Switch Documents Quickly in Office with OfficeTab

Excel makes me angry. Not only do all Excel spreadsheets open in the same window (unlike Word, which opens a new window for every document for easy side-by-side viewing), but the new interface in Excel 2007 does away with the Window menu, making it frustratingly difficult to switch among open spreadsheets. Thankfully, I've found OfficeTab, an add-on that adds browser-like tabs to Office apps.

The only semi-localized OfficeTab Web page makes it clear that the developer is Chinese, but fear not: The free app is fully in English, and surprisingly well done, to boot. You can configure it so the tabs appear in Excel, Word, and PowerPoint, or you can selectively disable the tabs in specific apps if you prefer. I only use tabs in Excel, for example, because I never have more than one PowerPoint deck open at a time, and Word already handles multiple documents quite elegantly.

There are a lot of customization options. You can hide the tabs when there's only one document open, for example, change the color, position, and keyboard shortcuts. If you spend a lot of time in Office -- and who doesn't -- this utility is nearly essential.