NavD — Quick help and FAQ

NavD is an Excel add-in for navigating financial models. It shows the precedents and dependents of a cell, breaks a formula down into a tree and audits the model. It also has formatting cycles designed for investment banking models.

Getting started

How do I open NavD?

Home → Add-ins → NavD. The pane opens on the right and the NavD tab appears on the ribbon. From there:

• Precedents: the cells the active cell depends on.
• Dependents: the cells that depend on the active cell.

What do I do with the list?

• ↑ / ↓: moves through the list and jumps to each cell on the sheet.
• Enter: drills, that is, analyses the selected reference.
• ⌫ (Backspace): goes back one level.
• Home: goes back to the starting cell.
• Space: opens the multi-level tree.
• Typing: filters the list.
• Ctrl+A (in the list): selects in Excel every cell in the list that is on the same sheet.

What is Esc for?

• The 1st Esc clears everything: list, colours and path. The keyboard goes back to the sheet, so the arrow keys move between cells again.
• The 2nd Esc hides the pane.

The Navigator's Clear button does the same as the 1st Esc.

What is on the ribbon (NavD tab)?

• Navigation: Precedents, Dependents, Formula (formula tree), Tree, Reopen ▾ (previous precedents or dependents analysis) and Open pane.
• Model audit: Audit model, Next error and Restore colours.
• Formatting: the number, font colour, style and border cycles, and the Formatting pane (opens the pane on the Formatting tab).
• Help: the shortcut editor and this page. In the pane, the (?) button at the top opens this page too.

Keyboard shortcuts

On a Mac, Ctrl is Ctrl, not ⌘.

Can I change the shortcuts?

Yes, in the shortcut editor (⌨ in the pane, or Ctrl+Shift+K). Office has rules for these combinations:

• at least Ctrl or Alt, because Shift alone is not enough;
• plus one key from A–Z, 0–9 or - _ +.

That is why single-key shortcuts such as F2 are not possible. If a shortcut stops responding, it clashes with Excel. To fix it, type "Reset Office Add-ins shortcut preferences" in Excel's search box and pick NavD the next time Excel asks.

On a Mac, the first shortcut shows "This add-in is no longer available". Why?

It is an Excel for Mac bug with manually installed add-ins. NavD does not cause it and cannot prevent it. The shortcut only starts working after Excel has run at least one NavD ribbon button in that session.

Workaround: in each Excel session, open NavD from Add-ins and click Precedents or Dependents on the ribbon once. After that, the shortcuts work until you quit Excel.

Opening just the pane is not enough, and the add-in cannot click a ribbon button by itself. With the version installed from the Microsoft store, this error should not happen.

And in Excel on the web?

On the web there are no Excel shortcuts for NavD (the Ctrl+Shift ones in this table). Use the ribbon and, inside the pane, the list keys: ↑ / ↓, Enter, Space, ⌫, Home, Esc and typing to filter. On the web the pane shows only those.

Cell colours

How do I colour the cells on the sheet?

By default NavD paints nothing: colours appear in the pane only. To see on the sheet where each number comes from, click Colour after running Precedents or Dependents. The button turns gold while the colours are on.

The colours only last for that analysis. They go away by themselves:

• with another click on Colour;
• with Esc or the Clear button;
• with a new analysis (a drill included);
• when you select by hand a cell outside the analysis.

Clicking inside a coloured block, or moving through the list with ↑/↓, keeps the colours.

Which colours does it use?

The ▦ button in the header picks the scheme, and the choice is kept:

1. One colour per reference: each precedent has its own colour, the same in the list and on the sheet.
2. By cell type (▧):
   • yellow for a hardcoded number;
   • grey for a formula;
   • green for a link to another sheet;
   • red for an external link or an error.

Do the colours damage my file?

No. NavD keeps the original colours and restores them when the colours go away. The Restore colours button on the ribbon (Ctrl+Shift+Z) restores them too.

What about Ctrl+Z?

Painting goes into Excel's history. With colours on, Ctrl+Z undoes the colours first before it reaches your last change, and on older Excel versions the history may be wiped. That is why colours only come on when you click Colour.

Why does NavD ask before showing a hidden sheet?

To go to a reference on a hidden sheet, NavD has to show it. On Windows and Mac, showing a sheet wipes the Ctrl+Z history, so NavD asks first: click Show the sheet in the bar at the bottom. Esc hides it again. Hidden rows and columns are shown without asking, because those go into Ctrl+Z.

Formula tree

What does ƒ Formula show?

It breaks the cell's formula down into functions, arguments and references, with the value of each reference. Enter, or clicking a branch, goes to that reference's cell.

I selected another cell in Excel and the tree did not change.

That is on purpose: it lets you move through the references without losing the tree. To see the formula of the cell you now have selected, click ↻ Refresh.

Do the computed parts (for example SUM(...)>0) show a value too?

In Excel for Windows and Mac, yes: NavD asks Excel for the value of each function and expression, read-only, without writing to the workbook. Parts that depend on the cell itself, such as ROW(), and parts that return a range instead of a value, such as OFFSET(...) on its own, stay without a value. Excel on the web does not have this feature, so there only the values of the references appear.

What about INDIRECT / OFFSET?

These are formulas whose target is only known when they calculate. NavD does not resolve them, for the same Ctrl+Z reason. The audit flags them.

Other Navigator tools

• ↺ Reopen: goes back to the previous analysis. NavD keeps the last 5 analyses, but only while Excel is open.
• Tree: precedents or dependents over several levels, expanded as you go. Cycles are flagged.
• ⚠ Errors: jumps to the next cell with an error (#REF!, #DIV/0!…). Shift+click jumps to the previous one.
• Colour: paints the cells of the open analysis on the sheet (see Cell colours).
• Clear: the same as the 1st Esc.

The top of the pane also has:

• ⤓ Export: copies the list to a new sheet, with links to each cell.
• (?) Help: opens this page, in the pane's language.

Dependents are slow the first time. Is that normal?

Yes. To find dependents, NavD reads the workbook once and builds a map of the links. It then updates the map by itself when you stop typing. The ⟳ symbol in the header shows when the map is being updated.

Audit

The Audit model button looks for:

• formulas that differ from the row's pattern, a typical sign of an error in a model;
• hardcoded numbers inside formulas;
• named ranges that are broken, unused or duplicated;
• external links;
• INDIRECT / OFFSET;
• circular references.

At the top, choose the scope:

• Active sheet (the default): reads that sheet only, so it is much faster on large models. Only cycles inside the sheet are found, and "unused" names are not flagged, because the rest of the workbook was not read.
• Whole workbook: reads every sheet.

Each result takes you to the cell. You can export the list to CSV or to a new sheet. On large workbooks, the Cancel button stops the audit halfway.

Formatting

Cycles that follow the usual financial modelling conventions:

• Number format: #,##0 → #,##0;(#,##0) → #,##0.00 → 0.0% → 0.00% → 0.00x.
• Font colour:
  • blue for inputs;
  • black for formulas;
  • green for links to another sheet;
  • red for external links.
• Style: fill and font together (Input, Formula, Link, External, Check).
• Borders: none → bottom → top and bottom → box → box with inside lines.

Each cycle acts on the selection. Repeating the shortcut moves to the next format.

Language and appearance

Which languages is NavD available in?

Portuguese, English and Spanish. The PT / EN / ES button in the header switches the pane's language. The first time, NavD picks Office's language.

Does the ribbon (NavD tab) change language with that button?

No. The ribbon names come from the installation file (the manifest) and always follow Office's language:

• in the store version, Office updates them by itself;
• with a manual installation, the new manifest has to be installed to see the new names.

Light / dark theme?

The half-circle button switches between automatic (follows Office), light and dark.

Privacy

Does NavD send my data anywhere?

No. NavD runs inside Excel, on your computer. The internet is only used to download the add-in itself, from navd.rodrino.com, and the Office library, from Microsoft. The content of your workbooks never leaves Excel.

Does NavD store anything?

Only your preferences, inside Office itself:

• the language;
• the theme;
• the colour scheme;
• the audit scope.

The analysis history is not kept between sessions.