Master efficient ways to manage and arrange multiple Excel windows within your Windows operating system. Learn practical keyboard shortcuts and quick commands to enhance multitasking in Excel.
Key Insights
- Use the "New Window" option under Excel's View tab to clone existing worksheets, allowing simultaneous viewing and comparison of multiple sheets within the same workbook.
- The "Arrange All" feature provides four layout options—vertical, horizontal, cascade, and tiled—to quickly organize workbook windows without manual resizing.
- Keyboard shortcuts, like Windows key plus arrow keys and Ctrl + Tab, streamline window positioning and switching between multiple Excel windows, enhancing workflow efficiency.
Note: These materials offer prospective students a preview of how our classes are structured. Students enrolled in this course will receive access to the full set of materials, including video lectures, project-based assignments, and instructor feedback.
In this section, we're going to talk about how to work with Windows inside of the Windows operating system. This particular topic is not applicable to Macs. So you can use several keyboard shortcuts to navigate around your Windows, and you can also use certain commands in the Windows to arrange and position your Windows into different configurations that we're going to go over right now.
For instance, I'm going to go to this sheet and I'm going to click on a new worksheet button. I have a new sheet here. I might want to compare information in this sheet with information in the original sheet.
I'm not going to be able to do that inside of one workbook, no matter how fast I click on either sheet. So what I might decide to do is open up a new window. Now, just to show you that it's going to be the same window within the same workbook, what I'm going to do is say, new window, and I'll make this really bold and big.
Now we know this is a new window in the same workbook. What I could do is go over to the View tab and choose New Window. What this does is it clones the existing worksheet.
This is Windows version 2, and if I restore this, you'll see I have my original window right here. What this allows me to do is click on another tab and I'm able to look at two worksheets within the same workbook. Now, I might want to arrange these windows because I maybe don't like this particular arrangement.
I want the windows to be side by side. I don't have to worry about manually making those adjustments, like trying to arrange them like this. What I can do is simply go over to the View tab and choose Arrange All.
I have four different ways of arranging my workbooks. I can choose to arrange them vertically side by side. One click on vertical, click OK, they're vertically side by side.
I could choose to arrange them all horizontally, one on top of another. So this is a landscape version of arranging all. I could click Arrange All and choose to cascade.
If I choose Cascade, I see the most of each window, but I'm still able to see the other window just by clicking outside of my current sheet. Well, how do I get back to the sheet I was just looking at? Just go a little bit outside over to the right, a little outside over on top. Now, let's say I'll create two extra windows.
I'll use a keyboard shortcut to do that, CTRL N, CTRL N. I could go to View and I can choose Arrange All, and the one option we haven't looked at is Tiled. And if I select that and click OK, now my windows are arranged as if they're bathroom tiles. That's the analogy I'm using here.
All right, so now I'm going to close that additional workbook too. Again, it's the same exact workbook. If I click on this tab and I say I go here and start typing, it's the same exact workbook and any edits I make in that sheet apply to the original.
But I'm going to close it for now, and I'm just going to leave two windows open. Now, I want to arrange these windows side by side, but I don't want to have to use Arrange All. I just want to use keyboard shortcuts.
Now, this is the window that's currently up front. If I want to have this window take up half the screen, I can press the Windows key, press the right arrow key, takes up half the screen. What Microsoft will now do is show me the other available windows.
Since I am doing a recording, it's showing me the software I'm using to record this video. But the other window that I want to take up, the second half of the screen, and I can use my arrow keys to navigate between the two open windows, is the Excel spreadsheet here. I'll press ENTER.
If I want that window that I just selected to take up the whole screen, I'll use the Windows key, up arrow. Now, it's taking a quarter of the screen because there is another screen that could take up the other quarter down there, but I want full screen, so I'll press Windows, up arrow again. Let me just flip back to the original window.
Windows key, up arrow. If I wanted to restore down, Windows key, down arrow, and if I want to store all the way down, Windows key, down arrow again. That minimizes.
If I want to bring it back, I'll press ALT, Tab. ALT and Tab key allows you to cycle through the numerous open windows that you have. But if you do it quickly, you can go back and forth between any two windows.
So, ALT, Tab, ALT, Tab, ALT, Tab, ALT, Tab. Let's say I go to my Camtasia window and I select that. If I just want to flip back between the Excel spreadsheets, the keyboard shortcuts I can use are Control, Tab.
This will only switch between the two open Excel windows or however many windows you have open in Excel. I want to control the position of this window, so I can press Windows key, left arrow. Takes up the left half, Windows key, right arrow.
We'll move it towards the middle and Windows key, right arrow, moves it over to the right side. Then I get to pick the other window I want to take. I want to take up the left half.
I'll use the blank Excel spreadsheet. I'll press ENTER and I just switch positions of the windows. So, these are quick little keyboard shortcuts you can use to navigate and manage windows inside of Excel.