Excel: how to undo in current file only?

Question

Microsoft Excel's undo / redo feature behaves unlike any other program I know. The undo stack seems to be global across all open files, so that undoing sometimes switches to another file and undoes something you didn't want to undo. And if an edit you want to undo was before an edit in another file, you have no choice but to undo the other file.

I am not the first to complain about this - see "Excel's undo madness", about halfway down.

Besides "edit only one file at a time", is there a way to make Excel's Undo apply to the current file only?

I'm using Excel 2003 if it makes a difference.

Answer 1

The way 'around' it is to open multiple copies of Excel, one per worksheet. This is really annoying, but there is no other way. I have special shortcuts for my main spreadsheets, just to open them explicitly. To do this:

1. Make a NEW shortcut - right-click on your desktop, New, Short cut.
2. Browse to the excel program ( C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office12\EXCEL.EXE )
3. Create the shortcut and name it
4. Edit the shortcut, and put the filename, in quotes, after the program, in the shortcut. So you end up with a 'Target' such as:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office12\EXCEL.EXE" "C:\Noiselezz\financial\shared financial\Sales Sheet.xlsb"

Sadly Microsoft really have little clue about how customers actually use their products. The Undo madness is one sign of this - they blindly continue with the most ridiculous method of undo known to humankind. Its not even consistent with other Office products.

Another madness is the DDE system - the best way to slow down a computer - sometimes it takes 12 seconds before the launch even starts, because of DDE. I keep on fixing the registry settings to remove the DDE rubbish, but every time MS update Office, they helpfully 'fix' them.

I have worked in MS, and seen how they think - don't waste your time expecting them to change - that was 10 years ago and they are the same today.

Answer 2

This issue was discussed and answered on Microsoft Office for Developers Forums on April 14, 2011.

Question posted by Vershner:

I originally posted this in the IT Professionals forum but they told me to post it here because the issue was by design.

When I click undo in the quick access toolbar it undoes the last action in Excel, not the last action in the current worksheet. This is not useful, so I added an undo to the ribbon.

The ribbon is supposed to apply to the current sheet right? No. It still undoes the last action on a different sheet. This is completely stupid. How do I make it undo actions on the sheet I am viewing? I'm using Excel 2010.

Accepted answer posted by Bill Manville (Excel MVP):

I have made the suggestion to the product team that they consider it for the next version.

Below I am giving the useful snippets from the relevant page:

• Undo works at Application level and will undo changes in the reverse order actions were made.

• The behaviour of current versions of Excel will not be changed, I am pretty sure. But I will raise the suggestion with the product team for a future version. The question will be does anyone rely on the current behaviour and find it useful...?

Answer 3

Prior to Excel 2016, and some later versions:

If you are currently stuck with a mixed undo history, you can undo on current file only - provided you are willing to lose undo history of other open files.

Simply close other files that are open in Excel, saving them as necessary. This will clear their parts of the undo history, leaving only the actions for the current file in the history. Then you can undo these actions.

That said, I would suggest trying to run Excel as separate processes as described e.g. in this answer or comments. Not only does it take care of the stupid mixed undo history problem, it gives you totally separate Excel windows, one per each file (as opposed to one Excel window with all files open as sub-windows inside it).

Answer 4

You can run each Excel document in a new instance.

Open Excel itself in a new instance

For Excel's main shortcut you could simply add a /x flag after the address in the shortcut's Target field:

"C:\Program Files\...\EXCEL.EXE" /x

It also works for pinned start menu shortcuts in Windows 10 (You need to access the shortcut file in Start Menu\Programs directory)

Open Excel documents in a new instance

This solution works but makes the documents' icon changed which some may find it unpleasant.

To run .xls, .xlsx, .xlsm, etc documents directly in a new instance, you could first create a .bat file with the following content:

@ECHO off

start "" "C:\Program Files\...\EXCEL.EXE" /x %1

Then you could simply associate each file format to your .bat file with Always use... checked.

Keep the ability to open files in the current instance

It's still necessary to open files in the current instance if you want to access the other files' content through formulas or VBA. In these cases, you could first open one file and then drag the other file(s) on the opened Excel window.

You could also use File > Open through the opened file.

Answer 5

If you want to edit two existing XLSX files with two separated histories, there is a work-around, which works - well, mostly...

The first XLSX file you open from its location. For the second XLSX file, you first start Excel 2016 from the start menu, and then you open the second XLSX file through this second Excel window.

Be sure to check through the Task Manager, that there are two separate Excel processes - as you can see it in the screenshot below. If somehow the two files A and B are grouped together under only one process "Microsoft Excel" ..then close all Excel processes and try again.

Windows seems to be proud of its German nick name: WinDOOF