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010 Unhide Hidden Names

This document provides steps to reveal hidden names in an Excel file that may be slowing performance. It instructs the user to inspect the document for hidden names, view the currently visible names, run a VBA macro to make all names visible, then review and delete any unwanted hidden names now revealed in the Name Manager.

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Phu Anh Nguyen
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84 views3 pages

010 Unhide Hidden Names

This document provides steps to reveal hidden names in an Excel file that may be slowing performance. It instructs the user to inspect the document for hidden names, view the currently visible names, run a VBA macro to make all names visible, then review and delete any unwanted hidden names now revealed in the Name Manager.

Uploaded by

Phu Anh Nguyen
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Follow These Steps to Show ALL Names –

Including the Hidden Ones


Excel files can contain hidden names and you probably don’t even know they are there.
What you notice is that every time you copy a tab over, Excel prompts you with a list of
names. You check your Name Manager and can’t find these names there. As you continue
working in the file, it starts to get slower. One cause is likely to be these hidden names.

When you create a Name in Excel, you can’t make it invisible in the name manger. You can
only do this in VBA. However some files that use Add-ins can contain hidden names. These
can become obsolete after a while and can make your Excel slow, especially if you have
bigger files. When you copy these tabs to other workbooks, the hidden names come along
as well, even though you probably don’t need these anymore.

Do you have any hidden names?


First thing to do is to check if you have any hidden names in your file.

Inspect your document by going to File / Check for Issues / Inspect Document . Does it
have hidden names? If yes, you will see that Excel can’t remove it for you. You need a
macro to do this.

One method is to make them visible and then delete them from name manager.

Check the names you currently have


Before making the hidden names visible, take a look at the Names you currently have in
Name Manager. Go to Formulas / Name Manager.

1
Copy this Macro to your VBA Editor
Now open the VBA editor. Press Alt + F11 to get there fast.

Click on ThisWorkbook. Copy and paste the code below in the code window.

Sub ShowHiddenNames()
Dim i As Name
For Each i In ActiveWorkbook.Names
i.Visible = True
Next i
End Sub

To run the code, go back to your Excel file. Go to View / Macros / View Macros.

Select ShowHiddenNames and click Run.

Now go back to Name Manager. All the hidden names are now visible.

2
Remove unwanted names

You can see there are A LOT of hidden names in this file. Highlight them and Delete. Make
sure you exclude the names you had at the beginning.

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