141
CHAPTER
Understanding
Excel Files
IN THIS CHAPTER
Creating a New Workbook ...............................................................................................
Opening an existing workbookSaving and closing workbooksSharing workbooks with those
who use an older version of
ExcelE
xcel, of course, uses files to store its workbooks. This chapter
describes the operations that you perform with workbook files: open-
ing, saving, closing, deleting, 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 new Backstage View, the screen that
you see when you click File on the Excel Ribbon.
This chapter also discusses the Excel 2007 and Excel 2010 file formats and
describes how to determine what (if anything) will be lost if you save your
workbook in an earlier file format.
As you read through this chapter, remember that you can have any number
of workbooks open simultaneously, and that only one workbook is the
active workbook at any given time. The workbook’s name appears in its title
bar (or in the Excel title bar if the workbook is maximized).
Creating a New Workbook
When you start Excel normally, it automatically creates a new (empty) work-
book called Book1. This workbook exists only in memory and has not been
saved to disk. By default, this workbook consists of three worksheets named
Sheet1, Sheet2, and Sheet3. If you’re starting a project from scratch, you can
use this blank workbook.