Creating a “Workspace” (“Workspace”)

A handy but far too often overlooked option in Excel is a “Workspace” (“Workspace”).

If you often work simultaneously with multiple “Workbooks”, it is useful to make this a “Workspace”

A “Workspace” (“Workspace”) is simply a saved definition of the “Workbooks” that are open and their location.

The advantage of a “Workspace” is that you do not have to open each “Workbook” one by one to open but, Excel does it for you.

To create a “Workspace”, we need to open “Workbooks” that we want to include in our “Workspace”.

Be sure that no other “Workbooks” are open, eg a “Blank Workbook”.

Once all our “Workbooks” that we want in our “Workspace” are open and we are sure that no more folders are open, we can start.

In our menu bar click “File” (“File”) and choose “Save Workspace …” (“Save Workspace …”).

This opens the “Save Workspace” dialog box.

Choose a folder where you want to save the “Workspace”, and give it a name in the “File name” text box.

Now click “Save” (“Save”), to save all our open “Worksheets” to be stored in the “Workspace”.

Opening and closing a Workspace

After closing all our “Workbooks”, we can now easily open it all again, by clicking “File” – “Open” and double clicking on our “Workspace” which we just created.

If the “Workspace” file which you just created does not show in the directory where you have saved, you have more than likely chosen “All Files” option in the “Files of type:” box.

Closing a “Workspace” is a bit different than a regular “Workspace”.

To close a “Workspace”, we hold the “Shift” key on our keyboard while we click on “File” – “Close All” from the menu bar.

Selecting “Workbooks” in a “Workspace”

If you do not know how to organize your “Workspace”, it will quickly become a burden rather than a help.

“Workbooks” can easily be strung together, making it difficult if not impossible, to read the information from our “Workbooks”.

When you select a “Workbook” (make active), it comes the forefront, and it’s title bar is colored.

At any time, you can click another “Workbook” title bar to make that active.

We can also make a “Workbook” active by clicking on “Window” in our menu bar and selecting the “Workbook” from the dropdown list.

Organizing a “Workspace “

We also use our “Window” button in the menu bar to open all our “Workbooks” in an organized display.

So click the “Window” button and choose “Arrange Window”:

Make your choice and click OK.

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