View and edit 2 worksheets in the same workbook side by side

Let’s say you have an Excel workbook with one worksheet that holds data and another worksheet for an income statement. As you construct the income statement, you realize that it would be helpful to have the two workbooks side-by-side, rather than having to continually click the worksheet tabs to navigate between them.

To get your worksheets to be side-by-side, click View in the ribbon, then New Window. You will now have the workbook open in two separate windows. You can work in either or both windows and the workbook will be updated.

You can also arrange those windows to appear side-by-side. In the ribbon, click View > Arrange All > Vertical > OK. The two workbooks will now appear in the same window, as shown below.

See this short tutorial video for Windows users or this tutorial video for Mac users for a quick overview of how to arrange two worksheets so they appear in the same workbook side-by-side.

— Wendy Tietz, CPA, CGMA, Ph.D., is a professor of accounting at Kent State University in Kent. Ohio; Jennifer Cainas, CPA, DBA, is an instructor of accountancy at the University of South Florida in Tampa; and Tracie Miller-Nobles, CPA, is an associate professor of accounting at Austin Community College in Austin, Texas. See their site AccountingIsAnalytics.com for resources they have developed for teaching data analytics in introductory accounting. To comment on this article or to suggest an idea for another article, contact senior editor Courtney Vien at Courtney.Vien@aicpa-cima.com.