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Technique 3: Perfecting Your Spreadsheet Workspace
Opening a Workspace Whenever
Excel Launches

When you know that you’ll be using a particular
workspace for some time in your Excel work, you
can speed up the process of setting up your work
environment by having Excel automatically open
the workspace file when you launch the program.
The process for doing this is twofold: You need to
designate a folder on your computer as the alter-
nate startup folder, and then you have to save the
workspace file in that folder.
• Figure 3-1: Saving the information about the current
work environment in a new workspace file. Any Excel file that you save in the XLSTART
folder provided by Microsoft (and saved in the
To re-create the workspace environment, all you C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office11
have to do is open the workspace file. When looking folder when you’re using Excel 2003) automati-
for the workspace file in the Open dialog box (File➪ cally opens when you launch the program.
Open), remember that workspace files use the .xlw
(for Excel workspace) file extension rather than the Excel enables you to designate an alternate
normal .xls filename extension. folder (which you must create with Windows
Explorer) for automatic startup. I recommend
To have the workspace in your next Excel saving the workspace file you want automati-
work session exactly the way you left it at the cally opened in the alternate startup folder
close of business, don’t save the workspace file that you specify because no matter where you
until after you have saved all your changes to put this folder it just has to be easier to find
the open Excel workbooks and are ready to than Microsoft’s XLSTART folder!
exit Excel.
To designate a folder (which you’ve already created
on your system with Windows Explorer) as the alter-
If you’ve already created the workspace file in
a previous work session and want to save any nate startup folder, follow these few steps:
display changes to it under the same filename,
choose File➪Save Workspace and then click 1. Choose Tools➪Options and then select the
Save in the Save Workspace dialog box. When General tab in the Options dialog box.
Excel displays an alert dialog box warning you 2. Select the At Startup, Open All Files In text box
that you’re about to replace the existing file,
just click Yes to save your changes to the same and then enter the path to the folder where
workspace file. you’re going to save your workspace file.