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I use a two monitor system and will have MS Excel 2013 running on both. On one monitor I can select a range of numbers and the sum total will show in he status bar. When I select a cell in the workbook on my other monitor the sum total disappears. Is there a way to not have the sum total disappear?
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Same with me - no error but it doesn't solve the problem of sums disappearing when I Alt-Tab to another open spreadsheet.
Sorry, I tried this but it didn't work. When I Alt-Tab between open worksheets the sums of selected cells still disappear.
Things I've found that do work are below but they're not very elegant because you get a "PERSONAL.XLSB is locked for editing..." prompt on startup for all three options:
I'm sure MS will fix this eventually
In Windows 8, one way to start an additional instance of Excel is to press and hold the ALT key, then, without releasing the ALT key, right-click the Excel icon in the Windows taskbar and click the Excel icon above the Unpin option.
Continue holding down the ALT key until you are asked whether you want to start a new instance of Excel.
Click Yes to get a second instance of Excel up and running.
In general, anytime Excel is starting up, holding down the ALT key triggers the above dialog asking about a new instance.
There’s also a switch for booting Excel from the command prompt: /x. In Windows 8, press the Windows key and X key at the same time and then select Run.
Type excel.exe /x, and then click OK. This should launch a new instance of Excel.
I'm sorry, but all of the solutions I've seen are fairly convoluted. I don't really want to run separate instances of Excel because that would be going back to the old days when we couldn't open on two screens and had three icons for two worksheets when Alt-Tabbing - it took forever for that one to be fixed. And putting a formula in every worksheet I open is tedious. If SUM formulas can be created to solve the problem, then Microsoft should be able to fix the issue from within the application and place the result in the status bar.
I do appreciate all the suggestions, but I wish MS would just fix it.
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Thanks for you suggestion. But setting up a sum cell and using the watch window will not help me as I run reports and pull offline as an excel document to post to my accounts. To add a sum cell/watch window to excel file I download, would be timely. In my instance I just need a sum for a few transactions. For example I only want a few items that are on a specific travel document. I usually select the cells for that travel document and can see the sum on the bottom of the screen.This is how I match up with transactions on my accounts. Any functions that you know of that I could try for that scenario?