Is the workbook open or shared?

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When one wishes to write to a workbook a question arises as to whether that workbook can be open and how the workbook will look afterward if it was.  Several comments are in order.

A workbook cannot in general be open unless you have made special provisions with an error signaled indicating a file sharing conflict will arise when the target file is open in Excel.
To avoid this the sharing conflict error the user must either close the file or indicate that the spreadsheet is a shared Excel workbook in using the Excel Tools Share Workbook dialogue.
In an open shared workbook the contents are not updated until you have done a file save in Excel.
Writing to a shared workbook can be painfully slow.
In general it is best to close the workbook.