- Alan McKim

A The Links dialogue box in Excel (Edit-Links) lets you move and edit links, but it won't let you remove them. So what can you do? There are three things you can try.

1. Manually search for and delete the links. Each link to other spreadsheets contains an exclamation mark so, for example, a link to Sheet 1 in a workbook called Finances.xls may appear as =SUM([Finances.xls]Sheet1!$B$2$B$5). You can use this to your advantage by searching for any instances of an exclamation mark in your spreadsheet. Select Edit-Find, then in the Find What box, type an exclamation mark. In the Look in box, select Formulas, and click Find Next to start the search. As you find the links you can replace them with the underlying constant value by selecting the link in the formula bar and pressing <F9>. Alternatively, you can delete the link altogether by selecting the cell and choosing Edit-Clear.

Caption: Tell-tale exclamation marks can help you track down redundant links

2. Use one of Microsoft's free Visual Basic macros to zap any external links. These macros will get the job done, and if you're interested in Excel macros, they're well worth a look. But if you don't feel comfortable working with "raw" code, you might want to avoid this approach.

A macro which will remove any hidden names in an active workbook can be found at support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q119/8/26.asp. To delete defined names with links, copy the macro from support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q138/6/19.asp.

There is also a macro to delete formula links at support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q126/0/93.asp

3. Use the Delete Links Wizard. This user-friendly utility for Excel 97 users will hunt down and delete all external links in a workbook. You can download it from support.microsoft.com/download/support/mslfiles/Dellinks.exe or from our cover CD.

Caption: Remove "dead" links to external files with Microsoft's Delete Links Wizard