Excel: Using Workspaces

If you are working on a project that necessitates your opening a number of Excel files at the same time, you might consider using Excel’s Workspace feature. This feature allows you to open all of your workbooks at once. In the example below, three workbooks are opened and arranged them on the screen.

To save the workspace, select File, Save Workspace from the Excel menu. (Notice the xlw extension. This indicates you are saving the workspace.) If you have made any changes to any of the worksheets, you are also asked if you wish to save those changes.

Each workbook can still be opened individually, but the next time you need to work with all three workbooks, you can open the workspace file and all three of workbooks will open at the same time in the same way you closed them.

Note: A workspace file does NOT actually contain the worksheets themselves, just configurartion information. Therefore, if you wish to share the worskpace file with other users, be sure they can also access the actual workbooks.