How to Remove Tracer Arrows in Excel

Tracer Arrows is a widely used tool in Excel. Though it is very helpful, we may want to remove these from the sheet after our desired work is done. In this article, we will show the way to remove Tracer Arrows in Excel.

What Are Tracer Arrows?

While working in Excel We may want to find the cause of an error, we may want to know the precedence cells or dependent cells of the active cell. These problems are solved by the use of Tracer Arrows in Excel. There are several tracer arrows you may see, let’s have a look through a few.

1. Blue Tracer Arrows

There are 2 types of Tracer Arrows which are of blue color. Those are described below.

1.1. Trace Precedents

If we want to know the previous cells on which our current active cell depends, this arrow will help us. To see the Trace Precedents we need to select the cell then we will go to the Formulas tab and click Trace Precedents. We will see the blue line which shows the path of cells on which our active cell depends.

1.2. Trace Dependents

If we want to know the cells that are dependent on our active cell, The Trace Dependents arrow will help us. To see these arrows we need to select the cell and go to the Formulas tab then select Trace Dependents from the options. We will see the blue line which shows the path of cells which are dependent on our active cell.

2. Red Tracer Arrows

Errors can be caused in various ways while working in Excel. If the dataset is large it’s quite tough to find the root cause of the error. There’s a way out. We need to select the cell with the error one yellow notification icon will appear on the left. After that, we need to click on that and select Trace Error. We will see Red Tracer arrows showing the cells that caused the error with Blue Precedents arrows.

How to Remove Tracer Arrows in Excel: 3 Common Cases

1. Remove Red Tracer Arrows

Red Tracer arrows which show the path of the cause of the error can be removed with a few steps. The procedure is given below.

Step 1: First we open the sheet having Red Tracer arrows. We need to click on the Formulas tab.

Step 2: Now we need to select Remove Arrows > Remove Arrows.

We can see no more Red Tracer arrows in the sheet.

2. Remove Trace Precedents Arrows

We can remove the Trace Precedents arrows very easily. We are showing the steps below.

Step 1: First we need to open the sheet having Trace Precedents arrows. We have to select the Formulas tab from the ribbon.

Step 2: We need to select Remove Arrows > Remove Precedents Arrows from the ribbon.

We will see the Trace Precedents arrows are no longer on the sheet.

3. Remove Trace Dependents Arrows

We can also remove Trace Dependents arrows from the sheet with a few steps. We will show the steps below.

Step 1: We need to open the sheet having Tracer Dependents arrows and we have to select the Formulas tab.

Step 2: We have to select Remove Arrows > Remove Dependents Arrows from the ribbon.

After that, we will see no more Trace Dependents arrows in the sheet.

An Alternative: Keyboard Shortcut to Remove Tracer Arrows

There’s a keyboard shortcut to remove any type of Tracer Arrows in Excel. We need to go to the sheet having Tracer Arrows. Then we just need to press ALT + T, U, A (need to press ALT and T altogether, then press U and A sequentially). We will see all the Tracer Arrows are removed from the sheet.

Download Practice Worksheet

You can download the practice worksheet from here.

Remove Tracer Arrows.xlsx

Conclusion

Tracer Arrows is a very essential tool in Excel for analyzing data. But after our desired work is done we usually don’t need the Tracer Arrows anymore because it may hide our data or the sheet looks untidy with it. In this article, we have shown the way to remove different types of Tracer Arrows from the sheets. If you have faced any problem following the procedures or if you have any suggestions regarding the article, please let us know by comment.