Linked Documents

Linked Documents brings PDF source documents directly into Microsoft Excel, allowing you to review and annotate documents, connect spreadsheet data to its source, and maintain linked evidence — all within Excel.

Subscription required: Linked Documents is free to install, but an active Linked Documents SaaS subscription is required to use the add-in's licensed functionality. The subscription is purchased separately through Microsoft Marketplace. Eligible customers may also use a free trial where available. View the Linked Documents subscription on Microsoft Marketplace.

Designed for professionals who work with document-heavy spreadsheets, Linked Documents lets you attach and organize PDF documents within Excel workbooks, review and mark up PDFs alongside spreadsheet data, create traceable references between Excel cells and PDF content, and navigate directly from Excel to the corresponding source information.

Review and work with PDF documents without leaving Excel

• Open and review PDF documents directly alongside your Excel workbook.
• Add comments, annotations, highlights, and graphical markups while reviewing PDF documents.
• Link Excel cells to text, numbers, tables, and regions in PDF documents.
• Navigate from spreadsheet references directly to the corresponding location in a PDF.
• Search across linked PDF documents for exact text and pattern-based matches.
• Extract information from PDF documents into Excel.
• Build rule-based extraction workflows for recurring fields in forms and similar documents.
• Compare PDF documents and review text and graphical differences.
• Organize supporting source documents together with the workbook where the information is being used.

Built for document-intensive professional workflows

Linked Documents is especially well suited to auditing, finance, procurement, construction, and engineering businesses where spreadsheet data, calculations, reviews, and decisions need to remain connected to supporting source documents.

Typical use cases include:

• Financial audit and control — review supporting evidence, annotate source documents, and keep calculations, checks, and conclusions linked to the underlying documentation.
• Finance — connect financial analysis and spreadsheet data to invoices, reports, statements, and other supporting records.
• Procurement — review and annotate supplier documentation while maintaining traceable links between source documents and evaluation data.
• Engineering and construction — review technical and vendor documents, add comments and markups, and connect Excel-based registers, calculations, and reviews to their supporting documentation.
• Document review and assurance — review PDFs within Excel and maintain an auditable path from spreadsheet information back to its original source.

Improve traceability and reduce document switching

Instead of keeping spreadsheets, PDF viewers, and supporting documents in separate workflows, Linked Documents brings them together. Users can review and annotate PDFs, capture relevant data, follow references, search documents, compare revisions, and verify spreadsheet inputs from within the same Excel-based workflow.

This helps teams improve traceability, reduce time spent switching between applications, simplify document review, and make it easier to understand where spreadsheet information came from and what source evidence supports it.

Keep the document, the review, the source evidence, and the spreadsheet work connected in one Excel workflow.