Getting Started with Tab Hound [1 of 3]

This page includes a few videos that will help you get started using the Tab Hound Add-in.  Most of these videos are 2 minutes in length, and should really help you get started using the major features of Tab Hound.

You can find installation instructions here if you have not installed the add-in file yet.

XL Campus Ribbon

Once Tab Hound is installed the XL Campus tab will appear in the Excel Ribbon.  On this tab you will see the buttons for Tab Hound, Table of Contents, and Flip Back.

Pressing the Tab Hound button will open the Tab Hound window.

XL Campus Tab - Tab Hound Button and Window

Tab Hound Window – Feature Guide

The following image highlights the major features of the Tab Hound window.

Tab Hound Window Features Overview

Video #1 – Sheet List

The sheet list contains a list of all the sheets in the currently active workbook.  Double-clicking (or pressing Enter) on any sheet will take you to that sheet.

The sheet list is packed with additional features that make it easy to work with your sheets.  Checkout the video for all the features of the sheet list.

Video #2 – Search Box

The search box allows you to filter down the sheet list for any sheet containing your search term.  This is a very fast way to find a worksheet and navigate to it.  You can also use the search box to filter the list, select multiple sheets, and then perform actions on those sheets like hiding and unhiding.

Video #3 – Flip Back Button

The Flip Back button will take you back to the last sheet you were on.  You can continue to press it to jump back and forth between two sheets.

Video #4 – Table of Contents

Add a Table of Contents (TOC) sheet to the front of any workbook. The TOC sheet contains clickable links to each sheet in the workbook, and it's a great way to a professional and organized touch to any workbook you are distributing to an audience.

Video #5 – Keyboard Shortcuts

All the buttons in the Tab Hound window have dedicated keyboard shortcuts. Simply press and hold the Alt key, then press the underlined letter in the button name to press that button with a keyboard shortcut.

You can also open the Tab Hound window and press the Flip Back button with keyboard shortcuts by adding the buttons to the Quick Access Toolbar (QAT).

Checkout the video for all the details.

What's Next?

You can view the other Getting Started pages in this series:

You can also checkout the full online help page to see all these videos.

Please leave a comment below or contact me directly ([email protected]) with any questions.

15 comments

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  • Hi Jon,

    This is a great product which is very useful. The time saved is well worth the small cost.

    I have noticed one small error in the code design. If you try to hide or unhide a worksheet when the workbook is protected then you get a Microsoft Visual Basic error message and the program ends. It would be good if you could amend the code so that a message indicating that sheet can’t be hidden/unhidden because the workbook is protected without the program ending.

    TAB Hound would be even more useful to me with the following additions:

    1 – Buttons to protect unprotect the workbook.

    2 – A button to copy a worksheet/s to another open workbook

    3 – A Button so that the ‘TAB Hound’ Menu Requester could be made modeless so that the requester can remain open whilst you edit a worksheet e.g. would allow you to unhide a worksheet, amend a couple of formulas on the sheet and hide it again without the requester closing.

    4 – The Sheet Flip Back function is brilliant but is limited to worksheets within the same workbook. It would be great if this function could be extended to flip between worksheets in two open workbooks.

    Thanks again for a great product,
    Chris

    • Hi Chris,

      Thank you for letting me know about the bug. I will get this fixed for the next release.

      Your suggestions are fantastic and I will put them on the to-do list. I really appreciate this feedback.

      Thanks again!
      Jon

    • Hi Carlos,
      If you want to add Flip Back to the Quick Access Toolbar you can just right-click the button and select the “Add to Quick Access Toolbar” option. Please let me know if you have any other questions. Thanks!

  • Hi Jon,

    I’ve just installed Tab Hound and had a quick run-through of video 1. Wow. Even though most of the workbooks I use are fairly basic, I can see how this will speed things up. Add to that, so many hints and tips like the Alt button to see the keyboard shortcuts – so simple, but I hadn’t seen that beore, and being able to re-arrange them and see what the new keys are is gret 🙂

    Thank you, and on with the net two Tab Hound video packages 🙂

    Tony

    • Hi Tony,

      Thanks again for purchasing Tab Hound. I’m happy to hear you are enjoying it, and learning more about Excel. Awesome! I hope the add-ins save you a lot of time in the future.

      Thanks again! 🙂

      Jon

  • Videos were a good idea, I was about to ask for my money back, but after viewing the videos I am willing to keep working with it and see if it will actually save me time.

    Quick Question, my flip button comes disabled. Yes I am constantly using vba to switch between sheets. What happens if I enable the flip button and then use a macro that switches between sheets? Am I going to break something or will my macro misfunction? I can definitely see how the flip button would be of big help.

    • Hi John,
      Thanks for purchasing Tab Hound. I’m sorry to not get back to you sooner. I missed your comment.

      Flip Back can interfere with some macros that loop through the sheets in the workbook. This is something I’m trying to find a solution for. You can test it with your macro to see if you get an error. You will not break anything with Tab Hound or Excel. It might just through an error or cause Excel to crash. So just save your file first and test it out.

      I hope that helps. Let me know if you have any questions. Thanks again!

  • Hi Jon,

    For some reason the “Flip Back” button does not seem to work on my workbook. Please advise.

    Thank you for your help, much appreciated.

    Kind regards,
    Ludwig

    • Hi Ludwig,

      Sorry you are having issues. Is Flip Back turned on. You can check by pressing the Settings button in the XL Campus tab, then navigating to the Flip Back tab in the menu. There is a checkbox to turn Flip Back on/off.

      It is usually on by default, but I realized I set it to off my default on the latest release. Sorry about that.

      Let me know if you have any questions. Thanks again!

  • I have downloaded the tabhound add-in for Mac:Office 2011.

    I’ve follow your 3 page instructions and continue to get a VBA error 5: not recognizable code. I am then forced to Abort.

    I can see the EC Hounddog and EC Controtab in list of files of VBA editor, but still cannot get add-in to where I can see it in any ribbon.

    thanks for your help.

    Tim

  • Hi Jon,

    For some reason the “Flip Back” button does not seem to work on my workbook. Please advise. i have gone to setting to activate it but it still doesn’t work.

    Thank you for your help, much appreciated.

    Kind regards,
    S, Prudence Wongbi