How to Open Two Excel Files Side by Side in Separate Monitors?
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If you are working almost the entire day in front of your computer at your office with lots of Excel Sheets and Word, then probably you might be working with a dual monitor or may be even more than that. Studies have shown that having an additional monitor increases the productivity by 20 to 30 percent (Source: NY Times)
But some applications like MS Office Excel, even though you open multiple files, they are all from the same instance of the application. So if you want to compare two Excel files, then you may not be able to have it in two separate monitors as the files are loaded using the same instance of Excel. If you move one Excel file to the other window, the other Excel files are also moved to the other window.
So how to have two separate Excel files or other application side by side in dual monitors?
Option A:
In Excel 2003, go to Tools -> Options -> General tab.
Make sure the option, ‘Ignore other applications’ is checked. Now all the Excel files will be opened as separate instance and you can move the Excel files individually across the monitors.
In Excel 2007, Click the Office button -> Excel Options -> Advanced.
Under General, check ‘Ignore other applications that use Dynamic Data Exchange’.
As this method forces each Excel file as a separate instance, the memory consumption will be more. If you don’t want too many memory consumption then you can open only two instances (see Option B) and manage wisely to view in both the monitors.
Note: If you are having issues like Excel opens without displaying a workbook, then you may have to uncheck this option. (See Microsoft Help for more details on this). You can use option B in this case. I have this option checked and I have not faced any issue yet.
Option B:
They key here is, the application has to be loaded as separate instances. Lets say you have opened an Excel file in Monitor 1 and you want to open the next excel file in Monitor 2. You can usually open another instance of Excel by browsing through the Start Menu -> Programs -> Microsoft Office -> Excel. Make sure this newly opened Excel file is the last Excel file you had viewed and then double click on the Excel file that you wanted to open. This will force the Excel to open in the second instance of Excel. Now you can move these two excel files separately across windows or monitors.
This may be little cumbersome way to open new instances of Excel every time. The easy solution would be to keep these links in the quick links near the Start button. So, every time you want to open a new instance of the application, you can just use those quick links.
Never had to use this feature. Still I had thought how to do this.
This is something that I always wanted to do but not able to.. Great tips! Makes my job much easier!
Hey thanks heaps for this, it has been bugging me for ages
Now the only issue I’m having is now that I’ve ticked the box to ignore other applications I can’t open files from explorer (by double clicking)in excel. It keeps coming up with file not found (in excel).
The only work around it seems to be unticking that box.
Thanks again mate tho.. still helpful when I want to use excel on dual screens
[...] How to Open Two Excel Files Side by Side in Separate Monitors? [...]
I was searching in vain to try and find a way to address this problem from my work machine and this article hit the nail on the head. Thanks much!
[...] to LyteBite, people like midlakewinter are now able to have two spreadsheets open on separate monitors. Mac Office 2008 opens everything in a new window, but if you’re 99% of the modern office, [...]
this is a good idea, however using more than one instance of Excel means that copying from sheets works differently.
For example, if you have 3 columns (A to C) with 10 rows of data, and filter column A by all beginning with “x” which returns 5 rows. if you copy it into your other instance of excel, it will copy ALL data, not the filtered data. but with a single instance of excel it works fine.
just a point to be aware of.
[...] How to Compare two Excel Files in Dual Monitor Side by Side? In Excel 2007, Click the Office button -> Excel Options -> Advanced. Under General, check ‘Ignore other applications that use Dynamic Data Exchange’. This worked. (tags: Windows Monitors Excel) [...]
I love you!!!!It worked!!!
When I tried Option A in excel 2007 it would not open the file (as you mentioned in your note). Option B was not ideal for me as I like to browse to the specific file and open it through Windows Explorer.
I put together another solution that will open Excel in a seperate window every time a file is opened.
Unfortunately, copy-paste no longer pastes formulas between the spreadsheets. (either method)
Anyone know of any methods to fix this? (Or some VB code to tell it to paste-special in a form that retains the formulas (that I could e.g. map to Ctrl-shift-V))
thank you very much it worked…
This is what I have been looking for – excel help was useless
Thanks
Perfect, Thanks.
Checking the “ignore other applications” box is a great tip!
However, when I then close the files, I lose this function, and have to re-check every time. Is there a way to “save” the “ignore other applications” command, keeping it always operative?
Thanks,
Jeff
Great….
Wow..simple but it’s work..
Long time ago I’ve done open excel 2003 at XP,also excel 2007 at XP and Vista (with change at folder option and file types).
But its never work is you run excel 2003 at Vista, and you did it..
with very simpel way…great job…
thanx for posting this..
i am thankfull of your usefull information and i completly solve my problem today i was faced with a problem with excel sheet that how i should use in different window the excel sheet i am an IT manager in Afghanistan
To time consuming and resource heavy method, Marco which fits one instance across two screens then another marco to put the sheet slected tomonitor you want is the quick way to do it.
The above methoed does not allow you to look at the same file but diffrent tabs in each monitor. Macro will allow to do that. Now if I can just find the marcos I have been using on the internet since my computer was wiped.
Options to use two monitors effectivly are limited in the Office Suite. Macros all the way.
Im on 07 and the first option will not work, when I try to open an excel doc it is blank… the 2nd option worked great.
thanks
Vista and Office 2007
I was having the exact same issue as Jeff Roth
March 25, 2009 at 4:06 pm very very annoying.
There seems to be a problem with the option avalible in Excel Options->Advance-> “Ignore other applications that use Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE)”.
When checked the key ‘ddeexec’ @ HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.Sheet.8\shell\Open\ should be ignored, this does not seem to happen and when the option in excel is ticked I was getting file location errors.
workaround:
Delete the key ‘ddeexec’ and its sub keys in the action you want to change. (for me it was simply when using ‘open’)
You also need to add the “%1″ to the (default) string located @ HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.Sheet.8\shell\Open\command because now the burden of loading the file is on the command line call rather then DDE inside excel.
If you want .xlsx do work the same just replace the path Excel.Sheet.8 with Excel.Sheet.12
Excel.Sheet.8 (associated with .xls)
Excel.Sheet.12 (associated with .xls)
Anyhows thats what worked for me.
This solution below was the closest to anything that helped on the Internet. Thank you Playdoh…. the only problem I am still having is that when we double click an Excel file it is opening excel without the file open. When we go to Open and open the file, the file is there. It’s just opening a blank instance of Excel instead of the file we are double cliking on in Excel. Any other suggestions to add to the registry changes?
Thank you in advance,
Shawn
There seems to be a problem with the option avalible in Excel Options->Advance-> “Ignore other applications that use Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE)”.
When checked the key ‘ddeexec’ @ HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.Sheet.8\shell\Open\ should be ignored, this does not seem to happen and when the option in excel is ticked I was getting file location errors.
workaround:
Delete the key ‘ddeexec’ and its sub keys in the action you want to change. (for me it was simply when using ‘open’)
You also need to add the “%1? to the (default) string located @ HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.Sheet.8\shell\Open\command because now the burden of loading the file is on the command line call rather then DDE inside excel.
If you want .xlsx do work the same just replace the path Excel.Sheet.8 with Excel.Sheet.12
Excel.Sheet.8 (associated with .xls)
Excel.Sheet.12 (associated with .xls)
Anyhows thats what worked for me.
Thank u for this tip! At my work i’m at dual screen, but never managed to get Excel on 2 screens. But now it finally works, great! I used option A btw.
Thanks again!
Worked like a charm! Always wondered how I would do it, a simple Google search pointed me in the right direction. Thanks a lot!
I opted for option B and it works perfect for me. It was so simple it did not even cross my mind.
perfect..
thanks a bunch..
Playdoh,
I’m using Vista64 and Office 2007. After the registry change, I’m running into the same issue as Shawn has – double click on an excel file, only excel is opened but not the file. I think maybe vista doesn’t like this command: “C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\EXCEL.EXE” “%1″. Any suggestion?
Shawn & Playdoh,
I use Windows 7 and Excel 2007. If I changed only the Default string then Excel would open empty (same problem Shawn described.) I did one extra thing. In HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.Sheet.8\shell\Open\command I had two strings – “Default” and “command”. I had to replace the /e at the end of BOTH of them with “%1″ to get the files to open.
Worked for Excel.Sheet.12 as well.
I chose option A for Excel 2003 and it worked. I haven’t tried copying, pasting or formulas yet, but mostly I just need to be able to quickly compare side by side and work in 2 different books at the same time and link info together. I’ll post again after I’ve had some time to work with this and see what bugs are in there. Thanks!!
This problem has been driving me crazy for months and I just figured it out today!
If you want to view multiple Excel 2007 documents in separate windows in order to drag them onto separate monitors and maintain the ability to copy and paste will all of the available options, go to the excel options and under advanced check “show all windows in the taskbar”. The same option is available for MS Word; however, the only difference is that the default option on install for MS Word is to have this option checked while it is not checked by default in MS Excel.
I have been using this now for 1 month and I love it! But now I’m seeing what others were talking about. I’m not a computer wiz, so please, simple fixes only! And this is my work computer so I don’t want to mess it up.
I have 2 screens open, I am trying to link the total number of hours per person per job that I’ve created in spreadsheet A to spreadsheet B. When I hit = in a cell in spreadsheet A, nothing happens when I click the cell I want to link to in spreadsheet B unless I go back to checking the “ignore other apps”, then I’m back to the whole reason that I went to dual screens in the first place!
Hope someone can help!
this tip was perfectly useful for me, thanks
This is where PC looses… There is no reason I shouldn’t be able to go in and select an option in plain english that say’s “open Excel files in new window”. Selecting the DDE bull crap didn’t work, so since I ‘upgraded’ now I have to go through the Excel program file and search for the doc every time I want to open two files in differnt windows. Completely rediculious!!!! For those that work in Excel alot, this sucks…making consumer friendly products that don’t take a computer programmer to change would be a crazy concept. Seeing things like this makes me want to punch something or someone: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.Sheet.8\shell\Open\command,,,,,add 1%. Add this #@^@#$^
Thank you! I have a happy user now.
this is the money solution for office 2007
My Computer
Tools
Folder Options
File Types
Choose XLS
Go to Advanced
Uncheck “browse in same window” in advanced window.
Then highlight Open
Edit
Make sure in the Action box it says &Open
Make sure in the application used to perform action it says:
“C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE12\EXCEL.EXE” “%1″
Check the box next to use DDE
Remove anything that is in DDE Message box and DDE Application Not Running box.
Make sure the application box says: EXCEL
And in the Topic box it says: System
I’m using Win7 and Office 2007.
After reading all of the above posts I found that if I JUST make the following two registry changes without changing any options in Excel it’s self I’m able to open spreadsheets in multiple windows:
———————-
Open Regedit
Open: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.Sheet.8\shell\Open\command
Edit both entries listed and replace “/e” at the end of the statment with %1
Rename the follwing Key
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.Sheet.8\shell\Open\ddeexec to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.Sheet.8\shell\Open\ddeexec_ANYTHING
Open HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.Sheet.12\shell\Open\command
Edit both entries listed and replace “/e” at the end of the statment with %1
Rename the follwing Key
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.Sheet.12\shell\Open\ddeexec to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.Sheet.8\shell\Open\ddeexec_ANYTHING
———————-
These changes are very easy to rollback and pretty simple.
Many thanks problem solved!!
Thank you so much for this! This info will make my life SO much easier.
Thanks! This was super helpful!!!! I have been pulling my hair out trying to cascade windows and all sorts of stuff:)
Thank you so much for posting this! I have been trying to get excel to open documents this way for way too long. This will make my life much easier!
Can’t believe i struggled along for 6 months without knowing this!!
I’m having a problem with this setup. XP Pro, Office 2007, Laptop HP 6910P. Though I have 2007, most of my files are in the xls 2003 format since most other users have 2003.
I have two excel files open in two seperate independent excel programs. When I try to copy from one file to the other I’d like to paste as values but I can’t. When I go into Paste Special I get a dialog box that says “Paste Special … Source Book3.xls Sheet1! R26C2:R28C7 as with Paste or Paste Link options and As: choices
MS Excel 2003 Worksheet Object
Picture
Bitmap
MS Excel 2007 Binary Format
MS Excel 8.0 Format
Biff5
SYLK
DIF
XML Spreadsheet
HTML
CSV
etc.
Please help…
Worked Perfectly for Excel 2007!! Have three monitors and I know it was possible because all the other applications on office would do this with the exception of Excel….thanks for this!
Bob in Penna
Great – the only one that works for Windows 7 and Excel 2010 beta is opening a new instance! In windows 7 if u have Excel open already, just shift-click excel icon on the taskbar to open a new instance.
Thanks worked well.
-Jon Sent from my Nexus One
BTW, this can create a lot of problems using excel 2007 if you are using multiple instances of excel to copy and paste styles from one file to another. When you do this, it creates a new style for each time you copy and paste and sooner or later, you will crash the file and it will remove all of your styles. The better option is to get a large monitor and open both files side by side in one instance of excel.
THIS WORK!! THANK YOU!! you my angle saving me from destroy my laptop. why are Microsoft people make this version so hard to use, it make me feel stupid
Many thanks from Hungary. You saved my life, I was on the verge of madness.