSheetName").Range("A20").Formula
        .Range("A12").Formula = wb.Worksheets("SourceSheetName").Range("A30").Formula
        .Range("A13").Formula = wb.Worksheets("SourceSheetName").Range("A40").Formula
    End With
    wb.Close False ' close the source workbook without saving any changes
    Set wb = Nothing ' free memory
    Application.ScreenUpdating = True ' turn on the screen updating
End Sub