Resume excel session with Save workspaces feature

save worskpace buttonIn accounting world some work is repetitive and accountants have to open certain set of files almost on daily basis. Opening each file by reaching the location and double clicking might not be that big a task but when it comes to productivity then it is definitely a botheration. Or simply what if you want to resume the excel session again in the morning if you have many excel files open?

Excel has a little feature of great importance called Save Workspace. It will let you reopen all such excel files that were open last time. And even the same cell will be active which was active last time worskspace is saved. So it basically remembers what files were open when worskpace was saved. Workspace is simply the excel worksheets and workbooks on which you work or simply put excel environment.

save workspace

Remember, save workspace feature will save the changes made to file before workspace file is generated, however, any subsequent change made will have to be saved again in individual files.

What if we change the location of files

Changing the location of Work space file (that is saved with an extension .xlw) does not affect and works perfectly unless the original files do not change locations. If we change the location of one or more files that for such files excel will give usual warning that we get when shortcut is unable to access relevant file i.e. “File not found”.

2013 – “Save workspace” NOT saved by Microsoft!

A sad news for many Excel users and many might know it yet that save work spaces feature is trashed in 2013 version of Excel. And surprisingly no other alternative of similar kind is present either.

For me it is a sorry sight. This feature is meant to be loved by many Excel users especially hardcore users who work extensively on Excel projects and need to open several sheets at one time. This feature used to save a lot of worry for them. However, any .xlw file that was created in previous version can still be opened in 2013 version of Excel. I really hope next upgrade will revisit this feature and at least make it part of options set if not anything better than this.