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Excel - Navigating to Off-Sheet Precedents in Excel - Episode 400

1,152 views · Published 5 October 2009 · 3:36 · Indexed 20 September 2026

Channel: MrExcel.com · 2009 · Education

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Microsoft Excel Tutorial: Navigating to Off-sheet precedents.

Welcome back to the MrExcel netcast! Can you believe it? This is our 400th episode! And if you've been with us since the beginning, you know that this is actually our 300th podcast. I want to take a moment to thank all of our loyal viewers for sticking with us and for all the support you've shown us over the years. Without you, we wouldn't have made it this far.

I also want to give a special shoutout to Leo Laporte, who helped me get started with this podcast during a conversation while filming "Call for Help." And a big thank you to Amber MacArthur and Mike Lazazzera from the CommandN podcast for their early support. And of course, a huge thank you to Laura White, who has been with us for all 300 episodes, handling all the post-production work and making sure I don't mess up too much.

Now, every 75 episodes, I like to take a moment to be a little commercial and remind you all about our "Learn Excel from MrExcel" book. This book covers almost every topic we've talked about on the podcast and goes into great detail. I know it can be frustrating trying to remember something we talked about 30 or 40 episodes ago, so this book is a great resource to have on hand. And as a special thank you for watching our 300th episode, we have a special deal for you. Just go to mrexcel.com/podcast300 and you'll get a discounted price on the book, plus some other books at incredibly low prices. This offer is only for our loyal viewers, so please don't share it with anyone else.

Now, onto today's quick tip. Have you ever received a spreadsheet from someone and had trouble figuring out how it works? Well, I have a couple of cool tricks for you. First, if you need to see all the formulas on the spreadsheet, just hold down the Ctrl key and hit the tilde (~) key on a US keyboard (or the backwards accent key on a European keyboard). This will show you all the formulas in the cells. But what if you want to see the cells that make up a particular formula? That's where the Trace Precedents feature comes in. Just select the cell with the formula, go to Tools, Formula Auditing, and click on Trace Precedents. This will show you all the cells that are used to calculate that formula.

But what if one of those cells is on a different worksheet? Normally, the Trace Precedents feature won't show you those cells. But here's a cool trick I recently learned at one of my power Excel seminars. If you double-click on the small dot in the lower-right corner of the Trace Precedents icon, Excel will bring up a list of all the other precedents on other worksheets. This is a great way to see all the cells that are used in a formula, even if they are on different worksheets. And when you're done, just go back to Tools, Formula Auditing, and click on Remove All Arrows to get rid of the precedent arrows.

I may have mentioned this trick before, but the new part is being able to see the precedents on other worksheets. This has always been a frustration for me when using Trace Precedents, so I'm excited to share this tip with you all. Just remember to double-click on that small dot in the lower-right corner of the Trace Precedents icon. Thanks for tuning in, whether you're a new viewer or have been with us for all 300 episodes. We appreciate your support and we'll see you tomorrow for another episode of MrExcel!

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Table of Contents:
(00:00) Introduction and thanks to viewers and contributors
(00:25) Special offer for "Learn Excel from MrExcel" book
(01:37) Quick tip for viewing all formulas and tracing precedents on other worksheets
(03:08) Conclusion and invitation to watch future podcasts

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Join the MrExcel Message Board discussion about this video at https://www.mrexcel.com/board/threads/1152659/

It is a real pain to try to trace precedents that are on other worksheets or in other workbooks. Episode 400 shows some formula auditing tricks, including a trick to see all of the precedents on other worksheets. This is our 300th episode!

This blog is the video podcast companion to the book, Learn Excel from MrExcel. Download a new two minute video every workday to learn one of the 277 tips from the book.

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