How can I undo from the worksheet I'm on?

Question

I originally posted this in the IT Professionals forum but they told me to post it here because the issue was by design.

When I click undo in the quick access toolbar it undoes the last action in Excel, not the last action in the current worksheet. This is not useful, so I added an undo to the ribbon.

The ribbon is supposed to apply to the current sheet right? No. It still undoes the last action on a different sheet. This is completely stupid. How do I make it undo actions on the sheet I am viewing? I'm using Excel 2010. I'm pretty sure undo worked properly in Excel 2003.

Answer 1

I think you are mistaken about 2003. 
If, in 2003, I make an entry in Book1, then an entry in Book2, then return to Book1 and click Undo it undoes the entry in Book2 (and takes me back to Book2).

This is different from the behaviour in Word where each document has its own Undo stack.

The behaviour of current versions of Excel will not be changed, I am pretty sure. 
But I will raise the suggestion with the product team for a future version. 
The question will be does anyone rely on the current behaviour and find it useful...?

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Bill Manville. Excel MVP, Oxford, England. www.manville.org.uk

Answer 2

Undo works at Application level and will undo changes in the reverse order actions were made. That's not only between sheets but even between workbooks.

It would be very difficult if even viable to arrange otherwise, as each action might be dependant on the preceding action, even between different sheets. Similar applies for Redo

You can select how many actions to Undo in the dropdown linked to the Undo icon.

Undo worked similarly in Excel 2003 in this respect.

Peter Thornton

Answer 3

Yeah, seems my memory is going. Maybe I'm thinking of Word.

Still, while I can understand undo in the quick access bar applying to the whole application, that doesn't make sense when the undo button is in the ribbon. The ribbon should apply to the current file.

Having an undo stack for each file would be very useful, and Excel already dumps the undo history on certain operations anyway, so doing that when an action effects multiple files would be fine.

Answer 4

I have made the suggestion to the product team that they consider it for the next version.

You talk about an undo button on the ribbon.  I can't see one in my Excel 2010 ribbon. 

Perhaps you customised your ribbon to include one; if so, expecting it to behave differently than when it is on the QAT is a bit of a leap of faith!

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Bill Manville. Excel MVP, Oxford, England. www.manville.org.uk

Answer 5

I have made the suggestion to the product team that they consider it for the next version.

Hi Bill,

You had asked in an earlier post on this thread if anyone finds the undo feature in Excel helpful at all in the way it currently operates.  I, for one, find it completely UN-helpful and most annoying! 

As I work, I have multiple Excel workbooks open at once on my computer.  When I'm prompted to save I'll check the drop down box next to the undo button and it has EVERYTHING that has been done to every spreadsheet of every workbook that is active.  It's impossible to know if I accidentally changed something and really don't want to save it or if I, in fact, did make a change that I forgot to save at the moment.  Also, if I truly need to 'undo' something, it will jump around and undo all of the actions of other spreadsheets  that I don't need undone before it undoes what I really want to be undone.  It's the single most annoying factor about Excel that I can imagine. If the undo stack could just be limited to one workbook it would be most helpful.

My question to you is, it is now May of 2013 and this thread was started in 2011. Has there been ANY progress at all in resolving this most annoying Excel characteristic - or at least any justification at all to keep it like this?

BTW - I'm using Excel 2010 on all of my computers, although some spreadsheets I use were created in earlier versions of Excel.

Thank you for your input!!