For example, if there were no workbook named foobar.xls open in the given Excel instance, you can fetch the value of ‘d:\x\[foobar.xls]Sheet1′!G3 using

x = Application.ExecuteExcel4Macro(“‘d:\x\[foobar.xls]Sheet1′!G3″)

or

SomeCellRef.Formula = “=’d:\x\[foobar.xls]Sheet1′!G3″
x = SomeCellRef.Value2
SomeCellRef.ClearContents

Neither work in udfs (though the approach I use is to create a second application instance which the first instance controls by Automation, then use that instance to call ExcecuteExcel4Macro). The former doesn’t trigger recalculation.

While I don’t use either often, there are times I do use the former.

Aside from that, is there any GOOD reason the XLM GET.* functions haven’t yet become standard worksheet functions? Granted all of them already have OM equivalents, but those properties are only available through VBA. One way to address this would be to expand the functionality of the CELL and INFO functions, but MSFT hasn’t bothered to enhance either of these in 2 decades (since Lotus enhanced 123 Release 3′s @CELL). If MSFT is finally going to do this, great, but I suspect there’ll be neither enhancements nor new worksheet functions to do this. I’ll bet using these properties in worksheets will require VBA going forward.

I’ll look forward to whatever you serve up :)

One possible design goal needs to be doing as much as possible with formulas but no other programming of any kind. Ditching XLM would run counter to that.