Understanding Custom Excel Templates

Why create custom templates? The main reason is to make your job easier. For example, you may always like to use a particular header or footer on your printouts. Consequently, the first time that you print a worksheet, you need to spend time entering the header and footer information. Although it isn't a lot of work, wouldn't it be easier if Excel simply remembered your favorite page settings and used them automatically? The solution is to modify the template that Excel uses to create new workbooks. In this case, you modify the template file by inserting your header into the template. Save the template file using a special name, and then every new workbook that you create has your customized page settings.

Excel supports three types of templates, which I discuss in the following sections:

• The default workbook template: Used as the basis for new workbooks.
• The default worksheet template: Used as the basis for new worksheets inserted into a workbook.
• Custom workbook templates: Usually, these ready-to-run workbooks include formulas, but they can be as simple or as complex as you like. Typically, these templates are set up so that a user can simply plug in values and get immediate results. The Microsoft Office Online templates are examples of this type of template.