This user's problem is a spreadsheet horror story, and it's one we hear far too often. A single empty chart brings a massive, shared company document to its knees. The spreadsheet freezes on click, right-click, or any attempt to interact with the offending sheet. The only escape is a force quit via Task Manager. This isn't a minor annoyance; it's a productivity black hole that stops work for over 100 people.
We think the most telling detail is the user's immediate instinct to avoid starting over. They are trapped in a document that has become a liability, yet the prospect of rebuilding it feels more painful than the current dysfunction. This reveals a deep, unspoken cost of legacy spreadsheet tools. The software has failed, but the user is left to shoulder the burden of the recovery. They are asking for a workaround to delete a sheet without clicking it, hoping for a hidden escape hatch. That is a sign of a broken relationship between a tool and its user.
The practical answer to their direct question is a cautious yes. In Excel, you can delete a sheet via the Visual Basic Editor (Alt+F11) using the Immediate Window, or through the Document Inspector, but both paths are risky. Manipulating a corrupted file programmatically can make the situation worse. The real solution isn't a technical trick; it is a strategic decision. The document has already signaled it is unreliable. The user should copy the data to a new, clean workbook and leave the corrupted file behind.
This moment is an opportunity. Users should not have to become amateur programmers to delete a chart. A modern, AI-native spreadsheet should handle a corrupted element gracefully, isolating it, reporting the error, and allowing the user to remove it without crashing the entire system. The fact that a single empty chart can hold a company document hostage is a failure of design, not a failure of the user. Moving forward means choosing tools that are built to serve the people who use them, not the other way around.