When using Excel, if you’re anything like me, the chances are that you’ll have more than one spreadsheet open at the same time.  Whether its because you’re copying & pasting from one workbook to another, or just looking up data from another spreadsheet, it’s actually quite time-consuming (& annoying!) clicking from one workbook to another.

I’m actually quite lucky in that I work with 2 monitors, so I can open 2 different spreadsheets & show one on each screen.  However, if you’re working on the one monitor, how can you look at 2 spreadsheets at once?  There is a way – below is a step by step guide to viewing 2 spreadsheets side by side (in both Excel 2007 and 2003 versions).  Don’t forget you can click on the images to enlarge them 🙂

Excel 2007

Firstly open the spreadsheets as normal, then go to View tab in the ribbon at the top of the page.

The simplest way is to click on View Side by Side, which then arranges the spreadsheets side by side.  You’ll notice that when you scroll in one of the spreadsheets, the other moves at the same time – if you don’t want this to happen, just click Synchronous Scrolling (under the View Side by Side button), and they can now each be moved independently.

If you don’t want them to be shown vertically side by side, then you can choose how you want to arrange them by clicking Arrange All.  This then brings up a menu for you to choose how you want to arrange the windows i.e. vertically, horizontally, tiled etc.

If you have more than 2 spreadsheets open and want to view 2 of them side by side, it will ask you which other spreadsheet you want to compare it with, when you click on the View Side by Side button.  Just select which other spreadsheet you want to look at.

And that’s it – for 2007 anyway, the 2003 version is below 🙂

Excel 2003

Again open the spreadsheets that you want to view, then click on Window on the toolbar, and Compare Side by Side.

This will open up the other spreadsheet, and also a little window pops up with a couple of icons in it – this is where you can deselect synchronous scrolling if you want to move each window separately.

Again, as with the 2007 version, you can choose how you want to see your comparative spreadsheets by clicking Window and choosing Arrange…

This opens up a dialogue box with a menu of different views i.e. horizontal, vertical etc.  Just choose which one you prefer.

To close the side by side view, just go to Window on the toolbar again and click Close Side by Side.

That’s it!  I hope you found it useful – it’s one of those tools that comes in handy.  It’s easy to set up and use and I find it invaluable with spreadsheet work – especially on 2 monitors as it means I can compare 4 spreadsheets at once 🙂