The posted routine confuses references to a worksheet with a space (eg.='My Sheet'!A1) with a reference to a closed workbook (='Macintosh HD:Users:merickson: Desktop:[Workbook3.xls]Sheet1'!$C14) (space inserted before "Desktop" to prevent emoticon )
Nice pick-up, may I ask how you realised this from my testing above?

The code works really well now mike .

ALSO: A remove-everything-between-double-quotes routine needs to be incorporated so that the text function
="xyz'[MyBook]mySheet'!A3abc" is not mis-read as a cell refernece.
This sounds interesting. I look forward to seeing your code for this and seeing a final solution to this interesting parsing problem. This problem is proving to be an enriching VBA experience, with all these conditions that keep popping up.

This function is the part of my code that is particularly suited to the use of Regular Expressions. (Parsing equations is the genesis of Regular Languages.) I wish my Mac supported them.
Since Bob and Dave mentioned this in an earlier post I have been intrigued by the pwer of RegExp. I feel I have only skimmed my understanding of its usefulness. The site I have been using is: http://www.regular-expressions.info/.

If I knew this better for use in VBA, I would love to adapt my initial attempt to using it. But other than Dave's great example list, there are not any great online tutorials for application in VBA, juts a case of trial-and-error to learn (which can be fun!)

BTW, I know my earlier code may is not as robust as yours, but for finding closed links in external workbooks, could you fault my code titled "Find_External_Links_in_CLOSED_Workbooks_references_only", I found that this bit worked quite well. If you can break it, is there a way to amend this code using RegExp to make it more rigorous, I'm just curious to hear your thoughts.
Well, thanks again and please let me know of the other Function and any changes.

regards,