How to Open / View Same Excel File in Multiple Windows – Excel Efficiency Tip

In this post, let us see how to open same excel file in multiple windows to review or preview the changes before saving it.

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What is the need to Open Same Excel File in Multiple Windows / Instances

As an Analyst, I will be working on bigger data sets which may cross more than 1000+ rows in a same work sheet. I need to scroll up and down many times to see the results. It will be frustrating to scroll up and down as there are chances to get diverted easily and end up getting lost somewhere in the middle.

Will the Save option Do not solve the probelm

The Save as option will not work here as we need to save the workbook with a different name and changes can be made in the first workbook only. Even if we open the same workbook again without saving it we will get it as “Read Only” copy.

The Solution

It will be easy only if I can open same excel sheet in multiple windows / different workbooks here and the changes made in one workbook reflects in both workbooks simultaneously.

Is it possible to open same excel sheet in multiple windows ?

The answer is YES.

I will share two options which I use to overcome this problem and open same excel sheet in multiple windows confortably.

The two options we have in excel are

1. Split and
2. Creating a new instance of same excel sheet using “New Window”

Split feature in Excel

This option is in the View Tab.

The keyboard Shortcut for Split option is Alt W H

Split Divides the Screen into 4 parts.

You can choose whether to have a Horizontal split or a Vertical split. You can also highlight a cell in any portion and scroll it keeping the other portion intact. See the below image to understand how use the split option.

New Window option in Excel – Open Same Excel File in Multiple Windows

This option is also in the View Tab. View ->Window -> New Window.

The keyboard Shortcut for New Window option is Alt W N

This creates a new copy/ instance of the same workbook with an extension 2. Any changes done in one workbook will be reflected in the second sheet instantly. This is useful when working on workbooks with multiple sheets and linking up data from one sheet to other.

See the below image to understand how use the New Window option.

Hope you find this Excel Tip useful.

Additional Multiple sheet Tips

In other posts we have seen few tips while working with multiple sheets/ workbooks. Refer to the below posts in case if you missed out on these.

• How to do the same action across multiple sheets.
• Closing multiple files (from Excel 2013).
• Go to a Specific Sheet Directly

Do you use Split or New Window options in Excel. Also share any other options you use Open / View Same Excel File in Multiple Windows in the comments block below

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