Too many worksheets?

If we choose to create a complex Excel document that combines all the elements of a business process, we will try to call everything nicely, mark it, color it … During this process, we will create multiple worksheets, and sometimes give them long names in order to describe them as accurately as possible. The trouble is that the document can then become overloaded. The goal of this “recipe” is to show you a simple trick to find the desired worksheet faster.

We create a new worksheet by clicking the “+” button in the navigation panel or by pressing the SHIFT + F11 key combination. On this occasion, it appears to the left of the current worksheet and gets the default name that consists of the “Sheet” and the number of the last worksheet, increased by one. If the worksheets pop up the navigation panel menu, we will be able to use icons marked with arrows to move from sheet to sheet, from the front to the last and the reverse. By clicking with the left mouse button, with the same key holding the CTRL key, we jump to the first or the last worksheet, depending on whether we clicked on the left or right arrow.

If you right-click on the arrows above the icons, the Activate window will open, which contains a list of all worksheets. By selecting one of them, and clicking the OK button, we will position you on the desired worksheet. In this way, we can easily find a worksheet with the requested data.

From version to version of Excel, the default number of worksheets to be opened when starting a new document. At first there were 12, so this number was reduced to 3, so only one worksheet (Sheet1) now opens. If we want to change the default number of worksheets, we need to enter Backstage View, clicking the File button, then clicking Options on the General tab. There is an option Include this many sheets here, whereby we can, by simple input, change the number of worksheets that open when creating a new document.