In previous articles (from 2021-11-19 and 2021-11-26) I had already announced the test version of the pi Add-ins. This is a suite of add-ins for Excel with its own Ribbon and icons, offering certain features as enhancements or extensions to standard Excel functionality.

A (temporary) limitation of the test version was the lack of support for Excel on Mac. In the meantime, I was able to get the add-ins “Mac-ready” through some technical gimmicks in the background of the programming. For purposes of illustration, the screenshots in this article were taken on a Mac with an English version of Excel.

An additional function has also been introduced: the Sheet Toggler

(meanwhile, also short video clips about this function and about zooming the dialogues - see below - are available on my YouTube channel, as is already the case for the other functions).

This Sheet Toggler comes in handy when you use multiple workbooks in Excel at the same time, and certainly when those workbooks contain multiple worksheets and/or chart sheets. The Sheet Toggler actually brings together a lot of different functions of the Excel Ribbon in a handy combination screen, and adds possibilities that are not possible from the standard Excel Ribbons. Below a description:

Switch between workbooks - hide, unhide and/or close multiple workbooks at once

To switch between workbooks via the standard functions of the Excel Ribbon, you can normally use the “Switch Windows” button on the “View” Ribbon. However, this button only gives a limited list (maximum 9) of open workbooks (but only workbooks that are NOT “hidden” are included in that list). If you use more than 9 workbooks, you can click on an extra button to choose from a list.

It takes at least 3 mouse actions to get to a list of available workbooks, and then you only get to see the list of “visible” workbooks (so “hidden” workbooks are missing from the list).

The Sheet Toggler immediately displays a complete list of all workbooks...whether hidden or not.

For the workbooks, the opportunity is also offered to close one or more workbooks in 1 movement. With a simple choice you can indicate whether you will be asked by Excel for each individual workbook to save any changes, or on the other hand whether you want to save the changes for all selected workbooks first without being prompted and then close the workbook.

Switch between sheets in a workbook - hide, unhide multiple sheets at once - use “Very Hidden” status

If you want to switch within a workbook within a workbook, you normally “right-click” on the navigation arrows at the bottom left of the Excel window, which will display a list of VISIBLE sheets in the active workbook from which you can choose. However, you will NOT see hidden sheets.

If you want to hide a visible sheet or make a hidden sheet visible, you normally “right-click” on one of the sheet tabs at the bottom of the Excel window and use the displayed menu for the desired action.

Via the Sheet Toggler you can see the COMPLETE list of all sheets in the workbook including their visibility status. You can also hide or unhide any sheet (or multiple sheets at once) from here.

(Note: “Very Hidden” is a hidden status of a worksheet or chart sheet that can only be accessed or changed from a macro... this is NOT possible via the regular buttons on the standard Excel Ribbon).

Even so-called “Very Hidden” sheets can be made visible and vice versa, sheets can also be set to “Very Hidden”. Moreover, with a simple double click on a sheet name you can immediately jump to that sheet.

Additional settings for zooming the dialog boxes

Due to the additional support for Mac, it has also become clear to me that depending on the screen size you use, the previously designed dialog boxes were not always legible (text too small) or sometimes just took up too much screen space. That is why it is now also possible in the settings for you as a user to enlarge all dialog boxes of the pi Add-ins (in steps of 100%, 125%, 150%, 175% or 200%). By including this possibility, the plug-ins should be suitable for the vast majority of screen configurations that can be used.

There are still plenty of ideas in the pipeline to add to pi Add-ins as an extension.

Are you interested in a copy of the pi Add-ins or do you have suggestions for features that would be a useful extension? Please let me know via the contact form of pi ProductivITy.