title: Summing same cell across hundreds of Excel workbooks
body: <p>I have around 500 timecards. Each timecard is it's own file (.xls workbook). I need a total of cell K5 from all those workbooks.  This is a one time thing (every quarter) - I don't need the result to be updated if any of those 500+ timecards change.</p>
  
  <p>It would be great if there was a function that took two parameters - 1) the name of the directory containing the Excel files; 2) the specific cell you want totaled.</p>
  
  <p>After 3.5 hours of searching, the Excel forums haven't helped. I must be using bad keywords, as I can't believe Excel doesn't have such basic functionality.  (I did find some stuff if I had multiple worksheets in the same workbook - we would not be able to maintain all those time cards in the same file, and going through and opening all the workbooks at the same time would be very tedious - 500+ double-clicks.)</p>
  
  <p>Thanks.</p>
  
  <p>(Windows XP SP3; Microsoft Office Excel 2003)</p>