Working with Excel 2008

Question

Couple of questions... can't seem to activate different worksheets within a workbook. Do I just call them by name? i.e.
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title="this text can be pasted into the Script Editor">
activate object workbook "09-10 Teacherdata.xlsx"
activate worksheet "sheet 1" </pre>
if I have multiple ones is it just sheet1, sheet 2... or whatever I name them?
2nd question...I'd like to open an excel file using a list to allow me the ability to call different file names within a loop. Can;t quite get it to work...something like this?
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background-color: #FFDDFF;
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title="this text can be pasted into the Script Editor">
set deptname to {"English", "Humanities", "Mathematics", "Language", "Science", "Arts"}
set deptnamefile to {"MacBook HD:Users:Dano:Desktop:English Schedules 10-11.xlsx", "MacBook HD:Users:Dano:Desktop:Humanities Schedules 10-11.xlsx", "MacBook HD:Users:Dano:Desktop:Mathematics Schedules 10-11.xlsx", "MacBook HD:Users:Dano:Desktop:Language Schedules 10-11.xlsx", "MacBook HD:Users:Dano:Desktop:Science Schedules 10-11.xlsx", "MacBook HD:Users:Dano:Desktop:Arts Schedules 10-11.xlsx"}
repeat with i from 1 to 6
if item 5 of cvalue = item i of deptname then
copy item 2 of cvalue to slotvalue
tell application "Microsoft Excel"
activate
open file item i of deptnamefile
activate object workbook item i of deptname & "Schedules 10-11.xlsx"
</pre>
Thanks in advance for the help!
dan

Answer 1

Hi Bernard,
Thanks for the response. You helped me about a year ago on some iCal scripting that worked out great, Thanks again! With Excel I have a set of data that looks like this 20501,B,T1441,101 where the items are unique id # for an academic class, slot during the day when the class is taught (ranges from A to H), Teacher id #, second unique id # for the academic class. I have written a script that puts in a 5th piece of info of the academic department name based on the unique id (works fine), and was then trying to move the data into an series of worksheets (one for each academic department) which would give me a visual of the teacher's schedule during the week. The excel file is set up to do this based on the occurrence of the teaching slots that show up in row 3, columns J through Q. So I have 6 different Excel files (6 academic departments) with each file having 10 or so sheets in them (each sheet for a unique teacher). Looking to get the data out of the original Excel file (20501,B,T1441,101) and into the department files, specifically into row 3, columns J through Q. Here is the full script of what I have attempted. I disabled the "open file item i of deptnamefile" since I couldn't get it to work and was playing around with just getting the script to move some of the data over into those department specific files when I posted the question. Any insight would be appreciated.
dan
<pre style="
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font-size: 10px;
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color: #000000;
background-color: #FFDDFF;
overflow: auto;"
title="this text can be pasted into the Script Editor">
-- Works with an already opened Excel file [csv is ok] to move a scheduled sections into a daily Schedule  for the courses taught by a teacher.  Each Excel file will be dept based and have multiple workbooks
tell application "Microsoft Excel"
activate
open file "MacBook HD:Users:Dano:Desktop:09-10 Teacherdata.xlsx"
activate object workbook "09-10 Teacherdata.xlsx"
activate object worksheet "Sheet 1"
get value of used range of worksheet 1 of file "MacBook HD:Users:Dano:Desktop:09-10 Teacherdata.xlsx"
copy the result to wholedata
set lvalue to length of wholedata
set counter to lvalue
set cellnum to 1
set cellid to ""
set slotvalue to ""
repeat with i from 2 to counter
set cvalue to {0, 0, 0, 0, 0}
copy item i of wholedata to cvalue
set deptname to {"English", "Humanities", "Mathematics", "Language", "Science", "Arts"}
set deptnamefile to {"MacBook HD:Users:Dano:Desktop:English Schedules 10-11.xlsx", "MacBook HD:Users:Dano:Desktop:Humanities Schedules 10-11.xlsx", "MacBook HD:Users:Dano:Desktop:Mathematics Schedules 10-11.xlsx", "MacBook HD:Users:Dano:Desktop:Language Schedules 10-11.xlsx", "MacBook HD:Users:Dano:Desktop:Science Schedules 10-11.xlsx", "MacBook HD:Users:Dano:Desktop:Arts Schedules 10-11.xlsx"}
set columnchoices to {"J", "K", "L", "M", "N", "O", "P", "Q"}
set teachingslot to {"A ", "B ", "C ", "D ", "F ", "G ", "H "}
repeat with i from 1 to 6
if item 5 of cvalue = item i of deptname then
copy item 2 of cvalue to slotvalue
tell application "Microsoft Excel"
activate
open file "MacBook HD:Users:Dano:Desktop:English Schedules 10-11.xlsx"
---open file item i of deptnamefile---
activate object workbook "MacBook HD:Users:Dano:Desktop:English Schedules 10-11.xlsx"
activate object workbook item i of deptname & "Schedules 10-11.xlsx"
repeat with i from 1 to 7
if slotvalue = item i of teachingslot then
set cellid to item i of columnchoices & "3"
set formula of cell cellid to item i of teachingslot
end if
end repeat
end tell
end if
end repeat
end repeat
set onepiece to {}
set lastrow to {}
set courseID to {}
end tell </pre>