Link Value In Unopened/Closed Excel Workbook File - vba

Question

I have list of Excel in same format with different date entry! About 100 excel files, which have different titles. I need to build one master table where I would need to reference some cells from the template used and do some analysis in my master table.
Anyhow, I tried to use the tutorial "How To Reference Or Link Value In Unopened/Closed Excel Workbook File?" to do that and it works fine for closed worksheet!
However, I could not figure way in how to use this tutorial and change the File path dynamically?
Note:
All files in the same folder and every excel sheet have its code and title example: Meal Code-Title.All files have the same structure.
Every Excel have General information in the sheet1, example (Meal Title, Time to prepare,cost, profit, Number of likes, and Number of dislike).The excel sheet have 4 sheets which am not interested on.
I don’t want to merge all files into one file "workbook".I need to have one master excel which do analysis base on the data in the 100 files from Sheet1 (without opening the files).
Here how I did it using index :
=INDEX('D:\Meals[100-Pasta.xlsx]Sheet1'!$B:B,3,1)
Here the formula

Answer 1

Why do the workbooks have to stay closed? You can easily import data from all workbooks in a folder, into a mater file, which contains everything.
Sub Basic_Example_1()
Dim MyPath As String, FilesInPath As String
Dim MyFiles() As String
Dim SourceRcount As Long, Fnum As Long
Dim mybook As Workbook, BaseWks As Worksheet
Dim sourceRange As Range, destrange As Range
Dim rnum As Long, CalcMode As Long
'Fill in the path\folder where the files are
MyPath = "C:\Users\Ron\test"
'Add a slash at the end if the user forget it
If Right(MyPath, 1) <> "\" Then
MyPath = MyPath & "\"
End If
'If there are no Excel files in the folder exit the sub
FilesInPath = Dir(MyPath & "*.xl*")
If FilesInPath = "" Then
MsgBox "No files found"
Exit Sub
End If
'Fill the array(myFiles)with the list of Excel files in the folder
Fnum = 0
Do While FilesInPath <> ""
Fnum = Fnum + 1
ReDim Preserve MyFiles(1 To Fnum)
MyFiles(Fnum) = FilesInPath
FilesInPath = Dir()
Loop
'Change ScreenUpdating, Calculation and EnableEvents
With Application
CalcMode = .Calculation
.Calculation = xlCalculationManual
.ScreenUpdating = False
.EnableEvents = False
End With
'Add a new workbook with one sheet
Set BaseWks = Workbooks.Add(xlWBATWorksheet).Worksheets(1)
rnum = 1
'Loop through all files in the array(myFiles)
If Fnum > 0 Then
For Fnum = LBound(MyFiles) To UBound(MyFiles)
Set mybook = Nothing
On Error Resume Next
Set mybook = Workbooks.Open(MyPath & MyFiles(Fnum))
On Error GoTo 0
If Not mybook Is Nothing Then
On Error Resume Next
With mybook.Worksheets(1)
Set sourceRange = .Range("A1:C1")
End With
If Err.Number > 0 Then
Err.Clear
Set sourceRange = Nothing
Else
'if SourceRange use all columns then skip this file
If sourceRange.Columns.Count >= BaseWks.Columns.Count Then
Set sourceRange = Nothing
End If
End If
On Error GoTo 0
If Not sourceRange Is Nothing Then
SourceRcount = sourceRange.Rows.Count
If rnum + SourceRcount >= BaseWks.Rows.Count Then
MsgBox "Sorry there are not enough rows in the sheet"
BaseWks.Columns.AutoFit
mybook.Close savechanges:=False
GoTo ExitTheSub
Else
'Copy the file name in column A
With sourceRange
BaseWks.cells(rnum, "A"). _
Resize(.Rows.Count).Value = MyFiles(Fnum)
End With
'Set the destrange
Set destrange = BaseWks.Range("B" & rnum)
'we copy the values from the sourceRange to the destrange
With sourceRange
Set destrange = destrange. _
Resize(.Rows.Count, .Columns.Count)
End With
destrange.Value = sourceRange.Value
rnum = rnum + SourceRcount
End If
End If
mybook.Close savechanges:=False
End If
Next Fnum
BaseWks.Columns.AutoFit
End If
ExitTheSub:
'Restore ScreenUpdating, Calculation and EnableEvents
With Application
.ScreenUpdating = True
.EnableEvents = True
.Calculation = CalcMode
End With
End Sub
You may also want to consider using the AddIn from the link below.
https://www.rondebruin.nl/win/addins/rdbmerge.htm

Answer 2

My answer is untested, as am on mobile. It wasn't clear to me whether you had an existing list of the 100 Excel files, with codes and meals for each one, somewhere (your Master Table image shows only one row/file) -- or whether you wanted to look up all the files.
Code below attempts to look up the files.
Option Explicit
Sub InsertExternalReferences()
' Change if/as needed to the folder of the 100 Excel files. '
Const FOLDER_PATH as string = "D:\Meals"
Dim Filename as string
Filename = dir$(folder_path &"\*-*.xlsx" , vbnormal)
Dim Index as long
Dim FileIndex as long
' Change this line to the name of the sheet that contains the MasterTable -- else you'll get an error. '
With thisworkbook.worksheets("MasterTable")
Do until Len(filename) = 0
FileIndex = FileIndex + 1
' To me, does not make sense to use the INDEX function. It would make sense if you were looking up the value dynamically with a combination of INDEX and MATCH, but you do not appear to be. You may as well just give the cell reference if structure throughout 100 workbooks is not going to change. '
' Reading rows 2 to 8 on each Sheet1'
For Index = 2 to 8
'Index+2 below means we start writing from column 4 (AKA column D).'
'5+ below means we are skipping the first 5 rows on the MasterTable sheet and begin writing from the sixth row. Change it to however many rows you need to skip.'
.cells(5+FileIndex,Index+2).formula = "='" & folder_path & "[" & filename & "]Sheet1'!B" & cstr(Index)
Next index
Filename = dir$()
Loop
End with
End sub
If I have misunderstood, let me know.