IT Tips & Tricks

Published 7 November 2022

How to Find & Fix Broken Links in Excel (and Avoid Hellish End Users)

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Mildred sailed into the IT department first thing this morning, dressed in a hideous purple pantsuit, and wearing a murderous expression. “Have you seen my spreadsheets?” she barked. Well, no, of course you haven’t, because checking on Mildred’s spreadsheets is not the first task of the day for anyone in the IT department. Talking to Mildred is akin to poking a snake with a sharp stick, and anybody with an ounce of self-preservation avoids that interaction like the plague. Yet here she is, bristling with anger, her eyes accusing you of being the most incompetent fool she’s ever had the displeasure of dealing with, expecting you to know exactly what she’s talking about. She informs you that she was doing what she calls “a spot of tidying up,” and your dumb system has done something to her beloved spreadsheets. “None of my links work,” she accuses. “My spreadsheets are like the paper targets after I’m done at the shooting range.” She folds her arms and eyes you expectantly as if to say, “What are you going to do about it?” And all you can think (silently — to yourself — of course) is, “Mildred? At the shooting range? That’s a scary thought.” Finding and fixing the broken links in her Excel spreadsheets sounds far more appealing. All this, first thing in the morning, when you haven’t even finished your first cup of coffee yet.

You’d be hard-pressed to find a company whose depth and breadth of experience could be more beneficial to you.

Mildred and The Rooftop

mildred

Mildred and her spreadsheets. Tip: If you want to keep user complaints to a minimum, protect your file links.

Mildred looks like an angry, walking bruise and as she exits the IT department, you vow to do something to stop these dreaded visits from her. Enough is enough. You top up your coffee and start a Google search. An email and a phone call later, and you’re wanting to yell your success from the rooftops. You’d love nothing more than to stroll down to Accounts, point a finger at Mildred, and imperiously inform her that she can do all the “tidying up” she wants, but she’ll never have an excuse to darken your doorstep again. Instead, thinking of the snake and the stick, you decide to be the “bigger” person and do no such thing. (Sometimes intelligence and cowardice go hand in hand, right?) Your boss and the rest of the IT department are high-fiving and grinning right along with you. They’re sick of Mildred too, and now, they’ll never be plagued by her again — or any of the other users that screw up their linked data from time to time, causing endless hours of painstaking extra work for the IT department. Not only that, but if the IT department needs to do any kind of system reorg or data migration in the future, the links will all be protected. To the rooftops you go . . .

So, what is the stroke of genius that has spared you all from future head-on collisions with Mildred and her ilk?

The New Anti-Mildred Era

It’s a gem, a real powerhouse, called LinkFixer Advanced™ by LinkTek. These guys have been fixing broken links for almost a quarter of a century. You’d be hard-pressed to find a company whose depth and breadth of experience could be more beneficial to you. Seriously, who else has successfully processed over four billion links?

What file types can it handle? Virtually any Microsoft® Office file type, PDFs, AutoCAD®, MicroStation®, and a multitude of others. Mildred and her infernal Excel spreadsheets? Abso-freaking-lutely.

When it comes to a data migration, you seriously need this software on your side. Per Gartner, over 80 percent of data migrations fail. One common problem is data that goes missing due to links that break when files are migrated. Naturally, that results in downtime and the arrival of the even more dreaded Mildred brigade.

With LinkFixer Advanced protecting your links, that’s one pitfall you can completely eliminate. And if you’ve already completed a data migration and are currently besieged by the Mildreds of this world, think of LinkFixer Advanced as your disaster recovery tool. No more downtime, no more missing data, no more grumpy bosses, and definitely no more Mildreds.

No more downtime, no more missing data, no more grumpy bosses, and definitely no more Mildreds.

For more information about LinkFixer Advanced, visit LinkTek.com. To discuss your specific situation, see a free demo, or download a free no-credit-card-required trial, call a tactical anti-Mildred specialist (aka a Service Consultant) at 727-442-1822.

By the way, we don’t really detest purple. Or pantsuits. But cranky old ladies with guns? Yikes!

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