Find (and Delete) External Links
- 11 Comment
I’ve talked with many people that express frustration about having external links in their spreadsheet, but not being able to find them. If this has affected you, you’ve most likely noticed the warning Excel provides asking if you want to update external links when opening your spreadsheet. There are a few ways to locate these links and remove them if desired.
Using the Find Feature
A quick way to cycle through your external links (depending on the number you have) is to use the find feature built into Excel. We will be searching for “[“, left bracket, which can help identity those external workbook references.
- Hit Ctrl+F (or Edit–>Find on your toolbar) on your keyboard to open your find wizard
- Click the “Options” button to open additional criteria
- Select: within “Workbook”
- Select: look in “Formulas”
- Finally, enter a left bracket “[” in the Find What field (without double quotes)
That’s it. Excel will now go through and show you all the instances where the left bracket has been used in your spreadsheet, which should identify external references to other spreadsheets.
Delete Links Add-In
Microsoft has also provided an add-in to help you identify and delete links. To view Microsoft’s solution to this problem, visit http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=188449. There is an additional Read-me file to help you use the add-in after you extract from the exe file.
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11 Comments on this post
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Saeed said:
tnx very much, i love this site
May 26th, 2010 at 10:29 pm -
Kanti Chiba said:
You may also find links in the Names if you copy from amonther file.
So check for these with :
Insert>Name>Define and look for any links in the Names.
May 27th, 2010 at 7:22 pm -
Automobile India said:
Now I am getting a message that some of the links can’t be updated. I can see that the problem links are to bogus documents. But I can’t find the links them selves’….
June 1st, 2010 at 11:52 pm -
Automobile India said:
I’ve started a small business and have PPC advertising and a very thorough in depth website but getting external links is proving challenging.
July 1st, 2010 at 4:50 am -
car battery said:
Cheers, I was going a bit confused trying to figure out how to delete backlinks recently, even though I’ve been using Excel for a long time now.
July 29th, 2010 at 8:51 am -
Automobile India said:
hmm! figured that event tracking must be newer. It definitely looks like a better way. The fake page views thing was a bit of a kludge. I’ll have a look at event tracking for next time. The rest of the jquery might still be useful.
August 2nd, 2010 at 4:53 am -
Irfan said:
very useful tip
i also applied one of my worksheet
ThanksAugust 17th, 2010 at 12:57 am -
James Price said:
Kanti Chiba comment about links in range names are very relevant. This is so easy to do without realising that you have done it.
Also watch out for links in hidden worksheets as well.
August 17th, 2010 at 9:23 am -
computer support said:
How easily you solve a big problem. I wanna say thanks to the mastermind behind it. I wanted to thank you for this excellent read!! I definitely enjoyed every little bit of it. I have you bookmarked your site to check out the latest stuff you post.
August 21st, 2010 at 2:31 pm -
Automobile India said:
As you suggest, generic terms are fairer game, but there needs to be clear differentiation between internal and external links and the purpose of the link should be comparatively obvious from the outset.”
September 2nd, 2010 at 12:02 am -
Online Penny Auctions said:
I have an Excel doc. That has a lot of external links. Now I am getting a message that some of the links can’t be updated. I can see that the problem links are to bogus documents. But I can’t find the links them selves’. Is there a command in Excel that will lead me back to the links that can’t be updated?
September 4th, 2010 at 1:28 pm
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