Today Excel Video 274 will use Go To Special to find a cell’s precedents and dependents. We talked about precedents and dependents in Excel Video 197. Precedents and dependents are like having a crystal ball with a rear view mirror attached. Precedents are like the rear view mirror. Finding precedents using Go To Special will show you the past, the cells that combine to create the cell you click on. Finding dependents using Go To Special shows the cells that depend on the cell you click on. Tracing dependents is like seeing the future. If you change or delete the value in a given cell, dependents are the cells that will be affected.
Excel Video 197 showed a similar tool in the Formulas tab. I generally use this tool rather than Go To Special, but one advantage of Go To Special is that Go To Special will select all of the precedents or dependents, so it’s easy to highlight the cells with one click as we’ll do in the video. Whether the Formulas tab or Go To Special is the tool for you, I hope you find the video helpful.
