Microsoft Office

Linking and Consolidating Worksheets 27
More about consolidation
Excel is very flexible regarding the sources that you can consolidate. You can consolidate data from the
following:
n
n
Open workbooks.
Closed workbooks. (You need to enter the reference manually, but you can use the Browse button
to get the filename part of the reference.)
n The same workbook in which you’re creating the consolidation.
And, of course, you can mix and match any of the preceding choices in a single consolidation.
If you perform the consolidation by matching labels, be aware that the matches must be exact. For example,
Jan doesn’t match January. The matching is not case-sensitive, however, so April does match APRIL. In
addition, the labels can be in any order, and they don’t need to be in the same order in all the source ranges.
If you don’t choose the Create Links to Source Data check box, Excel generates a static consolidation.
(It doesn’t create formulas.) Therefore, if the data on any of the source worksheets changes, the consolidation
doesn’t update automatically. To update the summary information, you need to select the destination
range and repeat the Data ➪ Data Tools ➪ Consolidate command.
If you choose the Create Links to Source Data check box, Excel creates a standard worksheet outline that
you can manipulate by using the techniques described in Chapter 26.
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