Guide
Saving every worksheet of an Excel workbook as its own file
Workbooks with one sheet per region, class, month or client are convenient to maintain and awkward to share, because each recipient should only get their own sheet. Copying sheets into new workbooks by hand loses widths and formats or drags hidden data along. This tool saves every sheet as its own file in one step, with the formatting intact.
What is copied
Each sheet is rebuilt in a new workbook with its cell values, formulas, fonts and fills, number formats such as currencies and dates, borders, merged cells, column widths and row heights. The split files therefore look like the original sheet, not like a raw data dump. Frozen panes and filters defined on the sheet come along as well.
Formulas that point to other sheets
A formula like =Summary!B4 cannot work in a file that has no Summary sheet. Instead of leaving a broken reference, the tool writes the value the formula last showed in Excel. Before you download, a warning counts how many such formulas the chosen sheets contain, so you know which numbers are now fixed values. Formulas that only use cells on their own sheet remain real formulas and keep calculating.
Choosing sheets
All visible sheets are selected when the workbook opens. Click a sheet’s chip to leave it out. Hidden and very hidden sheets are shown with a “(hidden)” label and are not selected by default, since they often contain lookups, settings or data not meant for recipients. Select them explicitly if you need them.
Excel or CSV
“Excel (.xlsx) with formatting” keeps everything described above. “CSV (values only)” writes one CSV per sheet with the values as displayed, which is what databases and import tools want. For CSV you can add a byte order mark so Excel shows accented characters correctly when the files are opened again.
What is not carried over
Charts, images, shapes, pivot tables, comments, data connections and macros are not copied. Conditional formatting and data validation depend on how they were defined and may not survive in every case. For sheets built around charts or pivot tables, Excel’s own “Move or Copy… › Create a copy” into a new workbook is the better route.
File names and download
Each file is named after its sheet, with characters that are not allowed in file names replaced. All files arrive together in one .zip named after the workbook.
Old .xls files
Binary .xls workbooks from Excel 2003 and earlier cannot be read. Open them in Excel, LibreOffice or Google Sheets and save them as .xlsx first.
Privacy
The workbook is processed on your device, which matters for payroll, grades and client data. Nothing is uploaded.
Sending sheets to different people
A typical case is a workbook with one tab per client, branch or teacher. After splitting, every file carries the sheet’s name, so attaching the right file to the right email is straightforward. Check the hidden-sheet labels before sending: anything you select goes into a file, and recipients can see everything in their copy.
Related tools
To do the opposite and stack sheets into one table, use Combine Excel Sheets. For a single sheet as CSV, Excel to CSV is quicker. To cut one large sheet into parts by rows or values, use Split CSV File.
Checked against the current version of the Split Excel Sheets on .