Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. If you are using an earlier version (Excel 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Excel, click here: Easily Changing Links.

Easily Changing Links

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated December 14, 2019)
This tip applies to Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021


Excel allows you to link information from one worksheet to another, or even from one workbook to another. Many people do this very thing when they use one worksheet as a "summary" overview of information contained in other worksheets.

If you organize your data in this manner, you may be wondering about the best way to change links within your worksheet. When you link information, Excel keeps track within the link of the source of the link. For instance, the following link refers to cell C7 in the OctoberData worksheet of the 2019Budget.xls workbook:

=+[2019Budget.xls]OctoberData!$C$7

If you have quite a few of these links in a worksheet, it can be bothersome to update each link when you change the source workbook or worksheet used by the links. You could, of course, use Excel's find and replace feature to make the desired changes, but there is an easier way: Use the INDIRECT and ADDRESS functions.

For instance, let's assume that you have cells containing a workbook name (J1), a worksheet name (J2), a numeric row number (J3), and a column number (J4). In this instance, you could use the following formula to specify a link:

=INDIRECT(ADDRESS(J3,J4,1,TRUE,"["&J1&"]"&J2))

The result is that Excel calculates an indirect address based on the contents of the cells. If you want to change the place from which Excel pulls information, all you need to do is change the contents of cells J1 through J4 so they represent the desired source.

You should note that you will need to have the source workbooks open in order to use this approach. If they are not open, Excel won't be able to update the information as desired.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (11147) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: Easily Changing Links.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Removing Hyperlinks without a Macro, Take Two

Need to get rid of hyperlinks in a worksheet? Here's an easy way to do it without using a macro.

Discover More

Working with E-mailed Documents

Ding! You've got mail. That mail has a Word document attached to it. Before you rush off and open that document, take a ...

Discover More

Counting Unique Values with Functions

Using Excel to maintain lists of information is not unusual. When working with the list you may need to determine how ...

Discover More

Professional Development Guidance! Four world-class developers offer start-to-finish guidance for building powerful, robust, and secure applications with Excel. The authors show how to consistently make the right design decisions and make the most of Excel's powerful features. Check out Professional Excel Development today!

More ExcelTips (ribbon)

Pulling Access Information into Excel

If you have a lot of data stored in Access databases, you may want to get at that information using Excel. There are a ...

Discover More

Changing Portions of Many Hyperlinks

If you need to modify the URL used in a large number of hyperlinks, you can do so by using a macro and a little ...

Discover More

References to Hyperlinks aren't Hyperlinks

Make a reference to a hyperlink in a formula, and you may be surprised that the reference doesn't return an active ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is one more than 8?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)


This Site

Got a version of Excel that uses the ribbon interface (Excel 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Excel, visit our ExcelTips site focusing on the menu interface.

Newest Tips
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.