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Excel charts: the values a chart saves, the hidden rows and filtered-out series it keeps, and the files it points to

Last updated: 28 October 2026

This page is about charts in a workbook. Charts in PowerPoint, and the workbook embedded with them, are in charts and embedded Excel in PowerPoint; the cells in hidden rows and columns in hidden rows, columns and cells; hidden sheets in hidden sheets; the paths that links to other workbooks keep in full paths in Excel workbooks; and pivot charts in the pivot cache.

A chart keeps a reference and a copy of the values

The standard quoted in Microsoft's Open XML documentation describes the parts of a series. Its formula element "specifies a reference to source of the data contained in this chart", and "This reference is in the form of a book, sheet, and cell reference or a book, optional sheet, and defined name reference" (f, ISO/IEC 29500-1, 1st edition). Next to the reference is a copy: a number reference is "a reference to numeric data with a cache of the last values used" (numRef), the number cache "specifies the last data shown on the chart for a series" (numCache), and the string cache "the last string data used for a chart" (strCache).

So the figures, category labels and series names a chart shows are written into the file twice: in the cells, and in the chart. Anyone who unzips a workbook can read each chart's copy without opening Excel.

Hidden rows and columns stay in the chart's range

Microsoft's page Select data for a chart gives this tip: "If you don't want to include specific rows or columns of data in a chart, you can simply hide them on the worksheet, or you can apply chart filters to show the data points you want after you create the chart." Hiding takes the rows off the chart, not out of the file. Microsoft's page Display empty cells, null (#N/A) values, and hidden worksheet data in a chart says: "By default, data that is hidden in rows and columns in the worksheet is not displayed in a chart", and that under Select Data › Hidden and Empty Cells you can "Click the Show data in hidden rows and columns option if you want Excel to plot hidden data." The setting in the file that matches it, by its name and description, is the chart's plotVisOnly, which "specifies that only visible cells should be plotted on the chart" (plotVisOnly).

The cells themselves stay in the hidden rows, and the chart's reference still covers them, so anyone who receives the workbook can unhide the rows or tick the option. Rows hidden to leave out a person, a client or a figure from a chart are a way of changing the picture, not of taking the data out.

Document Inspector finds hidden rows and columns and can remove them, but Microsoft's page Remove hidden data and personal information by inspecting documents warns: "If the hidden rows or columns in your workbook contain data, you might change the results of the calculations or formulas in your workbook by removing them." The same page says it "doesn't detect shapes, charts, controls, Microsoft ActiveX objects and controls, pictures, or SmartArt graphics that might be located in hidden columns", so a chart placed in hidden columns is not found that way.

A filtered-out series is still in the file

Microsoft's page Change the data series in a chart describes Chart Filters: "On the Values tab, check or uncheck the series or categories you want to show or hide." Unticking a series hides it. Microsoft's Open XML SDK documentation, quoting its specification of the extensions Office adds to charts ([MS-ODRAWXML]), describes the element that holds such a series in a bar chart as one that "specifies a chart bar series ... that has been filtered from the chart", with the series itself as its one child (filteredBarSeries); a pie chart has its own (filteredPieSeries). A series filtered out of a chart is kept as a whole series, so whatever it held, such as its name, its reference to the cells and its saved values, stays in the file.

Removing a series is different. The same page says: "Removing a data series deletes it from the chart—you can't use chart filters to show it again." If a series should not go out with the workbook, remove it in Select Data instead of filtering it, and decide separately what to do with the cells it read.

Titles and labels linked to cells

Microsoft's page Link a chart title, label, or text box to a worksheet cell describes typing an equal sign in the formula bar with the title selected and choosing a cell; "You can also type the reference to the worksheet cell. Include the sheet name, followed by an exclamation point, for example, Sheet1!F2." The title then shows the cell's text, and the chart keeps the reference and a copy of the text. A title linked to a cell on a hidden sheet shows text from a sheet the reader cannot see, and says which sheet it was.

Charts that read another workbook

A series or a title can point at another workbook. How to find such links everywhere in a workbook, and what their paths can say about folders and user names, is in the full-paths page linked above; for charts, Microsoft's page Manage workbook links gives two checks. For a title: "Click the chart title on the chart that you want to check. In the formula bar, look for a reference to another workbook, such as [Budget.xls]." For a series, select it under Chart Elements and look "in the SERIES function". Microsoft's Document Inspector page lists chart titles and chart data series among the external links it finds but cannot remove.

Where each one is in the file

Check the charts in Excel

1. Work on a copy. For each chart, right-click it and choose Select Data, as the Change the data series page describes. Read each entry under Legend Entries (Series) and the range of each; select Edit to see its Name and values.
2. In the same dialog, choose Hidden and Empty Cells and see whether Show data in hidden rows and columns is ticked. Then unhide the rows and columns inside each chart's range and read them.
3. Select the Chart Filters button next to the chart and look on the Values tab for series that are unticked. (This page covers unticked series only; what the file keeps for an unticked category is not described here.) Remove a series you do not mean to send in Select Data rather than filtering it.
4. Click each title, data label and text box in the chart, and each series, and read the formula bar: a sheet name you do not expect, or a workbook name in brackets.
5. Open the Workbook Links pane to see the workbooks the file links to; the Manage workbook links page says: "select Data > Queries and Connections > Workbook Links."
6. Run Document Inspector on the copy, as Microsoft's page describes, and read what it lists under external links.

Check a copy of the file

1. Make a copy, rename it to .zip and unzip it.
2. In xl/charts/, open each chart part and search for c:f to read each reference, and for c:v to read the saved values and names.
3. Search the same parts for plotVisOnly and for filtered.
4. In xl/externalLinks/, read the workbooks the file links to, and the relationships next to them for their paths.
5. Finding nothing this way shows only that these searches found nothing, not that the file holds nothing else.

What ScrubDrop does

ScrubDrop reads the file in your browser; it is not uploaded. It treats a chart that reads visible cells on a sheet that stays as content: the chart, its references and its saved values are kept and are not listed. For free, one file at a time, it lists the kinds of hidden data it supports and removes the document properties and comments, and accepts tracked changes. Among what it lists are "chart series from a hidden sheet", "chart points from hidden cells" and "chart series from another workbook", each with the reference it found. Removing hidden sheets, rows and columns, and links to other files, is part of ScrubDrop Pro.

When ScrubDrop Pro removes a hidden sheet or links to other files that a chart reads, it replaces the chart's reference with the values the chart already shows, so the chart looks the same in the copy but those series no longer follow the cells; a title or series name read from them keeps its text. When it removes the data in hidden rows or columns that a chart's range covers, it also takes the values from those cells out of the chart's saved copy, and the chart keeps the values of the visible cells, again in place of its reference; look at such a chart in the copy before you send it. Where the chart's data is in a shape it cannot take apart, where a title or label would go blank, or where the chart is set to plot hidden cells, it writes no file and says why: for a chart set to plot hidden cells, for example, "A chart is set to plot hidden cells (…), so their values are visible in it. Removing them would change the chart." It does the same when a chart has no saved values to keep in place of the reference.

A series filtered out with Chart Filters is not written to the copy, in either version. ScrubDrop lists it under the parts and markup it does not keep, as an extension in the chart part, and in the copy Chart Filters cannot bring the series back. The result is read again with separate parsers, and a file that does not pass is not offered.

Questions

Sources: the Microsoft pages linked on this page were checked on 28 October 2026. ScrubDrop is not affiliated with Microsoft.