Introduction

Microsoft Excel is an industry-standard spreadsheet program. There’s a good reason for this: Microsoft’s popular program has some of the most useful features out there, especially when it comes to working with “live” data from external sources. However, these features can be intimidating to learn, and some users aren’t even aware that Excel spreadsheets can sync with other programs—including Salesforce and Google Sheets. Fortunately, you don’t need to know all the ins and outs of Excel in order to create a spreadsheet using one of its many excellent templates. In this guide, we’ll introduce you to the world of simple spreadsheets by showing you how easy it is to use Excel as a template for your own spreadsheets!

Open Excel and Create a New Workbook

Now that you’ve got Excel open, it’s time to create your new workbook. To do this, click on the “File” tab at the top left of your screen and select “New.” A window will pop up with two drop-down menus: one labeled “Normal” and another labeled “Blank Workbook.” Selecting the first option will let you create a normal spreadsheet file that doesn’t have any templates attached to it; selecting the second choice will allow for an empty template instead.

If you choose to use an empty template as your starting point (like we’re doing here), just make sure that all of its columns are visible before proceeding with step 2!

Enter Your Data into the Worksheet

• Use the mouse to select a cell, then use the keyboard to enter text into it.
• Use the mouse to fill all cells in a column or row with data, based on what’s already there (if any).
• Use the mouse to format numbers as currency and dates as years/months/days by clicking on their buttons.
• Use the mouse to select all cells you want formatted similarly (for example, if you want all months colored green), then do so by clicking on their button or dragging over them with your cursor.

Format Your Data

Format your data to make it easy to read.

• Bold, italics, and underline text to emphasize certain points or make them stand out. For example, if you want to highlight a particular number in a column of numbers, bold that cell so that it jumps off the page and catches people’s attention. Or if you want to highlight a date in a list of dates, use italics so that people can tell at a glance which one is different from the others.
• Use colors to highlight important information or break up large amounts of text into shorter sections by using color coding with conditional formatting. Conditional formatting allows you to apply certain formats only when certain conditions are met; for example, you could have one set of cells appear in red whenever they contain an amount over $250 while another set appears blue whenever they contain an amount under $500 (or whatever criteria suit your needs).
• This makes it much easier for readers who are scanning down columns looking for specific items—they’ll know instantly whether something meets their criteria without having read every single line carefully every time! It also makes finding errors easier because there will be fewer places where things might look wrong but aren’t: if everything’s highlighted correctly then any mistakes should stand out immediately as being inconsistent with what we expect;
• similarly spotting problems becomes way easier since we don’t have as many options available when scanning quickly across rows/columns looking only at what we’re interested in seeing right now.”

Format Your Worksheet

• Open a blank workbook and select the cell you want to format.
• Select Home > Format Cells or press CTRL+1 on your keyboard.
• Click on any of the categories below:
• Font: Changes font type, size, color, and style
• Alignment: Sets alignment for numerical data or text within cells
• Number & Symbols: Changes currency symbols as well as decimal places for numbers (e.g., change from $1,000 to $1,000)
• Border Color & Style: Adds borders around cells (customize color and line style)
• In this example, we changed the font type from Calibri to Times New Roman before formatting our spreadsheet!

Save Your File and Set Up a Template Folder

You’ve got your spreadsheet set up, with the styles and formatting you want. Now it’s time to save that file as a template.

To do this, click File in the top left corner of Excel, select Save As, and then click on the Save as Type drop-down menu. Make sure that Office Template (*.xltx) is selected in this list before clicking OK to continue (see image below).

You’ll be asked to give your new template a name and location—these are important because they dictate where on your computer this file will be saved and what it will be called when you open it again later on! While we don’t recommend putting all of your templates in one folder (since that would make it hard for other people who use them), we suggest making at least one folder specifically for storing these kinds of files so you can easily find them later on if needed:

Setting the Default Template Folder in Excel 2010 and Excel 2013

To set the default template folder in Excel 2010 and Excel 2013:

• Go to the File tab.
• Click on Options.
• Click on the Save tab.
• In the Default file location section, click Browse.
• Navigate to the Templates folder (usually located at C:\Users\Your_Name\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Templates).
• Click OK.

Setting the Default Template Folder in Excel 2007

If you’re not sure where your template folder is located, click Choose Folder.

In the Choose a location box that appears, click Browse.

If you don’t see the Save As dialog box when you open Excel 2007 or later, go to File > Options > Save tab and click Advanced.

In the Default file location box, enter the path of your templates folder (including its name).

You’ve just successfully created your first spreadsheet template!

Congratulations on creating your first spreadsheet template! You can now use this template to create new spreadsheets. For example, you can use this template to create new spreadsheets for different projects, clients, and departments.

You can also use a spreadsheet template as part of a project management toolkit that includes other Microsoft Office software like Word and PowerPoint. In addition to creating new spreadsheets from templates, you will also learn how to save time by copying data from one sheet into another sheet in the same workbook (or any open workbook).

Conclusion

If you’re like me and you love working with spreadsheets but you don’t want to spend hours every other day changing them around for new projects or tasks, then templates are a great way of getting things done faster. They can be as simple or as complicated as you want them to be, but the overall goal is always the same – save time and effort by using a system that’s already been set up beforehand. It might seem like there’s no point in creating these templates because they’re so basic, but once you start using them regularly it’ll become clear just how helpful they really are!