How to open Excel tables in different windows ?

Written on 28 May, 2009 at 17:33 in Tips & Tricks | viewed 143 times | 0 Comments

It is one of the questions most frequently put by the users of Excel… How to open several Excel 2007 documents in its own applicative window rather than all in the same one as it is the case by default? Here the answer!

In a strange way, Word and Excel do not have at all the same behavior by default. Word 2007 opens each document in its own applicative authority. It is in particular very practical when one works in double screen since one can thus very easily have a document (and a version of Word) on each screen. Under Excel 2007, the situation is quite different. Systematically, the software opens all the tables in the same document of Excel. So, to display two tables on two different screens, it is necessary to be devoted to a whole manual gymnastics really not very practical.

The problem even took with new proportions of Windows 7 and its function “Aero Snap” which automatically magnetizes the windows on the edges by adapting their size at best. Suddenly, two keyboard shortcuts, you can display two windows side by side Word. But under Excel that does not function, since for Windows there exists only one Excel window.

Here is how to make so that Excel 2007 behaves exactly like Word 2007 in its management of the documents and the windows. Handling consists in modifying the contents of two keys (the first for files xlsx, the second for files xls) using two very similar sequences of actions in register base:

- Press [Windows] + [R], type REGEDIT and click on OK

First sequence

* Deploy “HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.Sheet.12\Sheet\Open” key
* Remove key “DDEEXEC” by clicking right button above and by choosing “To remove”
* Enter key “COMMAND”
* Notice the presence of a value “(by default)” and of a value “command”
* Click right button on the value “command” and choose “To remove”
* Double-click on the value “(by default)”
* Add a space then “%1” (with the quotation marks) at the end of the line so that the data resembles:
“C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\EXCEL.EXE” /e “%1”

Second sequence

* Deploy key “HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.Sheet.8\Sheet\Open”
* Remove key “DDEEXEC” by clicking right button above and by choosing “To remove”
* Enter key “COMMAND”
* Notice the presence of a value “(by default)” and of a value “command”
* Click right button on the value “command” and choose “To remove”
* Double-click on the value “(by default)”
* Add a space then “%1” (with the quotation marks) at the end of the line so that the data resembles:
“C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\EXCEL.EXE” /e “%1”

- Close REGEDIT

Now, if you double-click on two files xls or xlsx on the desk or the explorer, they will open well in two different windows.