Combine multiple workbooks

[angeloudaki]

I have multiple workbooks and want to consolidate them into one, maintaining the individual worksheets. There are ~2-5 sheets in each workbook depending on reports received. Each tab (worsksheet) is unique in name. I can easily do this by opening each workbook but I'd like to do this for different reports too so I don't want to be opening 100+ workbooks! There are threads about this topic but I can't find one which lends itself to this - feels like a needle in a haystack. If a thread does exist, please do point me in the direction!

I then need to be able to pull across all instances of a set of values. For example, delivery expectations - I need to find all instances of the expected deliveries promised so we can see just how angry we need to be... Grrr.

 

[Legacy 456129]

Pass. Just tried something, to select all sheets and do a move, or copy and was told that No, you cant move/copy sheets for starters with tables in a group selection. A group move is preferred because there's so many 'behind the scenes' stuff needing to be dealt with. Suppose one sheet is linked to the other. When moved to another workbook it will establish links across old and new workbook, not to speak of potential conflicts of range names... You'll see the warnings pop up serially, and no escaping out, it must be dealt with on the spot. To tell it short, what does each workbook/sheet have in features, range name overlaps, tables, pivots, queries, anything special beyond it behind a dumb flat 'spreadsheet'.

 

[angeloudaki]

Pass. Just tried something, to select all sheets and do a move, or copy and was told that No, you cant move/copy sheets for starters with tables in a group selection. A group move is preferred because there's so many 'behind the scenes' stuff needing to be dealt with. Suppose one sheet is linked to the other. When moved to another workbook it will establish links across old and new workbook, not to speak of potential conflicts of range names... You'll see the warnings pop up serially, and no escaping out, it must be dealt with on the spot. To tell it short, what does each workbook/sheet have in features, range name overlaps, tables, pivots, queries, anything special beyond it behind a dumb flat 'spreadsheet'.

Tables/ranges. Dammit. Aaah well. Ok, so Is there a way to search across multiple files for data? Really it's a database function I am looking for and Excel isn't a database (I know) but I need to keep the tabs separate - I cannot consolidate them due to the nature of the data... Oh Excel - if only you were made of magical things!

 

[Legacy 456129]

You can, by opening up all of the related workbooks, but it likely requires major work either in Visual Basic or formula with x-workbook hotlinks. Possibly PowerQuery and PowerPivot could produce solutions. I certainly use those for external web based data, so would be surprised it would not work against data in other workbooks. I know at times one of my workbooks opens another to refresh data, by links I've unconscious established.

And yes, Data Ribbon > Get Data > From File > From Workbook, your starting point.