How to get speed up data getting by ignoring empty cells? - excel

Question

I've ran into a problem with a processing tool I'm working on, namely with the initial hang time being close to 10 seconds long. The issue I'd identified is that when the data is originally Imported into the it proceeds to update every lookup array and function in the 5x1000 workspace. I've been thinking that a good way to speed up the processing was to limit the import to non-empty cells only but have been unable to get it done no matter what I tried.
By default this is the function that imports the data from the RadGridExport temp file into a buffer sheet for later processing:
Sub CopyData()
Dim rng As Range
Set rng = Workbooks("RadGridExport.xls").Sheets(1).Range("A1:E1000")
ThisWorkbook.Sheets(2).Range("A1").Resize(rng.Rows.Count, rng.Columns.Count).Cells.Value = rng.Cells.Value
End Sub
I have attempted to use IsEmpty(Cell.Value) method but that was less than effective
Sub CopyData()
Dim rng As Range
Set rng = Workbooks("RadGridExport.xls").Sheets(1).Range("A1:E1000")
For Each Cell In rng
If IsEmpty(Cell.Value) = False Then
ThisWorkbook.Sheets(2).Range("A1").Resize(rng.Rows.Count, rng.Columns.Count).Cells.Value = rng.Cells.Value
End If
Next Cell
End Sub
In fact it froze the entire workbook. That was the only way I'm familiar with that could have applied, so I'm in a bit of a dead end.
Is there a way to actually get my initial function to ignore empty cells? Or am I coming at this from the wrong way and there's some method for keeping the worksheet from doing a full update on every single cell, including those whose value doesn't change?

Answer 1

I have managed to find a solution to my problem.
First of all thank to #Pᴇʜ for an way to do dynamic ranges - I ended up not using it in this tool as a lot of processing relies on static cells in a range for auto calculations, but I have written it down for the future!
#JvdV 's suggestion worked like a charm, bringing the load time down from 31 seconds to 14 seconds average.
Current codes looks like this:
Sub CopyData()
Dim rng As Range
Set rng = Workbooks("RadGridExport.xls").Sheets(1).Range("A1:E1000").SpecialCells(2)
ThisWorkbook.Sheets(2).Range("A1").Resize(rng.Rows.Count, rng.Columns.Count).Cells.Value = rng.Cells.Value
End Sub
However it was still forcing a full refresh on all static values - so after digging deeper I realized that I was using a massively taxing clear gate in the main macro:
Sub clearAll()
Range("A:E").ClearContents
End Sub
Which caused that massive 14 second delay. After I changed that function to this:
Dim Workspace As Range
Set Workspace = ThisWorkbook.Sheets(2).Range("A1:E1000")
For Each Cell In Workspace
If IsEmpty(Cell.Value) = False Then
Cell.ClearContents
End If
Next Cell
The load time went down further from 14 seconds to under 2 seconds total.
Thanks again :)