"Boss, the first thing you need is ReferenceBrowser.xla."Recently, I was trying to audit a big spreadsheet. I asked Grace Gridwright for help.
"Boss, the first thing you need is ReferenceBrowser.xla."
All right. What's it do?
"ReferenceBrowser lets you pick a cell and browse through its precedents and dependents, one at a time."
Oh. What are precedents and dependents?
"Boss, you should know this! A cell's precedents are the cells it uses in its formula. For example, if you have the formula C4=A4*B4, then A4 and B4 are precendents of C4.
"A cell's dependents are the cells that use that that cell. With the example I just gave, cell C4 is a dependent of A4. C4 uses A4.
"Auditing will tell you more about spreadsheet auditing techniques and Excel's Auditing Toolbar."
All right. I guess that makes sense. Now what about the free add-in?
"Right. ReferenceBrowser.xla adds a button to Excel's Auditing Toolbar. When you click the Reference Browser button, up pops the Reference Browser.
"To use Reference Browser, move your cursor to a cell that you want to audit, and click the 'Set' button.
"On the left of the 'Set' button, you click the left and right arrow buttons to move the cursor through the cell's precedents.
"If you prefer, there is a drop-down box that you can use to select any of the cell's precedents.
"There is even a button at the far left which selects all the cell's precendents at once.
"On the right of the 'Set' button, the first box shows the cell you are auditing ($A$1 in the picture). Further right, you can click the left and right arrow buttons to move the cursor through the cell's dependents.
"If you prefer, there is a drop-down box that you can use to select any of the cell's precedents.
"The second-to-last button at the right selects all the cell's precedents at once.
"The button on far right lets you email your spreadsheet to SpreadsheetStyle.com for a free quote! Confidentiality is assured.
"So boss, you should give this add-in a try!"
Hmmm. How do I get it?
"Just click here to download! Make sure it saves with the '.xla' extension, not '.xls'. Then in Excel, use Tools, Add-Ins, Browse, like any other add-in.
"Boss, don't use this for Excel 97 or earlier versions. You need Excel 2000. Also, it only shows precedents and dependents on the current sheet."
Actually, I said, I have Excel 2000. Sounds cool. I'll give it a try!
Copyright 2000 John F. Raffensperger. Updated 12 Mar 2001.