Linking Workbooks

Tips, Tricks, and Answers

The following articles are available for the 'Linking Workbooks' topic. Click the article's title (shown in bold) to see the associated article.

Don't Update Links to Other Programs
If you have links in your workbook to data in other workbooks, you may want to control whether Excel updates those links or not. Here's how to find the settings that Excel uses for that purpose.

Easily Changing Links
If you have linked information in your worksheets, you may want a way you can easily change the targets to which those links are pointing. One way you can do this is to make the links dynamic, using the INDIRECT worksheet function.

Errors when Copying References to External Cells
If you copy a cell that contains a reference to external data, do you get an error? It could be due to the complexity of the information contained in the formula referencing the external data.

Getting Rid of Workbook Links
There are two types of links in Excel: workbook links and hyperlinks. Getting rid of the first can be tricky, at times. This tip explains the different ways you can get rid of them.

Uncovering and Removing Links
Excel allows you to reference data in other workbooks by establishing links to that data. If you later want to get rid of those links, it can be tedious to track them all down. Here are the majority of the places you should look for links in your workbook.

Updating Links
When you establish links between data on a target worksheet and data on a source worksheet, those links are typically updated when you open the target workbook or choose to print the workbook. If you want to manually update the links at some other time, however, you can use the steps in this tip.

Updating Links in Copied Files
When you copy workbooks that contain links, you may be at a loss as to how to update those links. There are a couple of ways you can approach the task, as discussed in this tip.