Can Excel actually point to filenames on disk?

I have an Excel worksheet that displays the names of files on my hard
disk.

But I want the names to be actual pointers to the files, not just
names, so that if I rename or even move a file, its path will
automatically update in the worksheet.

Currently, I've gotta remember to update the sheet every time I rename
or move a file.

Altho' my ultimate purpose is hyperlinks, I'd settle for this
capability in any context.

If as I suspect the Excel/Windows team can't do it, then can I, say,
embed some Microsoft object into a cell that does?

Thanks much.

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A file has no way of being referenced except by its name, so if you
change the name of a file the only way it will be automatically updated
on opening your workbook would be if the list was re-created.

If the files in your list are, for example, all the Excel files within
some directory structure, arranged in order of the date of last
modification, then a macro run on start-up could generate the list, and
the list could either be straight text or hyperlinks.

So, if you would like to give details of how you select the filenames
that go in your list, how you want them displayed, whether there is any
related information alongside each name, how you sequence the filenames
in the list etc. we could confirm whether automatic updating was
possible and give some ideas on how to do it.

Bill Manville
MVP - Microsoft Excel, Oxford, England
No email replies please - respond to newsgroup

Bill:

Thanks much for your reply.

It's pretty much as I expected. The only way to refer to a file being
via filename is a fact I hadn't considered, in those terms.

The macro is a good idea. I also had this nifty thought: Whenever I
rename or move a file, I can do it from within the worksheet. I
suppose it could be done with a macro: While on the cell containing a
filename, I can have the macro launch a file dialog, on exit from
which it'd update the filename in the cell.

Thanks again.

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