How To Pass Numbers to a Named Range in Excel through DDE

ID: Q45714

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Windows Software Development Kit (SDK) versions 3.0, 3.1
Microsoft Win32 Application Programming Interface (API), included with:
- Microsoft Windows NT, versions 3.5, 3.51
- Microsoft Windows versions 95, 4.0

To send an array to Excel via DDE, you must send the array in TEXT, CSV, or BIFF clipboard format.

For example, if you want to send three numbers for one ROW in CSV format, use 1,2,3 (where each number is separated by a comma). If you want to place three numbers in one COLUMN in CSV format, place the CR/LF (Od 0a) (carriage return/line feed) characters after each number in the set.

If you would like to send the numbers via the TEXT format separated into columns, place the CR/LF characters between each number in the set. To organize the numbers into one row, place a TAB (09) character between each number.

In order to send an array of data into a named range, use the following steps:

Highlight the appropriate cells in Excel

Set up your typical hot link from Excel, for example:

=Service|Topic!Item

Instead of hitting Enter after typing the above, hit Ctrl+Shift+Enter. This will cause your data to come in as an array, rather than as a single item.

NOTE: To do the reverse of this, that is, for a client application to POKE data to Excel, the client will have to specify an item name of say, "R1C1:R1C2" to poke an array of data to the range R1C1..R1C2.

Additional query words: 3.00 3.10 3.50 4.00


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Last Reviewed: March 2, 1999