The problem isn't that Excel hides slides and breaks hyperlinks. The problem is that the tool forces you to choose between accessibility and clutter in the first place. That trade-off is a relic of a design philosophy that assumed you would always work on a single worksheet at a time, and that hiding something was the only way to tidy up.
The user who posted this question has a perfectly reasonable workflow. They want a summary sheet that acts as a command center, linking to other sheets so they can navigate a large workbook without scrolling endlessly. But when they hide a sheet to reduce visual noise, the hyperlink stops working. Excel treats a hidden sheet as functionally inactive, even though the data on it is still there. That is a limitation baked into the spreadsheet model itself, not a bug. It means anyone building a structured, multi-sheet workbook is forced into a messy compromise: keep everything visible and accept the clutter, or hide sheets and lose the navigation links that make the workbook usable.
This is where an AI-native approach changes the conversation entirely. Instead of asking how to hide a sheet without breaking links, the better question is: why should you have to hide anything at all? An intelligent spreadsheet should understand that not all data needs to be front and center at every moment. It should let you organize your workbook by intent, not by manual visibility toggles. You should be able to tell the system, "This sheet is a reference only," and have it tuck that sheet away from your main navigation while keeping all cross-sheet links fully functional. The data remains accessible; the clutter disappears.
The practical takeaway for anyone building complex workbooks is this: the tools you are using today were designed for a world where data lived in static files and every decision was permanent. That world is ending. You do not need to accept the false choice between a tidy workbook and a functional one. Seek out solutions that treat your data as a living system, not a collection of hidden tabs. Your summary sheet should be a launchpad, not a workaround.