Excel Losing Links

If you regularly link Excel files to each other you may have come across the situation of Excel losing links to your files. In this case we are referring to the situation where it previously had a formula that linked to another spreadsheet but now it is just a number.

One reason for this may be the length of the file name you are linking to or the length of the path name where the file is saved.

If it is too long, the Excel formula cannot remember all the details and so it reverts to the value and ‘loses’ the link. This won’t be obvious if both files are open as Excel only shows the short link. But if the file that you are linking to is closed you will see that the formula contains the full path e.g. C:\Users\Adrian\Desktop\…. and so on.

It seems that the limit is about 218 characters so if the name and path is more than that it could give a problem and possibly lose your links

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