Excel files side by side

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I want to have two Excel (2003) files open side by side, so that I can copy data from one to the other, but every time I open the second file the first is minimised – how do I have the two visible at the same time. I have no trouble doing this in Word.

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Go to your excel icon on your computer and open excel, then open your first file. Then minimize excel, the whole program. Open another instance of the excel program by going to the excel icon on your computer again. This should open two windows of Excel. Open your second file. You should now be able to arrange them on your computer so you can see both as you like and if you have a split screen you can put one on one side and the other on the other side.

Another way is to go to the Taskbar Menu Data tab and In the External Data section select Existing Connections. From the Existing Connections pop up select Browse for More at the Bottom left hand corner and then search for the document.

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Many thanks – I should never have worked that out; I had been trying to open two copies of Excel from the short-cut icon on the taskbar, but without success. I finally managed by opening one file via the taskbar icon and the other copy of Excel via Start/All Programs/Microsoft Office/Excel. I tried pinning an icon to the Start Menu but that did not work. I now have Windows 7, with XP I was able to open two copies without a problem, as with Word.

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Hi Mike

I suspect you probably want to open 2 excel files in ‘one session’ of Excel and show them side-by-side, rather than have 2 files open in ‘two Excel sessions’.

Just use File Open to open your first file, then use File Open again to open your second file.
Now from the top panel toolbar menu, select Window > Arrange[/B] > and click the vertical option.

zeddy

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Thanks for the second answer. I have found that I can put an Excel shortcut on the desktop to the Excel entry in Start/All Programs and clicking on that plus the shortcut pinned to the taskbar produces two copies of Excel – I can then use Windows key + left/right arrows to put the two versions side by side. The suggestion of using File/Open twice does not work for me – when I open the second file the first disappears – it didn’t in XP.

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Mike – another approach that works for me is to have Excel open with the first file however you want. I then drag an icon or the file name for the second file onto the Excel window thus opening the 2nd file in the same session.

I have also found with Excel 2003 that there are some things you can not do if you have the 2 files open in 2 different sessions as opposed to one session. Some involve copying data from one file to the other, which seems like it was something you needed to do.

Fred

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Hi Mike

Re: The suggestion of using File/Open twice does not work for me – when I open the second file the first disappears

Are you sure about this???? When you open the second file, the first file will ‘disappear’ because the last file you opened now has the ‘focus’. But if you click the Window option in the top-panel toolbar (in Excel2003) you should see a list of the files you currently have open. You can have many more than two files open at once in a single Excel session.
With two files opened in one session, you can even ‘synchronise’ the scrolling between two files side-by-side.
This makes it very nice when comparing two similar files e.g. in the left window panel showing file1, as you scroll downwards, the rows in the second window with file2 also scroll down etc.
You can’t do this synchronised scrolling when you have two separate sessions of Excel.
Also, to copy one sheet from file2 to file1 is as simply as click-and-drag to file1.
You can’t do this if there are two sessions of Excel rather than1.

zeddy

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Slightly off-topic, but if any Office 2007 or 2010 users are viewing this, the side by side command is on the View tab, Window chunk. For me it does a “one above the other” view so use the arrange all button to change to vertical.

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Mike, Listen to Zeddy

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