Share an Excel Workbook

How to Share an Excel Workbook? (Step by Step)

For sharing an Excel workbook with other users, we need to save this to a local network location where others can access it and make changes. We also can keep track of those changes and can accept or reject those changes as per the requirement.

Let’s take below example to understand how to share an excel sheet.

We have given below customer details in a workbook saved with the name of Customer Data”.

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• Step 1: Go to the REVIEW tab.
• Step 2: Click on the Share Workbook option under Changes Refer below screenshot.

• Step 3: Then an Excel Share Workbook File dialog box will appear. See the below screenshot.

• Step 4: Under the Editing tab, tick on the checkbox and click on OK.

• Step 5: By clicking on this checkbox we are giving access to other users for editing.
• Step 6: The screen above shows you who has the workbook open.
• Step 7: After clicking on OK one dialog box will appear with a message. Refer below screenshot.

• Step 8: Click on OK.
• Step 9: Save this workbook.

Highlight the Changes Done on Excel By Other Users

We can also highlight the changes which have been done by other users. Follow the below steps:

• Step 1: Go to the REVIEW tab.
• Step 2: Click on the Track Changes option in Excel under the Changes section. Refer below screenshot.

• Step 3: This will show you two options as per the below screenshot.

• Step 4: Click on Highlight changes.
• Step 5: This will open a dialog box here. See the below screenshot.

• Step 6: Click on OK.
• Step 7: Now click on Protect Shared Workbook option under the Changes section as shown in the below screenshot.

• Step 8: It will open a dialog box. Tick on the checkbox as shown in the below screenshot.

• Step 9: Click on OK.
• Step 10: Now Excel will show the changes done by the users.
• Step 11: How does it look after changes? For your reference, I am going to make some changes in the share excel workbook file and save that changes.
• Step 12: Now the sheet automatically highlights the changes wherever done by me as shown in the below screenshot.

How to Accept/Reject the Changes Done by Other Users

We can accept or reject the changes done by other users if those changes are not according to us. For this follow below steps:

• Step 1: Go to the REVIEW tab.
• Step 2: Click on the Track Changes in excel under the Changes section as done before.
• Step 3: Choose the Accept/Reject Changes option from the list as shown in the below screenshot.

• Step 4: Then a dialog box will appear as shown in the below screenshot.

• Step 5: Click on OK.
• Step 6: Then a dialog box will appear and it will show you all the changes one by one as shown in the below screenshot. It will also highlight the cell in the spreadsheet where that changes made.

• Step 7: Click on the Accept button to accept the changes or Reject button to reject the changes.

Important Points to Remember

Excel shared workbook file feature has some limitations. The reason is not all features are fully supported in excel shared workbooks. Some of the limitations are:

• Sorting and filtering the data in excel
• Conditional formatting
• Merging Excel cells
• Hyperlinks in Excel.

You can use those features but won’t be able to add or change them.

• After sharing the workbook, when one or more users are editing on the same workbook simultaneously. Some edits can affect the same cells too.
• In these situations, the Excel sheet keeps the changes of the user who saved the workbook first.
• When another user saves the workbook, it will display the Resolve Conflicts dialog box.
• It will display all the information about the conflict changes.
• To resolve conflicts, you can take action accordingly by clicking on Accept Mine, Accept Other, etc.

Recommended Articles

This has been a step by step guide to Share Excel Workbook File. Here we discuss how to Share an Excel Sheet, highlight the changes done in excel, and how to accept/reject the changes done by other users along with practical examples and downloadable templates. You may learn more about excel from the following articles –

• Subscript in Excel
• Using Excel Extensions
• Conditional Formatting in Pivot Table
• How to Share Excel Workbook?