Excel Tip Tuesday: How to Arrange Windows

Posted by Lisa on January 15, 2019 at 10:30 AM

Excel IconDo you become an Excel contortionist, spreading new windows all over your many monitors every time you need to see data in two or more workbooks at the same time? If you need to view or compare the contents of multiple workbooks, there's a better solution. Clicking the Arrange All button from the Window group on the View tab of the ribbon will present you with several options to accomplish the same thing while saving real estate on your monitors. When the Arrange Windows window opens, you'll see several options: Tiled, Horizontal, Vertical or Cascade.

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Selecting 'Tiled' will show each workbook in its own window and fill up the screen like this:

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'Horizontal' arranges windows one on top of another. This is particularly useful for wide workbooks with many columns.

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'Cascade' shows the workbooks in separate, nearly full-size windows. This arrangement is helpful because it's easy to select the workbooks.

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Finally, 'Vertical' shows the workbooks side-by-side. The opposite of 'Horizontal', this view is useful for long workbooks with many rows.

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There is an additional option for arranging workbooks in a vertical way by clicking the View Side by Side button on the View tab of the ribbon.

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When you click on View Side by Side, you get the workbooks arranged vertically with synchronized scrolling turned on. To turn it off, click the Synchronized Scrolling button right below the View Side by Side icon on the ribbon's View tab.

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Now you can view your data without having to get all those neck cramps or, worse, flashing back and forth between worksheets while trying to remember what you just saw!

Leave us a comment and let readers know what Excel tips you use on a daily basis.

Topics: Excel, Excel Tip Tuesday

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