Page 157 - Microsoft Office Excel 2003 Programming Inside Out

Part 3: The Excel Object Model
Workbooks and Worksheets

Table 7-1. The Parameters Associated with the Workbooks.Open
Method (continued)
Parameter Description Chapter 7
Format Specifies the character used to separate one cell’s value from the
next cell’s value. 1 means tab, 2 means comma, 3 means space, 4
means semicolon, 5 means there is no delimiter, and 6 indicates
another character specified in the Delimiter parameter.
Delimiter Contains the delimiter character indicated by a Format parameter
value of 6.
Editable If the file is an Excel 4 add-in, setting this argument to True opens
the add-in as a visible window. If the argument is False or omitted,
the add-in will be hidden and not able to be unhidden. This option
doesn’t apply to add-ins created with Excel version 5.0 or later. If
the file is an Excel template (*.xlt file), setting the argument to True
opens the template for editing, whereas setting it to False or
omitting it creates a new workbook based on the template.
Notify If the file is in use, setting this parameter to True means Excel will
open the file in read-only mode, keep checking for the file’s
availability, and let the user know when the file can be opened in
read-write mode.
Converter An Excel constant indicating the first converter to try when the file is
opened. These converters are additional files that let you convert
files to Excel from programs Excel doesn’t already know how to
open. You will usually need to get the converter from the other
software vendor, but some converters are available on the Microsoft
Office Web site.
AddToMru When set to True, adds the workbook to the recently used file list.
Local A Boolean variable that indicates whether to use the local language
set in Excel or the local language set in VBA (if different).
CorruptLoad When set to xlNormalLoad, opens the file normally. When set to
xlRepairFile, attempts to repair the file. When set to xlExtractData,
attempts to extract the data into a recovery file.

One of the most useful and versatile file formats is the text format. Regardless of the program
you use to create a spreadsheet or database table, you can usually save it as text and then open
it in Excel. For example, if you are working with a colleague at another company who uses a
spreadsheet or database program that doesn’t read or create Excel-compatible files, you can
always write the data to a text file, which can then be read into Excel. You lose any formatting
or formulas from the original file when you go the text route, but getting the data from one
place to another is an ability worth knowing about.

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