Wow, that's lot of work you did. Thanks so much. As for the details, I need the date, like mar 17. That's it. Basically, each workbook contains a month. Along the bottom are tabs that have each day of the month.(Thanks to Bryan and ASAP Utilites.) So if an invoice (315747) is in a column called Contract # on mar 17, I need to see that that date contains that contract number. Once I have that I can navigate to the proper workbook. BTW, I just tried that and it worked great on the test book. If I could do that across the workbooks, one for each month, I'd be all set. And since I would like to learn VBA, where would I start to learn how to do this so I don't have bug someone for the basics? Larry

0

Any book by John Walkenbach is recommended and there is one called Excel 2000 VBA by John Green that I like a lot. One of the best ways to start learning VBA is to record macros and see what the code looks like. It often needs modification to allow for generalities but it is a good way to learn syntax, etc. I forgot to search all the sheets in a book in the code I provided. Do you want to attempt it before I give you the answer?

0

Yes, I will. Thanks so much for the help so far. Give me a week or two to try and write such a macro and if I get stuck, I'll post with the problem or if by some chance I get it right, I'll let you know. Larry

0

I'm sure about it : vlookup function goes on closed files. The only prob is that u can make a search on only 1 workboot in a row , i mean u must put a vlookup formula in 1st row to see in January, another to look in feb, and so on. But now u're out of prob i think, my answer is just for fun...

0

Taxi, I'll look into that also. It could be a good way to do something else I'm working on. I think I'm going to be very busy for the next few weeks. Larry What inspired this silly rhyme? Two parts vodka, one part lime.

0

On the Excel search, I've decided jus to use the Windows search for right now. I'm under a time constraint and by the time I learned enough VBA, I'd be past my deadline. But this has pointed out to me the importance of learning how to code things like this. Thanks to Grok Lobster nad Taxi for your help. Larry BTW, I tried, and I couldn't grok a lobster. Has some luck ith sea turtle once, but no joy with the Lobster. And unfortunately, I'm old enough to know what "grok" is.

0

Larry, I haven't tried this, but I think it will work. Sub SearchBooks() SearchWord = InputBox("Enter the string to search for") For i = 1 To Workbooks.Count Workbooks(i).Activate For j = 1 to Sheets.Count Worksheets(j).Activate Range("A1").Activate FindAnother: Set WordAddress = Cells.Find(What:=SearchWord, after:=ActiveCell, LookIn:=xlFormulas, LookAt:= _ xlPart, SearchOrder:=xlByRows, SearchDirection:=xlNext, MatchCase:=False) If WordAddress Is Nothing Then MsgBox ActiveWorkbook.Name & Chr(13) & "Search string not found" Else: If WordAddress.Address = CheckCell Then GoTo NextBook If ActiveCell.Address = "$A$1" Then CheckCell = WordAddress.Address Address = WordAddress.Address MsgBox ActiveWorkbook.Name & Chr(13) & ActiveSheet.Name & Chr(13) & Address Range(Address).Activate GoTo FindAnother End If Next j NextBook: Next i End Sub ps - You should not feel unfortunate knowing what grok means

0