Interacting with current/open Excel documents

Question

Is there any sort of magic that needs to be done to interact with currently open Excel documents in any meaningful state? If I try to open an already open Excel document with the standard method:
$Excel = New-Object -Com Excel.Application
$Workbook = $Excel.Workbooks.Open($ExcelFilePath)
$Worksheet = $Workbook.Worksheets.Item(1)
$Worksheet.name = 'testing'
$Workbook.save()
$Workbook.close()
It either does nothing or gives an error message saying the file is already open for editing. Makes sense. I've also tried getting the active Excel object (as referenced somewhere else on TechNet forums that I can't bother tracking down atm), like this:
$Excel = [Runtime.Interopservices.Marshal]::GetActiveObject('Excel.Application')
$Workbook = $Excel.Workbooks.Open($FilePath)
... the rest is the same.
No difference. If I close the document without saving and re-open it, the changes will manifest though, so that's something. Is there something I'm doing wrong? Is there another way to do this? Is this impossible? Thanks for any help you can provide.

Answer 1

Hi Bmwinstead,
I ran the script on win 8.1 with Office 2013 without issue, and renamed the worksheet:
Would you please post your test enviroment?
If there is anything else regarding this issue, please feel free to post back.
Best Regards,
Anna Wang
Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help and unmark them if they provide no help. If you have feedback for TechNet Support, contact [email protected]