Forum Discussion

tstrueby's avatar
tstrueby
Copper Contributor
Mar 15, 2019

Tabs in Excel Online worksheet move unexpectedly

We use a shared Excel Online worksheet that is concurrently accessed by approx. 50 users.  The tabs are all named by date and we keep about 3 months of dates available at any time.  Periodically, the...
excel
Excel Online
ThomasVarshal's avatar
ThomasVarshal
Copper Contributor
Apr 08, 2020

awilcoxThis is the solution! If you click on a tab just one time and then move your mouse pointer to another tab, you'll see a small "move" arrow. Wherever you click, it will move your tab to this location. If you don't want your tab to move, you must click your original tab one more time. Now, when you move your mouse pointer to another tab, you'll see that there is no "move" arrow this time. Thanks!

jackstraxx's avatar
jackstraxx
Copper Contributor
Apr 08, 2020

ThomasVarshal 

I have spotted this too, you can also click on the relevant tab slightly longer to select it.
But neither of these options is a "solution" per se.
Surely the default behaviour when you click on a tab should be that it activates that tab for viewing, as is the case in the offline version. 
Why on earth would MS make this change?? It's counter-intuitive

  • jimluck's avatar
    jimluck
    Copper Contributor
    Apr 08, 2020

    Yes, I think this works.   Not a double-click.  But a "good-bye" click when you are leaving a tab to go to another.   If you double-click (two clicks in quick succession) that brings up the rename screen.  So, one click to view a sheet.  Another, separate click later to leave that sheet.   Think of the second click as either driving a nail into it to hold it down or as saying good-bye to it so it doesn't follow you.   

     

    It's funny that this only became a problem for me yesterday, after using Excel online for 3 months in a multi-page worksheet.   Until yesterday, pages stayed where I put them without having to click a second time to nail them down or say good-bye.   Then yesterday -- same workbook, same computer, same ISP, same browser, same me, using it all in the same way -- they started moving all over the place unexpectedly.

     

    Thanks for the workaround.

     

    I have gone back to Microsoft chat support and this time insisted that they escalate the problem, successfully fending off their blaming of the browser, the ISP, etc. and resisting their suggestions that I switch to the desktop version.  They gave me a case number and promised higher level technicians would try to come up with a fix.

    • realvadim's avatar
      realvadim
      Copper Contributor
      Apr 10, 2020

      The bug is gone (for me at least). Looks like MS solved the issue.

      • jmd509's avatar
        jmd509
        Copper Contributor
        Apr 10, 2020

        realvadim My tabs are still moving around ... my team (about 36 people) just aren't going to reliably disciplined to carefully click in and click out exactly the right way to prevent movement.  Sigh.

  • ThomasVarshal's avatar
    ThomasVarshal
    Copper Contributor
    Apr 08, 2020

    jackstraxxI agree that the current behavior is not ideal. I don't remember having this issue before; was there a recent update that introduced this?

Resources