It has been nearly a year since an admin provided an update on the idea, “Restore MDI file handling (open all files in one window); Kill SDI (each spreadsheet opens in a seperate window)”

Please provide an update. Are you still accepting votes and considering restoration of MDI? Or, should we start looking for alternative products and pirate software to return to a more effective Excel version?

Again, here are the issues:

1. Stability
* I experience ~3X Excel crashes in 2016 (SDI) as compared to 2010 (MDI)
* Microsoft claims Excel is more stable, but my experience is the exact opposite

2. Screen Space / Real Estate
* Drastically reduced screen space when each workbook requires its own Ribbon, Quick Access Toolbar and Formula Bar
* 4 workbooks arranged in MDI – 896 visible cells; 4 workbooks arranged in SDI – 560 visible cells. This is a 63% reduction of space. This is not a linear relationship – you lose a larger amount of space with each additional workbook.
* At most, you can only work with 2 workbooks arranged Horizontally
* Arranging Vertically compresses the Ribbons to a point of complete uselessness
* Using multiple monitors should not be a solution for a poorly designed/downgraded product (SDI)

3. Toolbar to Workbook Confusion
* One Ribbon + Quick Access Toolbar + Formula Bar to control all workbooks is far less confusing (MDI)
* In SDI, each workbook remembers its own Ribbon setting creating additional work with redundant tasks. If you want to cycle through ~10 workbooks and change anything (Font, Page Layout, View), you must change the Ribbon on all 10 workbooks. Then, if you want to change something different, you must change each Workbook Ribbon again. This is massive waste of time/productivity
* WebEx screen sharing is virtually impossible and difficult to share a desired workbook (see **************** comment on 26-Oct-2018).

4. Navigation Between Workbooks
*a. With MDI, Ctl+Tab and Ctl+Shift+Tab worked flawlessly to cycle (forwards/backwards) through all open workbooks in a single instance of Excel. Using the same key combinations in SDI, I always see a screen “blip” of the last used non-Excel program – why? Even worse, sometimes it cycles a non-Excel program into the mix. When I’m trying to cycle between two workbooks, I do NOT want Windows Explorer thrown into the cycle!

5. Links (across workbooks)
* Ability to update links between workbooks is less flexible – sometimes you want links to update and sometimes you do not. In the past, we could easily open a new/separate instance of Excel and prevent links from updating between workbooks. Now, it is far more difficult to open a new/separate instance of Excel and it is more confusing to work between 2 instances

6. VBA – macro instability
* Running macros between multiple Excel Workbooks is not consistent in SDI – sometimes it will choose the next workbook, sometimes it does not. There are a lot of comments on this topic. I can only imagine the countless hours of VBA work that have been destroyed by the forced SDI

7. Closing Workbooks
* With MDI, you could close and save ALL workbooks with a couple of mouse clicks. In SDI, you must close and save each workbook individually. If you have ~10 large workbooks open at once this will require you to stay engaged in the process as you will be forced to wait for each workbook to save, so you can save and close the next workbook (another massive waste of time/productivity).

8. Opening Workbooks
*With MDI, we could count on workbooks to open and be sized where we had saved them. Now, they open in the exact same size and cascade – WHY? How would you like to go to your desk every day, only to find everything in a different drawer? That’s not where you put it last time you used it?... so why keep moving things on us?

9. Minimize/Maximize Workbooks
* Per ************************* post on 6-Aug-2018, working with 12 workbooks, with MDI you could use 3 mouse clicks, but with SDI it now takes 18 mouse clicks. Do you think the customer desires to use their mouse more? **** was one of the lucky ones to revert back to 2010… but we’ll see her on this post in the future.

10. Excel alternative?
* 2010 is the only alternative at this point but will Microsoft will end support on 13-Oct-2020 (unfortunately, my I/T team will not put 2010 back on my PC)
* Office 2019 – I have not determined if MDI will be restored, but given the absence of feedback from **** (the admin of this page) I am not optimistic.
* Other products (e.g. Google Sheets) requires a massive time investment to learn a new product. I’m not afraid to learn something new, but it is difficult to carve the time out of my day. Most of the products I’ve explored have some limitations/deal breakers compared to Excel. Even with the massive downgrade from MDI to SDI, it is still a better product in my opinion.