Trace Precedents and Dependents Arrows are Invisible

[stretch]

Hi,

I was wondering if anyone here has come across this issue in Excel
2003. This one is driving me nuts and I cannot seem to find any other
mention of it in usergroups or knowledgebase. When hitting the trace
precedents or dependents button from a cell, Excel does indeed
accurately trace them, but I cannot see the arrows. I know that it is
tracing them because my curser points at the location where the tracer
arrow should be and double clicking sends me to the anticipated cell.
But nonetheless, I cannot actually see the arrows. If the link is to
another sheet, I do not see the dotted line connecting the cell to the
icon representing the sheet reference, but the little icon does show
up.

Any insight on this will be greatly appreciated.

 

[Craig M]

stretch,

I've got the exact same problem (Excel 2002 SP3). The function appears to
work correctly but the arrows do not display. Interestingly, if you highlight
the area including the tracing arrows and change the background colour
(doesn't matter what to), then the arrows suddenly (re)appear. As soon as you
click anywhere on the sheet however (without altering the background colour
again), the arrows disappear again - very frustrating

Doesn't anyone have any ideas?

 

[Craig M]

Right, further to my earlier reply (see below), I've discovered the source of
my problem: I was using a COM Add-In that seems to have affected the ability
of the autoshape lines to stay on-screen.

Once I disabled the COM Add-In from loading at start-up, the behaviour of
autoshape lines (and the auditing trace lines) returned to normal.

(Just to add to the complexity of this issue, I can still actually use the
Add-In as long as I add it in/ enable it manually AFTER excel has loaded
(i.e. it will cause the problem if it's left to load automatically at
start-up).

So, perhaps it's worth checking if you have COM Add-In's...