An Excel workspace or sometimes known as an arranged workspace is a special file that keeps a record of all the workbooks open at the time you save the workspace, as well as all the workbooks’ screen attributes for example things like window sizes and arrangement, screen magnification, and any other display settings in use at the time.

Workspaces are timesavers because they enable users to immediately resume work the next day on whatever workbooks you had open the day before. All you have to do is open the workspace file, and Excel does all the heavy lifting: opening the individual workbooks and arranging their windows and setting up the screen attributes so they’re in the same condition you left them in.

When you’re involved with a particularly complex spreadsheet project that requires you to work with the same workbook files over the course of several work sessions, you can save even more time by having Excel automatically open the workspace file when you launch the program. That way, you have all the spreadsheets open and arranged so that you’re ready to go the moment you start working with Excel.

Creating a workspace is very simple:
File -> Save Workspace, naming the workspace file, and selecting a place in which to save the new workspace file in the Save Workspace dialog box. The file extension for Excel workspace is .xlw. The hard part is actually opening the workbooks you want to work with in the workspace and arranging their windows and display settings the way you want them prior to saving this workspace file. But then, this is the stuff that you have to do anyway to be able to work with more than one Excel workbook at a time.

To have the workspace in your next Excel work session exactly the way you left it at the close of business, don’t save the workspace file until after you have saved all your changes to the open Excel workbooks and are ready to exit Excel.