Special Edition Using Microsoft® Office XP

Using Links to Automatically Update or Consolidate Worksheet Data

Use links to share data between cells or ranges in one worksheet and another location in the same workbook or a different workbook. Just as a formula displays the results of a calculation, a link looks up data from another location and displays it in the active cell.

Links offer a powerful technique for consolidating data from different sources into one worksheet without requiring that you reenter or copy data. For example, you might use separate sales-tracking worksheets for each month of the year, with a single year-to-date worksheet that consolidates the monthly results. A business manager can use separate worksheets to analyze budget information for each division within a company, ...