More Excel Shortcuts for Accountants Mini Episode 4: Multiple Windows

Intro:
Hello everyone, and welcome to the CPA Australia Podcast. Today's mini episode features CPA and Excel expert, Neale Blackwood. Neale has written articles for the CPA Australia publication INTHEBLACK, since 2002. And is the author of Advanced Excel Reporting for Management Accountants. We hope you enjoy Neale's Excel tips today. Over to you Neale.

Neale Blackwood CPA:
Hi, it's Neale Blackwood here again to share some more Excel tips with you. Now, today I wanted to cover an area that sort of seems obvious, but unfortunately, a lot of people have forgotten it over the years. Now, most people work in an operating system called Windows. Now there may be differing versions, but it's called Windows. Now it's called Windows for a reason. The idea is when it first came in, was that you can have different windows for different applications. So you can have Excel in a window, you can have Word in a window. So we're going back to the nineties here. People have lost the knowledge that you can have Excel in multiple windows. Now it gets even better because the latest version of Excel, so Excel 2016, and by the way, there is another version of Excel coming out this year, 2018. In the latest version, you can have an Excel file on one screen and another Excel file on another screen.

Neale Blackwood CPA:
So separate screens. Now this is new for Excel. Word has always been able to do that. You can have a Word document on one screen and another Word document on another screen. But in Excel, you have been stuck on the single screen. But as I mentioned, the latest version of Excel will allow you to have one file on one screen and another file on another screen, and you have the ribbons on both screens. Now that's really handy to copy between files, but there's something that's been around for many, many versions, and that's the ability to open up another window of a file. So let's assume we've got one file open and let's assume we want to copy something from one sheet to another sheet. Now, it might take a few copies to get this done.

Neale Blackwood CPA:
So instead of selecting the one sheet going copy and then selecting the other sheet and going and finding where you want to paste. So what you can do is have two windows of the same file open. And in one window you have the one sheet and in the other window you have the other sheet and that makes it really quick and easy to copy between the sheets. Also, if you want to do linking and all those other things where you need to refer to another sheet, that can be a lot quicker when you have two windows. You can have as many windows as you want by the way, two is the common one. Now to do that, all you need to do is go to the View menu and click the New Window option. When you do, it'll open a window, but it'll still have the same sheet selected.

Neale Blackwood CPA:
So you will need to go down to the bottom and select the separate sheet. This does come with a fairly large warning when you open up a new window, because what Excel does to differentiate the windows, it puts a little number on the end of the name. Now it's very obscure and you would, in most cases, you won't notice it, but right at the top in the green section where it has the name of the file, there is a number on the end. So it'll be colon one and colon two on the end. So that's the only way you'll know you've got two separate windows open on the same file. Now here's the important bit, always, always, always, always close the highest numbers first. So you could have three windows, you could have 1, 2, 3. The reason is, when you open up a new window, there is no display options selected.

Neale Blackwood CPA:
So for example, you might have used Freeze Panes to keep certain rows at the top and columns on the left. Well, when you open up a new window, that Freeze Panes setting is not there in the new window. So the problem is if you close down the number one screen, for example, you'll lose all of those settings. So always close the highest numbers first, and then save the file. To close a window that you've created simply click on the X on the top right hand corner of the window. That won't cause Excel to ask you to save it because you're only closing a window, you're not closing the file. If you do try and close the file, then Excel will ask you to save it if you have made some changes. So if you save the file with two windows open, and then you close the file, when you open that file again, it will still have those two windows open.

Neale Blackwood CPA:
In the View Ribbon tab next to the New Window icon. There is an Arrange All icon. What that can do is that can put all of your windows lined up nicely, either above each other or side to side or in a sort of a tile layout. So that's also handy depending on what you are doing, if you've got multiple windows. So it's a productivity boost because it saves you having to switch between tabs. You can just have two tabs open at once and copy between them. By the way, if you don't already use two screens, it could be worthwhile investigating it because screens don't cost much these days. I've got three screens, so I've got a large middle screen and then two other 24 inch screens on either side. So that's a real productivity boost. You can get a lot of spreadsheet on three screens, but even two screens is worth the effort. Thanks for listening.

Outro:
Thank you so much for sharing your tips with us today Neale. If you want to find out more about Neale and access further resources, go to www.cpaaustralia.com.au/podcast/58. Make sure you never miss an episode of the CPA Australia Podcast by subscribing on iTunes or Stitcher, until next time. Thanks for tuning in.