Tip #4528 - For Your Eyes Only
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For
Your Eyes Only
Have you ever
been in a situation where you're working on sensitive material in
MS Excel and someone walks up behind you?
What do you do?
Do you quickly
minimize the entire program?
Yeah, I've done
that too. But what if you need Excel to work on another project with
the person who came in?
You could go through
the hassle of closing and saving the file, but luckily, there's a
faster way!
Why not just hide the file?
Hide it?
Yes, hide it!
(I realize it's not a piece of paper you can just shove in a desk
drawer, but I promise, Excel has you covered on this).
Here's the deal.
The next time
you need to quickly remove a workbook from someone else's eyesight,
simply go to the Window menu and choose Hide.
For Excel 2007 users, you're looking for the View ribbon,
Hide button.
Instantly, the
current workbook will be hidden from anyone's view.
If you take a
look at the list of open files in the Window menu
(the Excel 2007 list is under the View ribbon, Switch
Windows button), you'll find that the workbooks are no longer
listed. (That's good news! That means you can't accidentally switch
to the file you don't want to be viewed).
Now, let's move
ahead a bit.
Let's suppose
you're ready to get back to work on your hidden file. It's definitely
not on the list in the Window menu, so what do you do?
You unhide it,
of course!
To do so, return
to the Window menu and choose Unhide
this time. In Excel 2007, it's back to the View ribbon,
Unhide button.
A window will
then pop open, listing all of the hidden files.
Choose
the workbook you need to unhide and click OK.
You'll then be returned to Excel with your workbook active and you
can continue working.
At this point,
I bet you have just one more question. Am I right?
Are you wondering what
will happen if you forget to unhide a workbook and try to close Excel?
Excel-lent question!
Basically, Excel
will ask if you want to save the file, just like it does with all
of your open files when the program closes. Choose Yes or No and proceed
the same as you would with any other file.
The difference
comes in when you open the file again at a later time. Upon reopening
it, the file will immediately be hidden. You'll need to return
to the Window menu (View ribbon) to
unhide it and then, once again, you're ready to go. (If you
forget this little nugget of information, you'll most likely think
your workbook has somehow been erased. That's not a great feeling,
so please keep this warning in mind!)
There you have
it! A quick and easy way to keep your Excel work away from wandering
eyes. It's
kind of like "hiding the clutter!"
~ April
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