I was wondering if it is possible to avoid the general behavior of MS Excel 2010 when opening a new document while one instance of the program is already running. Basically what happens is that the program opens the new spreadsheet in the current environment, as a new workbook.
What I would like to do is to set as default (or find an easy and quick way to do it with a keyboard short-cut / Macro) the opening of the a new workbook in a new instance of MS Excel.
The final goal is to allow me to keep one workbook in one monitor and move the second one in a second monitor (I'm working with 2 monitors at work).
Yes.
If you want to do this in VBA code, then you can use the following:
Sub OpenInNewInstance()
Dim xlApp As Application
Set xlApp = CreateObject("Excel.Application")
xlApp.Workbooks.Add
xlApp.Visible = True
End Sub
For a none VBA solution you can open up two instances of excel and open a document from the file menu in each instance.
There is this method I found on SuperUser for opening all sheets in new instances of Excel
In Excel 2003, go to Tools -> Options -> General tab.
Make sure the option, ‘Ignore other applications’ is checked.
In Excel 2007 & 2010, Click the Office button -> Excel Options -> Advanced.
Under General, check ‘Ignore other applications that use Dynamic Data Exchange’.
https://superuser.com/questions/21602/open-excel-files-in-new-window
Or you can make a registry edit (probably want to back up first)
strart - run - regedit:
Left column
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT/Excel.Sheet.8/shell/Open/commend:
Right column {adding (space)"%1"}
Double Click on (Default) and write - "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\EXCEL.EXE" /e "%1"
Right Click on Command – choose "rename" and add something to the name - for example 2 (commend2).
Left column
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT/Excel.Sheet.8/shell/Open/ddeexec:
Right Click on the folder ddeexec and choose "rename" and add something to the name - for example 2 (ddeexec2)
Left column
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT/Excel.Sheet.12/shell/Open/commend:
Right column {adding (space)"%1"}
Double Click on (Default) and write - "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\EXCEL.EXE" /e "%1"
Right Click on Command – choose "rename" and add something to the name - for example 2 (commend2).
Also depending on what version of Excel you are using there may be an option in the View
Menu to open a new Window.