Forum Discussion
How do I have Excel treat each file separately - for search, undo, etc.
I thought I had wrapped this up by saying that the option to start independent instances of Excel by using the /X startup option is my solution. This makes each file independent with separate undo and find/replace boxes. But, I did not see that this morning when MS asked me to indicate the best solution. mathetes
You wrote: Thanks, I will make a suggestion but it is very annoying and I wonder why no one else has complained.
From the way you have described your situation, it very much sounds as if you may be doing something that is in itself quite unusual. I am a relatively heavy user of Excel, and I do use Find on occasion, Find and Replace more frequently but still only occasionally. I use Undo on occasion as well, but only to undo one or two operations.
Illustrating the fact that there are often multiple ways within Excel to accomplish any given task, NikolinoDE has supplied you with a possible VBA solution for the Find/Search activity. He himself acknowledges, in an understated kind of way, that it might be "a bit more cumbersome."
I've already pointed you to the actual Search function, accessed via the magnifying glass icon in the upper right hand corner of your Excel window.
But would you be willing to describe what it is you're searching for when you do these searches. I ask because I wonder if there might be yet another way to accomplish the task. I wonder, for example, if you're generally searching for text or formulas or functions, or numbers? Are you working in Excel files that consist of lots of numerical data, is it predominately text, an even mix? Etc.
No obligation on your part to divulge anything, but seriously, thin about the possibility that you are doing somethings that most users of Excel don't do; that could be why others haven't complained about it. And also, there may be other ways to accomplish your objectives....
I am not sure the VBA helps in this situation. I basically have two totally different files made up of a mix of text and numbers (almost no formulas as they are really just relational databases in spreadsheet form). But, I need to find text and numbers in each but even though they are separate files, Microsoft Excel in its infinite wisdom says that if you click on Find and Replace in either spreadsheet, you are doing it for every spreadsheet you have open (ditto for undo). So, every time I move between spreadsheets the last thing I searched for is what I searched in the other spreadsheet. And, when I want to undo it does it across spreadsheets as though they were one even though they are separate files! I guess I could try to put these into an Access database but I am less familiar with that than Excel and it seems like overkill for my applications.
djc2002us I'm sorry but I'm going to repeat what mathetes said in a different way, what are you trying to do? I understand your frustration with the shared Find and shared Undo but not sure how exactly that is causing problems with your workflow/how you are using Excel. My only guess is that you are searching for all cases of term A in workbook A and term B in workbook B and each time you find an A you need to find the next/corresponding B. My point is if you give us those details we might be able to actually help you. There are pivot tables and power queries that might help (you mentioned you are using it like a database), or VBA.
Well, as I have said, the files are totally independent. Sometimes I search in one file and sometimes in the other but for totally different things. In one I search for a name and the next a number.
1. Search for Maria in file 1.
2. Search for 1900 in file 2.
3. Search for the next Maria in file 1. Oh, but I can't as the search field is now 1900 so I have to retype in Maria.
Clearer? Why is the search across files and not file by file, at least as an option? Excel seems to assume the files must be related to one another but they don't need to be. Sometimes people multi-task, hard to believe.
And both @mtarler and I are trying to get underneath (or behind) the specific steps you're doing here--we get those--to what is the larger context. You've described that these are separate spreadsheets, but you've mentioned an intriguing fact-- I basically have two totally different files made up of a mix of text and numbers (almost no formulas as they are really just relational databases in spreadsheet form) -- which is intriguing on a number of bases. To have created a relational database, in and of itself, reveals you as definitely not a neophyte.
It also would sound as if (given the reference to 1900 as a number you might search for) that you might be involved in some form of research in historical data. That's purely speculative on my part. My main point is that it really does sound as if you are using Excel in ways that are not typical. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that; it is capable of handling this kind of thing. But it does seem to be the case that you are doing far more searching than most users of Excel engage in.
So multi-tasking isn't the issue. It's the nature of the tasks themselves that seems to lead to your frustration.
Now, if it's really a relational database in spreadsheet form, and if it's the two files that together constitute that relational database, then it leads me to wonder--still not knowing the full nature of the task (i.e., the larger context, the content or nature of the data)--whether Access mightn't be a better solution.
Or Evernote
But anyway, all that we're suggesting is that your task itself is the thing (or appears to be, to be more tentative here) that's creating what is for you a fairly unusual--dare I say "unique"--frustration. And if you would be willing to describe that bigger context, it's possible we could either suggest ways that Excel could accommodate it as is, or suggest alternative software solutions.
