Using a Single Instance of Excel with Two Monitors

The Tip should be fairly radically updated to take into account the two possible situations people face.

After 2013, your version will let you easily move the files about because it opens each in its own "window" filled with the full program layout. You just grab the window and move it to the monitor you desire, or since it is a window, anywhere. Bang it on the top of the monitor and it maximizes (the only way to fly). So one monitor might have one file open, the other a different one, and the third one none at all.

Costs are several, but since MS is adamant about it remaining this way (for, say, another 10-15 years when they will surely change back to MDI and act like no one could ever want it any different...)

Versions before killing MDI off have a different problem: You can't pull a file's working window out of the basic program's framework (Ribbon or non-mendaciously named "Menu", QAT, and so on. There's one master window and all the files you open IN THAT INSTANCE of Excel will remain IN IT and cannot be pulled out. There are options for you though. For instance, you can do as Allen points out and open an entirely different instance of Excel. Each one, or several of them, will regard the others as nothing to do with it, as if they were even different programs the way Acrobat or Photoshop are different from Excel. Since they are entirely separate, you can move their windows as desired. You DO lose some capability vis-a-vis copy and paste, but maybe you can live with that, and other differences. (The copy and paste thing is due to Excel adding "capability" that is actually useful mostly in it to what you think is Windows copy and paste, functionality that is only available inside the program itself. Since it doesn't recognize the other instance as itself, it only offers standard Windows copy and paste. They must be right about it being good "capability" due to the number of us complaining...) If you can live with that, do that. I certainly did until the fixed the SDI stuff a little. Never had two monitors while using MDI.

A second way is that you can non-maximize your window. Make it as large as you like, just not formally "Maximized". Then, here's the fun part: you can drag the border past the edge of the screen onto the second monitor. Make sure you tell Windows to treat the monitor on the left as Monitor 1, then Monitor 2 on its right or it will probably bug you each time, you know, dragging the left border left... But whatever works for your comfort. Anyway, you make the program window cover some or all of each monitor.

Then when opening files you can non-maximize the files in the workspace below the Ribbon (or honestly named Menu) and size their windows to fit the available space Excel gives you, but keeping each to just one monitor's portion of that space. Or have a file cover both monitors giving you a majorly large number of columns to view at once! In any case, two files, one per monitor's portion, simulates the thing we poor SDI users of more recent versions have to live with. Except you can open a file any way you like and its still in the same instance. Even though Excel has fixed SDI a little to allow proper copy and paste within a single instance, and to allow all files opened FROM INSIDE the single instance to be in that single instance (their windows are SDI windows, but since they are inside the single instance, everything closes at once if you shut down the program, that kind of thing, and interaction is much easier). Still, open a file by clicking to open something in Explorer or in an email and NEW INSTANCE, so it still ain't good. But the new functions are nice.

So, make one workspace out of the two monitors, then move the file windows about and you have the workspace in each as if they were SDI files moved to different monitors.

The trick of dragging borders over onto both monitors worKs for any program that lets you adjust its window size. And is (occasionally) quite handy, quite nice. Even if my monitors are different sizes causing oddness at the common-side corners (mouse can get caught going from the bigger one to the smaller one). Just annoyances though, not deal-breakers.

Little hope, but maybe your can help. Vote here: Restore MDI... Kill SDI

https://excel.uservoice.com/forums/304921-excel-for-windows-desktop-application/suggestions/11706627-restore-mdi-file-handling-open-all-files-in-one-w

The source of some confusion shown in previous comments is that Excel 13 changed from MDI (Multiple Document Interface) to SDI (Single...).

When it did so, the thing that affected most people was the limited copy and paste. Each instance regarded the others as utterly different programs, not "brothers" that should work together better. So copying and pasting formulas and formats did not work. This has since been fixed, though not very long ago (about two years).

Nowadays the aggravations center around the fact that in MDI, you had one ribbon, period, and a workspace beneath it. That workspace had all your open files. (Of course(!): you could ALWAYS open all the instances you wished in a variety of ways, but the default behavior was for all to open in the single isntance already open.) So the loss here was that now each file opened (each instance of Excel running) has its own ribbon. So if you liked to display two files one above the other (for example) to make editing or comparison, perhaps, easier, now a ribbon not only is in the way, but the rows visible is reduced by any display of the ribbons.

A second aggravation experienced is in the use of VBA. Anything meant to work with more than one file suddenly had issues. You must rewrrite a fair number of things to account for those issues and overcome them. Retest, redistribute, re-explain to everyone, and so on. Further, there seems now to be some unavaoidable flickering of the files in the display area as the macros move back and forth, flickering which never occurred in MDI.

Recently a small amount of the default opening behavior was fixed. Initially, the only way to open two files in the same instance was to use File|Open in the chosen instance. Click/Double Click on a file in any aspect of Explorer or open one from any other program and it opened a whole new instance of Excel. This has been partially fixed in that one can take a file from Explorer and drag it onto the desired instance of Excel and it will open in that instance (really, not just seeming to: according to Task Manager anyway). But it won't let you drag and drop from something like even Outlook, a family product. And clicking/double clicking in Explorer still opens a second instance. Even the File|Open method and the fixed drag and drop method will not overcome the extra ribbon or the VBA issues, apparently.

So, if you have a version older than Excel 13, or do not use functionality that is affected, never noticed the "all have Ribbons", or do use functionality that was affected but has since been fixed, you might not realize any of this happened. Hence the confusion.

Mr. Wyatt DID allude to it briefly (his 4th sentence) but did not expand on it. As you can see, expanding might not really have fit the scope of a "tip" rather than a "dissertation"... (And this tip must've been written prior to fixing that horrible copy and paste business.)

No explanation given by MS has ever made sense. The most common one you can track down is multi-monitor people demanded SDI so they could just hump things from one monitor to another with the mouse. Fails for two reasons: 1) They always could anyway. Just open separate isntances and do whatever you like with the windows. 2) Re-programming to be SDI had to be pretty much a b*tch of a job. JUST adding a command line switch (like the "/e" we use to not have a blank spreadsheet created on opening the program) would have taken 4 seconds. Problem solved.

So the only thing that makes sense is MS desired to change to SDI for its own internal reasons. Ones we wouldn't he happy to know the choice was made for so they don't brag them up, just stonewall with ignorant sounding guff.

So... anyway... the part that is confusing a few folks is real, it just hasn't (and hopefully never will) caused you aggravation that forced you to learn about it. But the things people say that are the source of your confusion are real things. Sadly.

Here's something that might be of interest if you have a multi-monitor configuration:
https://wellsr.com/vba/2019/excel/calculate-screen-size-and-other-display-details-with-vba/

Hi Rodger.
Strange… I just tried to copy from one instance of Excel to another and all went well, - all formatting was also copied across.
But I do remember that there have been occasions when only values were copied across from one instance to another instance. Just now I have not been able to repeat the problem which I know I have had sometimes in the past. .

I believe the clipboard generally is a very unpredictable beast. It has many versions which it holds of what you put into it. It seems to be luck sometimes what version and what formats get used…

Alan Elston

I'm a little confused by how you describe this problem. If I open an Excel spreadsheet on one monitor, then open a second spreadsheet from that, and simply drag the new spreadsheet onto the other monitor - it all works fine, and copying and pasting from one to the other works exactly as you'd expect. However, neither is there a problem copying and pasting if you have two instances of Excel open, is there?

Dear Mr Allen,

Thank you for your guide.

Best regards,
Lien

Re the different experience of users:

I understand a change was made in either XL2013 or XL2016/Office 365 to how the application and workbooks were managed that enabled display of different workbooks on different monitors. In XL2010 and prior it is not possible to achieve this, so the workaround as described in this tip is as good as it gets.

Alan and Scott,

I believe the issue is not whether you can arrange multiple open
files within a single instance of Excel, but rather how to quickly
and evenly arrange the files.

Of course you can drag and resize the file windows as you like.
It's just how much effort do you want to put into arranging the
files.

In my case, I wrote a macro to do all the arranging across two
monitors with just one short key because I frequently work with
two files and I'm constantly closing and opening the second.

I don't understand the issue. I have Excel 2013. I can open a workbook, then click File | Open and select/open another workbook. It is still in the same instance of Excel but opens in its own window, which you can drag anywhere you want it! And if you have a single monitor you can do the same thing if you size the 2 windows so both fit on the screen. … What am I missing? I know I only have one instance of Excel open because I don't get a warning about personal.xlsb already open when I open the 2nd workbook.

Same as Philip and Keith. Win10 and Office Home & Business 2016. Never been a problem

I have three monitors, all the same size and all side-by-side.
My primary monitor is the center one, and I routinely use Excel
across the center and right monitors.

I got tired of fiddling around with how two or more Excel files
were displayed across the monitors, so I wrote two simple
macros and put them in my Personal.xlsb file.

The first macro displays Excel across two monitors. The files
are spread evenly across the monitors, which for two files is
ideal. Whichever file is active appears in the leftmost position.

The second displays Excel maximized on my center monitor.

I assigned the macros to shortcut keys Ctrl-M and Ctrl-Shift-M,
respectively. "M" for monitor.

You will have to tweak the parameters in the first macro to suit
your monitor resolutions and borders.

Sub FillAllMonitors()

' Purpose: Expand Excel to fill all monitors in side-by-side views.
'
' Notes: Assigned to keyboard shortcut Ctrl-m (m for monitors)
'
' Need to adjust the values for MonitorQuantity, MonitorWidth and MonitorHeight to suit your hardware.
' May also need to similarly adjust the values for MonitorEdges and MonitorGutter.
' May also need to similarly adjust the values for OriginX, OriginY and Pixels2Points.
'
' In the two-monitor view, you may not be able to adjust the overall window so that there are no
' slivers of visible underlying windows (or desktop) outboard of the left and right window edges.
' If so, then center the overall window as best as you can.

' ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
' You may need to adjust the constants BELOW to suit your hardware
' ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Const MonitorQty As Double = 2 'How many side-by-side monitors to spread Excel over

' Pick an appropriate pair of Width and Height values and comment out the other(s)
Const MonitorWidth As Double = 1680 'Physical width of monitors in pixels, eg: 1680 wide x 1050 tall
Const MonitorHeight As Double = 1050 'Physical height of monitors in pixels, eg: 1680 wide x 1050 tall

' Const MonitorWidth As Double = 1280 'Physical width of monitors in pixels, eg: 1280 wide x 1024 tall
' Const MonitorHeight As Double = 1024 'Physical height of monitors in pixels, eg: 1280 wide x 1024 tall

Const MonitorEdges As Double = 2 'Allowance for left and right edges in pixels, eg: 2
Const MonitorGutter As Double = 29 'Allowance for bottom toolbar in pixels, eg: 29

Const OriginX As Double = 1 'Where do the monitors start on the horizontal axis in pixels, eg: 1
Const OriginY As Double = 1 'Where do the monitors start on the vertical axis in pixels, eg: 1

Const Pixels2Points As Double = 0.75 'Conversion factor between pixels and points

' ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
' You may need to adjust the constants ABOVE to suit your hardware
' ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dim VisibleWindowsCount As Long: VisibleWindowsCount = 0
Dim ThisWindow As Window


' This is the one WindowState we can work with
Application.WindowState = xlNormal

' Anchor the top left corner
Application.Left = Pixels2Points * OriginX
Application.Top = Pixels2Points * OriginY

' Aim for really big knowing it will stop at the physical screen edges
Application.Width = Pixels2Points * ((MonitorQty * MonitorWidth) + MonitorEdges)
Application.Height = Pixels2Points * (MonitorHeight - MonitorGutter)

' How many visible windows
For Each ThisWindow In Application.Windows
If ThisWindow.Visible = True Then VisibleWindowsCount = VisibleWindowsCount + 1
Next ThisWindow

' Arrange windows side by side
If VisibleWindowsCount > 1 Then
Application.Windows.Arrange ArrangeStyle:=xlVertical

' Maximize the active window
Else
On Error Resume Next
Application.ActiveWindow.WindowState = xlMaximized
End If

End Sub


Sub FillOneMonitor()

' Purpose: Maximize Excel to completely fill one monitor.
'
' Notes: Assigned to keyboard shortcut Ctrl-M (M for monitors)

' This is the one WindowState we can work with
Application.WindowState = xlMaximized

' Maximize the active window
On Error Resume Next
Application.ActiveWindow.WindowState = xlMaximized

End Sub

I use DisplayFusion to control 4 monitors and extending any window across any number of monitors can instantly be accomplished with a key combo. For example I use ctrl-win-2 for two monitor spread. The free version can do this, although many more controls are available in the Pro version.

Don’t understand this. I jus open as many workbooks as I want in the same Excel instance, and they each can work in their separate window. And I’m NOT using Excel365. Works on both Mac and Win10 ...

I have just read your post regarding using a single instance of excel using two monitors, I am running Excel 365 and Windows 10 and can simply open two or more workbooks (in a single instance of Excel) and drag them as desired to where I want any where on the two monitors without looking at View and Arrange All. Would this be because I am using Excel 365?

Thanks Allen. That method works okay, but I am trying to work in one worksheet, while the second worksheet is regularly updated through a visual basic routine that is continuously running. The problem is that every time the second worksheet updates, it interrupts the one I am working in. Do you know of any way to resolve this?

Thanks, it works!!
Your guidance is simple to follow. Thanks and God Bless.

JUST AMAZING, THANK YOU. THOSE WINDOWS OFFICE SOLVING PROBLEM BASTARDS CAN´T EVEN GET A FIX ON THEIR OWN SOFTWARE. STUPIDS AF.
Thank you again. As you can see, I'm very angry, but very grateful to you. Thank you all over again

This worked perfectly for me and saved me probably 3 hours messing around back and forth between 3 spreadsheets, Thank you so much!

This tip is awesome for wanting to view full size spreadsheets at the same time. Thank you.

I unable to work in two monitors by using separated excel sheets which i have different sources. And i unable to look two excel sheets in two monitors which i have different sources.But i doesn't want "View Two Excel Spreadsheets at Once". I am getting problem in by using number of times Alt+Tab to go another excel sheets.I can open new two separate sheets in two monitors,but while opening my sources i unable to do it.

AWESOME!!! So excited to be able to do this; I don't know why I didn't think of this before. :) Thank you, thank you!!