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C H A P T E R
6
Understanding Excel Files and
Templates
IN THIS CHAPTER
Creating a new workbook
Opening an existing workbook
Saving and closing workbooks
Working with templatesT
his chapter describes the operations that you perform with workbook files: opening, saving,
closing, and so on. It discusses how Excel uses files and provides an overview of the various
types of files. Most of the file operations discussed here occur in the Backstage view, the screen
that you see when you click the File button above the Excel Ribbon. It also discusses templates, a
special kind of workbook file.Creating a New Workbook
When you start Excel 2019, it displays a Start screen that lists recently used files and shows
templates that you can use as the basis for a new workbook. One of the template options is
Blank Workbook, which gives you an empty workbook. Figure 6.1 shows a portion of the Start
screen.If you prefer to skip the Start screen and always start with an empty workbook, choose File ➪ Options. In the Excel
Options dialog box, click the General tab and remove the check mark from the option labeled Show the Start Screen
When This Application Starts.After you start Excel and create a blank workbook, the empty workbook is called Book1. This work-
book exists only in memory, and it hasn’t been saved to disk. By default, this workbook contains
one worksheet named Sheet1. If you’re starting a project from scratch, you can use this blank work-
book. By the way, you can change the default number of sheets in a new workbook by using the
General tab of the Excel Options dialog box.Excel® 2019 Bible, First Edition. Michael Alexander, Dick Kusleika and John Walkenbach.
© 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2019 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.