Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. If you are using a later version (Excel 2007 or later), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for later versions of Excel, click here: Finding Wayward Links.

Finding Wayward Links

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated June 25, 2020)
This tip applies to Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003


1

Many people are faced with the task of updating workbooks inherited from other people in their offices. In fact, you may be faced with such a challenge. For instance, let's say you inherit two workbooks which contain links to each other. You want to combine the two of them into a single workbook. When you try to do so, the links between the two are broken automatically by Excel.

There are several ways around this problem. The "manual" method is to use the Auditing option from the Tools menu to find the links in your original worksheets. You can then make note of the cells and make the changes after you move the worksheets to their final workbook.

Another method that may be more automatic is to insert blank worksheets in the target workbook, and then copy the contents of the source worksheets and paste them in the new worksheets. In other words, don't use the Move or Copy Sheet option from the Edit menu. Instead, use the tried-and-true Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V method of cut and paste. The result is that everything from the source worksheets is copied, without any alterations by Excel.

At this point you have two ways to proceed. You can use the Find option from the Edit menu and search for all instances of the exclamation mark. This should find all cells that contain links (since exclamation marks are used in links such as BookABC!SheetXYZ!A47). You can then edit the contents of the cell directly to remove the link. You can also use the Replace option from the Edit menu to find the base part of each link and replace it with something else. For instance, you could find all instances of BookABC!SheetXYZ! in the previous example and replace it with either nothing or with a different worksheet name.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (2528) applies to Microsoft Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Excel (Excel 2007 and later) here: Finding Wayward Links.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Understanding Underlines

Part of the formatting you can add to your text is underlining. That simple word (underlining) represents quite a few ...

Discover More

Changing between English Variants

What is the easiest way to switch between English spelling variants in a document? This tip examines a couple of ways you ...

Discover More

Ignoring Hyphens in Word Counts

When you instruct Word to tell you how many words are in a document, it treats hyphenated words or phrases as if they are ...

Discover More

Excel Smarts for Beginners! Featuring the friendly and trusted For Dummies style, this popular guide shows beginners how to get up and running with Excel while also helping more experienced users get comfortable with the newest features. Check out Excel 2013 For Dummies today!

More ExcelTips (menu)

Zooming In On Your Worksheet

If you have trouble seeing the information presented in a worksheet, you can use Excel's zooming capabilities to ease the ...

Discover More

Quickly Filling a Column

Excel has a great (and little known) shortcut for filling a column with information. It comes in very handy when you need ...

Discover More

Concatenating Ranges of Cells

Putting the contents of two cells together is easy. Putting together the contents of lots of cells is more involved, as ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is three more than 2?

2015-11-24 07:50:29

DJS

Findlink at http://www.manville.org.uk/software/findlink.htm

is a well tried free utility which Finds and lists links.


This Site

Got a version of Excel that uses the menu interface (Excel 97, Excel 2000, Excel 2002, or Excel 2003)? This site is for you! If you use a later version of Excel, visit our ExcelTips site focusing on the ribbon interface.

Newest Tips
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.