Shell Command

A

anvil19

Board Regular

Joined

Nov 18, 2003

Messages

230

• May 24, 2004

• #2

Hi Emily

The SHELL function opens applications. Your string ("C:\Emily and Excel\Book1.xls")will not open Excel.

To open an .xls file from Excel VBA do like so:

Code:

WorkBooks.Open FileName:="C:\Emily and Excel\Book1.xls"

Try that

anvil19

 

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E

Emily

Active Member

Joined

Aug 28, 2002

Messages

304

• May 24, 2004

• #3

Hi, anvil19
Firstly, thanks for your reply

It works if the directory contain no space , i.e.
Shell "Excel.exe D:\Emily\Book1.xls"

 

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A

anvil19

Board Regular

Joined

Nov 18, 2003

Messages

230

• May 24, 2004

• #4

Hi again Emily

Yes, you're right. I'm stumped. Even the workbooks.open method doesn't want to work for me now.

Apologies all round.

anvil19

 

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Andrew Poulsom

MrExcel MVP

Joined

Jul 21, 2002

Messages

73,092

• May 24, 2004

• #5

You need more quotes with long file names. Try:

Shell "Excel.exe ""C:\Emily and Excel\Book1.xls"""

 

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E

Emily

Active Member

Joined

Aug 28, 2002

Messages

304

• May 24, 2004

• #6

Thanks Andrew , it works
But why?

 

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DRJ

MrExcel MVP

Joined

Feb 17, 2002

Messages

3,853

• May 24, 2004

• #7

"But why?"

Excel is really picky with what syntax it wants.

 

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Andrew Poulsom

MrExcel MVP

Joined

Jul 21, 2002

Messages

73,092

• May 24, 2004

• #8

I think ...

Without the extra quotes Shell treats the spaces as a delimiter (just like the one after Excel.exe). So it ignores anything after the first space up to the dot preceding the extension and tries to open C:\Emily.xls. The extra quotes force it to look at the entire string.

 

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E

Emily

Active Member

Joined

Aug 28, 2002

Messages

304

• May 24, 2004

• #9

Thanks

 

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