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1 months ago
Thank you so much. This problem has bedeviled me for years. The simple but effective find "left bracket" worked perfectly for my needs.
How to find and list all links (external references) in Excel?
In Excel, you refer to the contents of cells in another workbook by creating an external reference. But when you want to list all links of a workbook in Excel, it seems hard to find out and list all external references (links). The following tricky way will help you find out and list all links in workbook quickly.
Find and list all links with Find command
Find and list all links with VB macro
Find and list all links with Kutools for Excel
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Find and list all links with Find command
Because external links contains bracket [ sign, we can find out the external links if we can get all bracket signs in the whole workbook.
Step1: Click Home > Find & Select > Find to open the Find and Replace dialog box. You can also open the Find and Replace dialog box with pressing Ctrl + F keys.
Step2: In the Find What: box, enter the left part of bracket sign "[".
Step3: Click Options, in the Within drop down list, choose Workbook. And then click Find All button. Then it lists all external references in the Find and Replace dialog box immediately. See the following screenshot:
The left part of bracket sign can find out the external links in the whole workbook. If you want to find out all kinds of links, including the internal links and external links, you can enter the exclamation sign "!" in the Find what: box.
Find and list all links with VB macro
The following VBA macro can help us list all linked source workbooks in a new worksheet of current workbook.
Step1: Hold down the ALT + F11 keys, and it opens the Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications window.
Step2: Click Insert > Module, and paste the following macro in the Module Window.
VBA: List all links in Excel.
Sub ListLinks()
'Updateby20140529
Dim wb As Workbook
Set wb = Application.ActiveWorkbook
If Not IsEmpty(wb.LinkSources(xlExcelLinks)) Then
wb.Sheets.Add
xIndex = 1
For Each link In wb.LinkSources(xlExcelLinks)
Application.ActiveSheet.Cells(xIndex, 1).Value = link
xIndex = xIndex + 1
Next link
End If
End Sub
Step3: Press the F5 key to run this macro. Then it creates a new worksheet and list all linked source workbooks' names and saving paths in it at once. See screenshot:
Find and list all links with Kutools for Excel
With Kutools for Excel’s Find and Break broken Links, you can find all the external links of the active worksheet, at the same time, you can break the specific links as you need.
Kutools for Excel: with more than 120 handy Excel add-ins, free to try with no limitation in 30 days. Get it Now.
If you have installed Kutools for Excel, please do as this:
Step1: Active the worksheet that you want to find the links, and click Kutools > Link > Find and Break broken Links, see screenshot:
Step2: in the Find and Break broken Links dialog box, click Filter drop down list to choose All links, and all links in the active worksheet are listed, you can view the links status as well, OK stands for the link is valid, Error means the link is broken.
Note:
1. If the View cell option is checked, when you click on the link in the list. It will find and navigate to the specific cell which contains the link in the worksheet.
2. And if you want to break a link, you can select the link from the list, then click Break link.
If you want to know more about this feature, please click Find and Break broken Links.
Find and list all links with Kutools for Excel
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· 5 months ago"Because external links contains bracket [ sign,"
Sorry, that's not exactly true. MVPs Wyman and Walkenbach even get that wrong (perhaps many others too.)
This is one clear exception
=VLOOKUP(A1,'C:\FOO.XLS'!SomeRangeName,2,FALSE) -
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· 7 months agoWorked perfectly. I was constantly getting an "update external links" question, and didn't know that I had any. Using the Find, [, and Options of find in Workbook found all of them! Thanks, Rob
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· 8 months agoIs it possible to get a list of all the external links that are connected to one source document. I'm guessing that somewhere in the source document, this information should be available, but I've been unable to find it.
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· 8 months agoSimply remove the data validation by selecting the whole sheet and click on new validation rule. It will delete all old validation rules, even if you do not enter a new one.
There can also be links in 'named ranges' and hidden named ranged. Google it to find the solutions.