How to break Links in MS Excel 2016?

In the previous article, we learned to create a link in MS Excel 2016. Now if you do not need the links anymore, break the link between the source and referencing workbook. This article explains the steps to break links in MS Excel 2016.

Remember once you break a link between source workbook and referencing workbook, the link/formula will convert to the current value of the cell. And most important this action can’t be undone. So you can save a copy of the referencing file with the new name. So let’s start.

Steps to break Links in MS Excel 2016:

Step 1: Open an Excel sheet of which you want to break links. For demonstration, I have opened a workbook “Links Test“. You can observe in the picture below that selected cell “Garry Lopase” express a link in the formula bar, which expresses that the source of the cell “Garry Lopase” is cell C4 which is in Sheet1 of  Book1 workbook.

Step 2: Go to the Data tab, there you have a Connections group. Among the buttons present in the Connection, group click on Edit Links button.

Step 3: An Edit Links, dialog box, will open, which will show you all the links present on your current sheet. Choose which link you want to delete.

Step 4: The moment you click on the link that you want to delete, all the buttons to the right-hand side of the window will get activated like, Update Values, Change Source, Open Source, Break Link, Check Status.

As the intention of this article is to break links so that we will go with Break Links. Click on Break Link button.

Step 5: A Microsoft Excel Dialog box will pop-up. It informs that if you break the links the formula and external references will convert to the existing value of the cell. Once you break link it can not be undone, so if you want, save a version of the file with a new name.

To break links click on Break Links.

Step 6: Remember in step 1 when the cell “Garry Lopase” was selected it shows the source/link/formula in the formula bar. Now when you select the cell “Garry Lopase” it will show the current value of the cell i.e. Garry Lopase.

Thank you, Hope the content is useful. Keep reading.