Is there a way to link workbooks by referencing another workbook located in the same directory (ie folder) rather than by the full path (c:\root name\sub name\folder\file name...).

I have a number of individual partnership workbooks and a master workbook that contains the loan information for each of the partnerships.

I'm trying to accomplish two things:

1) Be able to distribute any individual partnership workbook and have what ever data was last linked from the Master to be what the individual workbook uses
2) Be able to distribute the Master and Individual workbooks in a folder and allow the user to be able to update the individual workbooks no matter where on their system the file is saved.

I don't use excel often, but I thought this was how 2003 worked. From what I read and trying it out, it seems in 2007 only the full path from the original root directory is specified.

I don't know whether MS are acknowledging this as a bug (at the moment I don't believe they are) , but there are lots of similar reports and it is causing mayhem for some users.
The only MS responses I have seen are trying to push the problem away by suggesting ' you must be doing something else as well'.

fritz, is this only happening when the source workbook (the one being linked to), is also open? If so, this is the normal way that the links will show. Whenever the source workbook is open alongside the one with the links, the links show a very limited path. When the source workbook is again closed, the links normally convert to their full path.

My experience has been that whether 2003 or 2007, this is always the behavior of links. Reference the full path automatically (probably considered to be a benefit in most cases (obviously not yours though) when the source is closed, reference the short path when they are open).

You could include a vba routine that would find/replace all links with whatever the user browsed to, or some similar end-user tool.

Thanks!
My "solution" is to use separate worksheets within a workbook. Then copy a sheet I want to distribute. Not ideal, but keeps the project moving