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Excel opens all workbooks in the same instance and as a result you cannot place them on different monitors (or side by side). You can extend one window across both screens and then split windows from within excel, but that is a horrible solution. This also merges the undo functionality, and you can no longer undo per document, but you have to undo all actions from all open documents sequentially.

Honestly I don't know what they were thinking and made this the default behavior.

Andreas
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  • They did this because if you wan to compare two documents there is a feature for that. Just launch excel twice then drag and drop the files onto one of the instances. – Ramhound Nov 18 '14 at 11:36

3 Answers3

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You simply just open Excel multiple times from the start menu. This will open as many Excel instances as you need!

From here, you just File -> Open to open the files (or drag files in).

Dave
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At work I use two monitors arranged like this:

enter image description here

I often want to compare two excel sheets by placing them side by side on both monitors. Just maximizing a single excel workspace with two windows in them does not work well, since I would need to drag the workspace as big as the black square.

Opening a new instance via the start menu works, but most of the times I just want to double click on an .xls(x) file and have it open in a new workspace.

One trick to do that is to write a batch file with these contents: 

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office14\excel.exe" %1

An improved trick (see comments) is:

start "" "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office12\excel.exe" %1.

(This will not spawn the console window).

Place is somewhere where it will not be deleted: enter image description here

Then go to an excel file, right click on it and select [Open with]. Browse to the file you just saved and select that. From now on all your double clicked excel files will open in new workspaces which can be put side by side. enter image description here

Hennes
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  • Hi @Hennes. Thank you for the tip. Looking into it the script can be improved by changing it to start "" "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office12\excel.exe" %1. This will not spawn the console window. I tried editing your answer twice but it seems reviewers are prejudice, they see your rep and mine and just reject it without understanding it. In any case, I think it is an even better solution, amend your answer if you want. – Andreas Nov 18 '14 at 17:01
  • I do not think it is prejudice. But rejects might trigger on a too small change. (Which is often correct, but not when it changes a bug in a literal command or if it improves the functionality). – Hennes Nov 18 '14 at 17:28
  • Well it was rejected with the excuse that "changes the original intent of the author", which I think is far from the case. – Andreas Nov 18 '14 at 17:30
  • True. Try again. I can at least give 1 out of 2 needed accepts. – Hennes Nov 18 '14 at 17:49
  • @Hennes: Actually, as the author of the post, you have the power to approve suggested edits unilaterally. – Scott - Слава Україні Nov 18 '14 at 21:51
  • @Hennes Well I posted in meta superuser to see what is going on. Apparently the edits are just for presentation and formatting, and I shouldn't be messing with people's code. So if you want just update your answer, if not I got my answer anyway. Thanks for the help in any case. – Andreas Nov 24 '14 at 12:58
  • You can do it like this, but then you lose a lot of options when copy&pasting or referencing cells in the other open document. Only solid solution is to upgrade to Excel 2016. – TJJ Mar 23 '17 at 10:05
  • Back in 2014 when the question was asked this was not an option. It is nice to know though certainly interesting to new readers of this question. – Hennes Mar 24 '17 at 09:43
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For word that is easy, if you go to File > Options > Advanced, scroll down to the Display section and check the box for "Show all windows in the Taskbar". For some reason in excel that doesn't seem to cut it.

You can however open new instances of excel if you go to start menu > run and type "excel /x". From the newly spawned instance you have to file > open each file, or use the resents. It is an annoyance but it is what I could find, and it works.

Andreas
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