Identifying Unused Data In a Spreadsheet

**chergh** · 08-10-2010, 06:17 AM

Hi all,

I have just inherited a spreadsheet, from a guy that was made redundant so he's not available to question about it. The spreadsheet is an absolute pig. I have about 70 sheets and often have over a hundred columns per sheet.

I have a page of outputs and want to basically work back from there and identify which columns are used so that I can then get rid of unused data. I made a start manually but it is going to take a while so I was hoping there might be some utility or similar that would enable me to do this.

Anyone have any ideas?

**Whizbang** · 08-10-2010, 09:42 AM

You could use the formula auditing toolbar. Trace Precedents will be the tool you need. It is still a manual process, but it might save you some time.

**chergh** · 08-10-2010, 10:29 AM

I'm familiar with the auditing tools and they are what I used initially but am now looking for a non manual alternative.

I have an idea in my head about parsing formulas to do what I want but thats going to take a while to code. I was hoping someone else had already done this and the code or a product would be available.