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Remove Phantom Links Excel

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Phantom links are a common problem in Excel. There are a number of method to try and most involve using the DATA, EDIT LINKS tool to find the links. If you can’t find them then look in the named ranges or in graphs, pictures etc.

However, even after all of this you can still have some phantom links. We did lots of searching and found an interesting tool from Microsoft which did the job for us. However, it appears to be an old tool in that it can’t handle the new type of excel file e.g. xlsx. In order to make it work we have to save our file down to Excel 2003, run the tool and then save it back to the correct format. This has risks but it ended our frustration.

You can find the tool at

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;Q188449&

The tool seems to look for

  • Master Formula Links
  • Defined Name Links
  • Hidden Name Links
  • Chart Links
  • Microsoft Query Links
  • Object Links

Related

How to find cells with external links in Excel