Working with Workbook Files in Microsoft Excel 2002
- Starting with an Excel Workbook Template
- Creating Workbooks from Scratch
- Saving and Naming Your Workbook
- Saving a Workbook as a Template
- Opening a Saved Workbook
- Managing Worksheets
- The Absolute Minimum
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
In this chapter
Starting a project with one of Excel's sample workbooks.
Creating a blank workbook.
Saving and opening workbook files.
Creating your own worksheet templates.
Creating, naming, and customizing the worksheets in a workbook.
Starting with an Excel Workbook Template
Each time you start Excel, it opens a blank workbook, so you can begin entering data immediately. However, you might be able to save yourself a considerable amount of time by creating a new workbook based on one of the many templates included with Excel. Excel features templates for creating expense statements, invoices, purchase orders, income statements, and other commonly-used worksheets. Each template is professionally designed and contains the formulas and functions required to perform the necessary calculations. Rather than start from scratch, you can open a workbook template and then customize the workbook, or, if the workbook is exactly what you need, simply start adding your data.
To open an Excel template, take the following steps:
Open the File menu and choose New. The New Workbook task pane appears.
Under New from Template, click General Templates. The Templates dialog box appears.
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Click the Spreadsheet Solutions tab. Excel displays a small collection of spreadsheet templates, as shown in Figure 3.1.
Click the desired template and click OK. Excel installs the selected template and then opens it, so you can begin working. (If prompted, insert the Excel or Office installation CD and click OK.)
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Figure
3.1 To save time, use one of Excel's sample spreadsheet templates.
If you have an Internet connection, you can connect to Microsoft's Templates Gallery and obtain dozens of other useful templates for both home and business applications. The Templates Gallery features templates for all Microsoft Office applications, including Excel, Word, Access, and PowerPoint. Each template is marked with an icon for the program used to create it, so you can determine which templates are designed exclusively for Excel. Excel's New Workbook task pane provides easy access to these templates, as these steps demonstrate:
Open the File menu and choose New. The New Workbook task pane appears.
Under New from Template, click Templates on Microsoft.com. Excel automatically runs your Web browser, which connects you to Microsoft.com. The opening Web page prompts you to select a country.
Click the link for the desired country. This connects you to the Templates Gallery for the selected country.
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Scroll down the page and click the desired template category, as shown in Figure 3.2, to display a list of subcategories, including the number of templates available in each subcategory.
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Figure
3.2 With an Internet connection, you can obtain templates online.
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Click the link for the desired subcategory to display a list of available templates, as shown in Figure 3.3. Note that the icon next to each template name indicates the application used to create it: Excel, Word, Access, or PowerPoint.
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Figure
3.3 The Template Gallery features templates for all Office applications.
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Click the Go to Preview link next to the desired template, so you can check it out before downloading (copying) it. The first time you choose to preview a template, a Security dialog box pops up asking whether it is okay to run a Microsoft program on your computer.
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Click Yes to give your permission. The End User License Agreement appears, notifying you of your rights and responsibilities in using this template.
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Read the License Agreement, and (assuming you agree), click Accept. Your Web browser displays a preview of the template, as shown in Figure 3.4.
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To open the template in Excel, click Edit in Microsoft Excel. Your Web browser downloads the template and opens it in Excel, so you can start using it or modifying it.
NOTE
In the New Workbook task pane, below New from Template is the option Templates on My Web Sites. In most cases, you can safely ignore this option. If you set up Web sites in Windows, however, and these sites contain additional Excel templates, you can use the Templates on My Web Sites option to quickly access these templates from Excel.
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Figure
3.4 The Template Gallery lets you preview a template before opening it.