View Side by Side with Vertical Synchronous Scrolling in Excel

In the recent versions of Microsoft Excel comparing worksheets side by side is a lot easier with vertical synchronous scrolling. This is the feature when you scroll in one of your spreadsheets – either horizontally or vertically, the other ones also get scrolled automatically too. And not only that, this feature works for other Microsoft Office applications too. In this guide, we will be discussing how to view side by side using vertical synchronous scrolling in Excel with different examples for spreadsheets of the same workbook and different workbooks.

Download Practice Workbook

You can download the workbooks from the links below which were used to demonstrate vertical synchronous scrolling.

Link for the first workbook:

Link for the second workbook:

2 Suitable Examples to View Side by Side with Vertical Synchronous Scrolling

Synchronous scrolling is a feature in Excel and other Microsoft Office applications to scroll two or more documents at the same time. It is very useful when comparing two documents side by side. In Excel, we can do this for two spreadsheets of the same workbook or two spreadsheets from different workbooks. And even, multiple workbooks, side by side. We will be discussing all three of the cases and how to use the vertical synchronous scrolling feature to view side by side.

1. View and Scroll Two Worksheets of Same Workbook

Let’s start with the most common scenario. It is very standard to compare different equivalent data entered in different sheets of the same workbook. Like tracking sales of different months in a year. In this example, we are going to view two Excel spreadsheets of the same workbook side by side using vertical synchronous scrolling.

For demonstration, let’s take the first file from the download link. It has two sheets called “Attacking” and “Defending”. We are going to view both of them side by side and use the synchronous scroll vertically.

Steps:

• First of all, open the file and go to the View tab on your ribbon.
• Then select New Window under the Window group.

• As a result, another window of the same workbook will open up. Now, select the other spreadsheet in the new workbook.
• Then go to the View tab again. This time, select View Side by Side from the Window

• Consequently, you will have both the View Side by Side and Synchronous Scrolling options selected.

• After that select Arrange All under the same Window.

• Then the Arrange Windows box will pop up. Now select Vertical in the Arrange options and click on OK.

Finally, the windows will open side by side.

If you scroll one of these windows, you will now find that the other one is scrolling automatically to the position the first one is in.

You can scroll the other one to automatically scroll the first one too. Moreover, you can do this for horizontal scrolling too.

2. View and Scroll Two Worksheets of Different Workbooks

In our second example, we will be going over how to view two spreadsheets of different workbooks side by side with vertical synchronous scrolling. As an illustration, we will be going over two spreadsheets from the two files given in the download link above.

Steps:

• Firstly, open both the files at the same time. It should open in different windows.
• Now go to the View tab in your ribbon and select View Side by Side under the Window group.

• If you have multiple files open, a new window will appear asking for the one to open side by side next. Select the one you want to compare it with and then click on OK.

• Then select Synchronous Scrolling from the same Window group.

• After that, select Arrange All from the Window group.

• Then select the Vertical option in the Arrange Windows box and click on OK to view the files side by side vertically.

As a result of these steps, you will find that your workbooks are opened side by side with the vertical synchronous scrolling feature.

If you scroll one of the workbooks, the other one will automatically scroll up or down too.

This works for horizontal scrolling too.

Read More: Viewing and Scrolling Multiple Excel Workbooks at the Same Time

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View Multiple Sheets Side by Side in Excel

Comparing spreadsheets side by side in real life is often not limited to just two spreadsheets at a time. Unfortunately, vertical synchronous scrolling in this side-by-side view is not available yet in the latest versions of Excel. But the steps described in this segment will help you view multiple worksheets side by side at the same time whether those are from the same workbook or different ones.

Generally speaking, the basic idea is to keep opening spreadsheets from the same workbook using the New Window feature described in the first example or manually open different ones to open all of them in new windows. And then arrange them vertically or any other way you want them.

For demonstration, we are going to open all of the spreadsheets from the first workbook and the spreadsheet from the second workbook. At the same time, we are going to view all of them side by side vertically. Follow these steps to see how to do that.

Steps:

• First, open the workbook with the two spreadsheets.
• Then go to the View tab from the ribbon and select New Window under the Window group.

• As a result, the same workbook will open in a new tab. Now select the spreadsheet you want to view from the bottom left of your workbook. If you have more of these spreadsheets you want to open, keep repeating the last two steps.
• In contrast, open the spreadsheets from the different files manually by double-clicking them from the file explorer. If you have more than one spreadsheet to view side by side from the new files, keep repeating the previous two steps for each of them.
• Once you are done opening all of the spreadsheets in new windows, go to the View tab on any of the workbooks opened and select Arrange All from the windows group.

• After that, select the option you want to view them. We are selecting Vertical.

• Finally, click on OK.

As a result, you can now view all of the spreadsheets in a side-by-side view.

View Side by Side and Synchronous Scrolling Not Working in Excel

Two of the most common issues you can run into are the synchronous scrolling buttons grayed out and rearranging problems even though the synchronous scrolling options are enabled.

View Side by Side Button Is Grayed-Out:

One of the common issues you can find in this process is the View Side by Side button is grayed out like the one shown in the figure below. To eliminate this problem, open at least another spreadsheet in a new window either through the new window option or manually.

Nothing Happens after Clicking Synchronous Scrolling:

Another common one you can run into is nothing happens even though the View Side by Side option is turned on. In this case, select Reset Window Position from the Windows group. This will reset all of the arrangements. Then you can rearrange them again vertically or in any other position you like.

Read More: [Solved!] Vertical Scroll Not Working in Excel (9 Quick Solutions)

Conclusion

This was the method and different scenarios that you can use to view Excel spreadsheets side by side using vertical synchronous scrolling. Hope you found this guide helpful and informative. And from now on you should be able to use vertical synchronous scrolling with confidence. If you have any questions or suggestions, let us know below.

For more guides like this, visit Exceldemy.com.

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