Opening a New Instance of Excel 2003

J

Jack Gillis

Is there a way to have Excel open in a new instance if click on a different
workbook while Excel already has one open? If I do this now, the second
workbook is opened in the same window as the first and I would like to have
it opened in another window.

Thank you very much. I hope I have made my question clear.
 
D

Dave Peterson

This may help (or hurt).

If you open files by double clicking on them in windows explorer....

You could try:

Tools|options|General tab|Ignore other applications (check it)

Then double click on the workbook in windows explorer.

And be aware that turning this setting on sometimes gives errors with workbooks
that contain spaces in their path/name:

C:\my documents\excel\my book.xls

The error will look kind of like:
cannot find c:\my ..
then
cannot find documents\excel\my
then
cannot find book.xls

Or it may just open excel and not show you the file that you clicked on.

I'd just start another instance and then file|open the workbook.

I use
windows start button|run
excel
and hit enter
then file|open my other workbook

(Or create a new shortcut to excel.exe and use that to start the second
instance.)
 
J

Jack Gillis

Thank you very much, Dave.

I generally don't open files from Windows Explorer for I keep shortcuts to
my most used files on the Desktop. Since they all have blanks in their name
I came up with the error you mentioned after checking the 'Ignore
Applications' box. But, as you suggested, opening another instance of Excel
and using File/Open solved that problem. However, it created another one. A
message about Personal.Xls being locked for editing which is OK with me. I
don't plan to do that anyway but I wish there were a way to eliminate that
message.

Thanks again.
 
D

Dave Peterson

I save my personal.xl* file as an addin. But that means that the macros are not
available via the Tools|macro|macros... dialog.

I used John Walkenbach's menumaker program to give me access to my macros:
http://j-walk.com/ss/excel/tips/tip53.htm

Another option would be to mark personal.xls as readonly (using windows
explorer). But then it become a little bit of a pain when you want to update
it.
 
J

Jack Gillis

Dave Peterson said:
I save my personal.xl* file as an addin. But that means that the macros
are not
available via the Tools|macro|macros... dialog.

I used John Walkenbach's menumaker program to give me access to my macros:
http://j-walk.com/ss/excel/tips/tip53.htm

Another option would be to mark personal.xls as readonly (using windows
explorer). But then it become a little bit of a pain when you want to
update
it.
Click to expand...

That is OK with me. The very few times I would want to update it would be
swamped by the number of times I would want to open more than one instance
of Excel.

Thanks again, Dave.
 
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