As IT consultants, we occasionally find ourselves with large spreadsheets that need to be reviewed with human eyes (rather than by filters or scripts) for inspection or comparison, etc.
The other day I was quite frustrated while comparing a large amount of data between two Excel spreadsheets. I had to constantly switch between each spreadsheet, or set them up side by side in the same window. Since I have two monitors (of course), I wanted to be able to take advantage of ALL my screen real estate for my spreadsheet needs. I searched a bit, and found a cool tip on the WhiteSites Blog from author Paul White (thanks Paul!) for my conundrum; and since Paul’s original post is mostly for Office 2003 (with updates for 2007/2010), I thought I should share a “readers digest” version of only the 2007/2010 version of it here.
Again, please note that these instructions are specifically for Excel 2007/2010.
WARNING: Always backup your registry before making any changes. Do not attempt to perform these tasks if you are not comfortable with editing the registry. Seriously. Don’t.
- Open Regedit
- Navigate to the following registry key:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.Sheet.12\shell\Open\command
- The “(default)” value will be something like this:
"C:Program Files (x86)Microsoft OfficeOffice14EXCEL.EXE" /e
- Append a “%1″ to the end of the “(default)” value, making it:
"C:Program Files (x86)Microsoft OfficeOffice14EXCEL.EXE" /e "%1"
- Rename the “command” value, which is right below the “(Default)” value, to “command2″ or something else.
- Rename the “ddeexec” key to “ddeexec2″ or something else.
After you have done this, your Registry should like similar to this:
…and with that, your Excel spreadsheets should now open in separate windows.
Enjoy!
Tags: Microsoft, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Office, Windows 7
