I do apologise for not putting the error message into the question but
unfortunately i cannot at this time access the persons computer on which the
error occured but from what I remember it was basically saying something like
"Your Formula Contains an Error". I have seen this type of message before,
but not at this stage of entering the formula, it's only ever occured on
completion of the entry. I will be able to get more detials tomorrow. I did
try to enter the whole formula by typing rather than moving to the cells but
I got the same message. Thanks for all who have replied but I hope you will
be patient and try to solve my problem again tomorrow.

Mark

"Jacob Skaria" wrote:

--What is the error?

--What happens if you enter the full formula into the cell; rather than
moving around to select the range.

=VLOOKUP("lookup",[Bookname.xls]Sheet1!$A$1:$D$100,2,0)

--
Jacob (MVP - Excel)


"BG Mark" wrote:

I am trying to enter a vlookup function into a cell to look at data in
another work book, but after entering the initial lookup reference followed
by the comma, I get an error message when I try to move to the look up range
in the other work book. It may be some setting within the work book but i
cannot figure out what. I have used vlookup on many occasions and have never
seen this type of error before.