There's a lot of good ideas in here on how to find external links. I've gone through all of them and still have a link somewhere. You'd think that Excel would let you know where the links are if you check a box or something.. After all, you can do it with Compatibility checker, why not with Edit links?
How hard could it be Microsoft?

My 2 cents.

When trying to find a link that might be in a formula you can use the Ctrl+F to Find and type in the name of the linked file you found in Edit links on the Data tab. In the dropdown you have a choice of looking within a sheet or a workbook. You should get a listing of cells when you click Find All..

If you have a lot of links you want to eliminate, you can short cut it by looking for "[". All external links contain the square bracket at the beginning of the file's location. You can also do a mass correction if you want by clicking on the Replace tab.

If you still have the issue, check Conditional Formatting. The problem may manifest itself in the formula you're using, or in the Rule on the leftmost column (that's where my link was hiding). Very irritating to find them there because the only way to break that link is to remove the conditional formatting and then re-make them if you really need it, which you would or you wouldn't have built them in the first place.

Personally, I don't use Names in my spreadsheets. If you do, check them out. It's a good place to hide links.


On Monday, April 12, 2010 8:45:01 AM UTC-4, swoxo wrote:
In Excel 2007, I have a workbook with one link that I want to break. In the
Ribbon, I go to the Data tab, and in the Connections section I choose Edit
Links. In the Edit Links window, I select the link that I want to break
(there is only one link there), and I click on the button that says "Break
Link". I get a pop-up warning that once I break the link, my action cannot
be undone. There are two buttons under the warning, one that says "Break
Links" and one that says "Cancel". I click on "Break Links" and nothing
happens. My link is still there, and if I save and close the workbook, I
still get the security alert every time I reopen it.

I cannot delete or relocate the source Excel workbook that mine is linked
to, because other people are using that source. I just want to break my
workbook's link to that source. Any ideas why the Break Link button isn't
doing that for me?