I appreciate that, when trying to copy over an open file, File Explorer gives me a chance to close the file and come back to resume the copy. It used to just stop, as I remember, but now it’s very nice:

I’m not sure why the message says that a “folder” is open – I’m only trying to copy one file. That’s okay though, it’s clear enough what the message means (especially if you read it quickly). So, I just go into Excel, close the workbook and then go back to File Explorer and hit the “Try Again” button. I thought it would be helpful, or at least fun, to have a complementary function in Excel – a function that closes the workbook but allows me to immediately re-open it after finishing the copy

This is useful when saving to Excel from another program, like Crystal Reports, that exports to a workbook. Generally, I do the export, look at the output workbook, see something I want to change, go back into Crystal to fiddle, and export again*. Of course I can’t do the export if the workbook is still open, so I close it (if I remember) and then re-open it after the export. This requires using Excel’s Recent Files list, and if you read my last post you know I’m not a big fan.

So my most recent addition to my personal addin is a little routine that closes the active workbook and pops up a message box that “holds its place.” That way when I come back from saving over the just-closed file, I can re-open it with the click of a button:

Here’s the code:

Note that the code closes the workbook without prompting to save, since I’m only planning to use it when I’m about to write over the workbook anyways.

And if I decide I want something even simpler, maybe I’ll just go with this:

* I’m happy to say that we use Crystal Reports mostly as a presentation layer for SQL, so I don’t often have to deal with formulas and the like in it.