Open a workbook in the browser

You can open a workbook in the browser in several ways:

• Open the workbook in the Web browser for viewing and browsing.

• Open a snapshot of the workbook in Microsoft Excel 2010, to work with the visible information in a workbook, such as cell contents.

• Open the complete workbook in Excel 2010, to work with any element of the workbook, including formulas and data connection information.

When you open a workbook in the browser, the Web viewer displays the workbook in Worksheet view or Named Item view. The worksheet author chose this view when the worksheet was published.

What do you want to do?

Open a workbook in the browser

Open a workbook in Excel

Learn more about views

Open a workbook in the browser

Typically, you can open a workbook in the browser just by clicking the workbook name in the document library, or by using the drop-down, that appears when you highlight the workbook name. To be able to open a workbook for viewing automatically by clicking its name, you must configure settings in the document library.

Open a workbook for viewing

To view a workbook by using the drop-down menu, take these steps:

1. Open the document library that contains the workbook.

2. Point to the workbook item.

3. Click the arrow next to it.

4. Click View in Web Browser.

Open a workbook in Excel

Important:  A Web Part author can customize the Web-based viewer toolbar to hide the Open in Excel icon. If you are not able to open a workbook from a Web Part in Excel, contact your site administrator for more information.

You can open a browser-based workbook in Excel 2010, if you have Excel installed on your computer. There are two ways to do this: open the full workbook so that you can edit it, or open a limited workbook, which is called a snapshot.

Open a workbook in Excel

To open a browser-based workbook in Excel, take these steps:

1. Open the workbook in the browser from a document library, or open the Web Part Page that contains the workbook in a EWA Web Part.

2. From the Web viewer toolbar, click the arrow next to the Open menu.

3. Click Open in Excel.

The viewer copies the whole workbook to your computer, and then opens it in Excel. The copy includes any changes you have made in the current session, such as sorting and filtering, and includes recalculated formulas and refreshed data connections. After the workbook opens in Excel, you can view and change it. When you finish, you can save the workbook on the local computer, or re-publish the workbook to the SharePoint site.

Open a snapshot of a workbook

A snapshot is a limited version of a workbook. Essentially, a snapshot preserves viewable information, and removes hidden information such as formulas, connections, and hidden data.

To open a snapshot of a workbook in Excel, follow these steps:

1. Open the workbook in the browser from a document library, or open the Web Part Page that contains the workbook in a EWA Web Part.

2. From the Web viewer toolbar, click the arrow next to the Open menu.

3. Select Open snapshot in Excel.

The following table describes the information that is included in a snapshot.

Information	Description
Formatting	All cell formatting, styles, and themes.
Visible grid information	All cells, columns, rows, and worksheets that are currently displayed.
Cell values	The current text, number, and date values in cells and the returned values of formulas and functions.
Objects	Excel tables, charts, PivotTable reports, and PivotChart reports.

The next table describes information that a snapshot removes.

Information	Description
Private information	Privacy information that might be in the workbook, such as your user name or personal summary information in the document properties.
Conditional formatting	All conditional formatting.
Hidden data	Hidden cells, rows, columns, and worksheets.
Formulas	All Microsoft Excel worksheet formulas and functions.
Interactive features	Any interactive features, such expanding and collapsing levels of data in a PivotTable report, Excel Table and worksheet filtering and sorting, and grouping and ungrouping outlined data.
Connections	All connections to external data sources and cached data.
Web-related	Hyperlinks and Web publishing options.

Learn more about views

When you save an Excel workbook to a SharePoint site, you can decide to save the complete workbook or to save specific Named Items. When you open the workbook in the browser, you cannot switch views in the same session.

Entire workbook     in this view, the Web viewer displays whole worksheets and all information about the worksheets. The workbook author can specify whether to show all the worksheets in a workbook or only specific worksheets.

Named Items     In this view, the Web viewer displays only specified named items from the workbook. A named item can be one of the following: a chart, an Excel table, a PivotTable report, a PivotChart report, or a named range of cells. Named Item view is useful when you (a user or a workbook author) want to do the following:

• Show one or more specific items in a workbook, such as a chart or table, and hide all other information. For example, as a workbook author, you might want to share a summary chart, but hide the actual data for security reasons.

Offer users the option to select specific items from a View drop-down list on the toolbar. The View drop-down list displays only the named items in a workbook. It does not list individual worksheets.

For more information about how to create Named Items in an Excel workbook, see Microsoft Office Excel Help.

A workbook in Named Item view can still show the Parameter pane and accept user input values for the parameters, even if the named item does not contain the defined parameters. For example, suppose that the named item is a chart. The workbook author might define parameters so that users can input data values for the chart, even if the named item view does not show data with the chart.