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Hi Reader,

Welcome to the Google Sheets Tips newsletter #343, your Monday morning espresso, in spreadsheet form.

Thanks for all the well wishes I received to last week's email!

I'm two weeks into the recovery from sinus surgery and things are slowly but surely returning to (a new) normal.

I'm taking daily walks around my neighborhood, going slightly further each day. For the first couple of days I needed my wife as a support to hold on to, as I shuffled up and down the road. Yesterday, we walked together for an hour. Progress.

➜ News

Last week was Google's Cloud Next Conference. Here are two feature announcements affecting Sheets/Workspace users:

I.
Help me analyze, the on-demand, Gemini-powered analyst will be available to everyone in Sheets later this year. This will be accessed via the sidebar.

II.
Workspace Flows to automate multi-step processes using AI that can actually research, analyze, and generate content for you.

​Read more >>
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In other news:

III. ​
Shopify expects AI usage as the baseline. This memo from Shopify CEO is a fascinating peek at how big tech companies are thinking about AI.

Like it or not, there's no going back. AI usage will be expected, in the way that using office productivity tools (like Sheets) is expected.

​Read the memo here >>​

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➜ Sheets Tip #343: Five helpful strategies for managing multiple sheets in a file

In this tip, we look at five strategies to use when you have Google Sheets files with many sheets.

1) Add an Info Sheet with a Table of Contents

An Info Sheet or Front Sheet is an extra sheet you insert into your spreadsheet, as the first tab.

It's incredibly helpful to show people what's in the sheet and make navigation easier.

Add a table of contents with hyperlinks to other parts of your Sheet.

2) Color code sheets

You can add colors to your sheets, which allows you to highlight important sheets or group sheets together.

Click on the arrow next to a sheet name and then select "Change color".

3) Use Separators to group sheets

You can "group" multiple sheets with separator sheets.

1. Insert a sheet between the "groups" of sheets to create a breakpoint that's easy to find.
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2. Name this sheet with a reference to the "group" of sheets that follow. My convention is to add some arrows to indicate it's an organizer tab e.g. 1 >>​
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3. Add a color to that tab.

It looks like this in practice:

The Sheet itself is blank or you can add information there.

The "groups" are even more pronounced under the All Sheets button:

4) Control who can edit different sheets

If you share a Google Sheet with many people but don't want everyone to have edit access, you can restrict who can edit individual sheets within your Google Sheet.

To protect a sheet, right click it and choose "Protect sheet"

Or access it through the menu: Data > Protect sheet

​Read more here >>​

5) Use a macro to show/hide sheets to help focus

One more suggestion, for those sprawling Sheets that make it hard to focus:

Create a simple tool to hide all sheets except your active sheet, with just a few lines of Apps Script.

​Learn how to build it here >>​

If you enjoyed this newsletter, please forward it to a friend who might enjoy it.

Have a great week!

Cheers,
Ben

P.S. British hobbies​