As it turns out, Excel gives you quite a bit of control over the look and layout of your worksheets. It’s fairly straightforward to create an entirely customized standard workbook. The trick behind this magic in Microsoft Excel is creating a template file named book.xltx (or book.xltm if your default workbook contains macros), and then save this file to the appropriate location on your hard drive. (This required name assumes English is the interface language). You can’t use book1 or custom or another variation. Show
Overview: Creating a New Excel Workbook TemplateTo create a new default Excel workbook template:
Some Excel workbook elements you might change:
NOTE: Any new worksheets you insert into your custom default workbook will revert back to the original formatting and layout. You may want to add extra worksheets to the original workbook or reserve an extra or master worksheet you can copy as desired. Applying Changes to Multiple Cells and/or WorksheetsTo add custom formatting changes to every cell, column, or row, first, highlight all cells with Select All (press [Ctrl] + A). When you are done with the cell formatting, press [Ctrl] + [Home] to clear the cell highlights. To apply changes such as formatting or print settings to multiple worksheets in a workbook, right-click any sheet tab, then left-click on Select All Sheets, which groups the worksheets together for shared actions. When you have finished your changes, left-click again on any sheet tab to clear the worksheet grouping. Find out more about grouping multiple worksheets. How to Change the Number of Worksheets in a WorkbookYou don’t need to create a new default workbook if all you want to do is change the number of worksheets in a new workbook. The default number of worksheets is 1; in Excel 2013 and earlier, the default is 3. To change the default number of worksheets in a new workbook, choose File > Options, pick the General category, and specify the desired number of sheets in the Include this many sheets setting. Saving Your New WorkbookTo save your new default workbook:
Excel XLSTART DirectoryThe file needs to be saved or moved to your XLSTART directory, which is on your local C: drive. The location of this directory varies depending on your version of Windows and Microsoft Office; search your hard drive for the folder. Depending on your version of Excel, examples of the location include:
How to Locate the XLStart folderTo find out the path of the XLStart folder, check the Trust Center settings:
Can’t find the XLSTART directory? You may need to create the directory in the above location, or the AppData folder may be hidden. To show hidden folders in File Explorer:
You should now be able to see and navigate to the location of the XLSTART folder. After you save the template file, you can close it.
Using the New Default Excel WorkbookNow, every time you start Excel, the new blank workbook will be based on the template you created. In addition, when you press [Ctrl] + N, the new workbook will be created from your template. Choosing other options for a new workbook may not work as the Excel Start Screen defaults to a different standard workbook. As always, this or any other workbook can still be individually customized as needed. Keep in mind that creating and saving a custom default Excel workbook only changes the default workbook on the active computer and does not affect the workbook used by others on your computer network. You can, however, share your default workbook by copying your book.xltx file to the proper location on another computer. Options When XLSTART Directory Isn’t AvailableOn some networks with a lot of security restrictions, you may not have access to the XLSTART directory, or you may not have permission to save files. Instead, create a startup directory on your own system with any name you want and store the book.xltx file in this new alternate startup directory. The directory name you choose doesn’t matter, but you will need to tell Excel where it is. To save your default workbook in an alternate directory:
Caution: Because Excel will try to open every file in the alternate startup folder, make sure you specify a folder that contains only files that Excel can open and only files you want to see every time you start Excel. How do I make Excel default to a specific sheet?One way to change the default worksheet is to go to File > Options > Advanced. In the 'General' section, there is an option for 'Default file location'. Here, you can browse to the location of your workbook (or any other workbook) and select it as the default.
How do you change which sheet Excel opens on?Use an alternate startup folder. Click File > Excel Options > Advanced.. Under General, in the At Startup, open all files in box, type the full path of the folder that you want to use as the alternate startup folder.. What is the default workbook in Excel?In Microsoft Excel, workbooks are saved as Excel Workbooks (. xlsx) by default. You can change the default file format to any other file format that is supported in Excel. For example, if you frequently create macros in a workbook, you may want to automatically save a new workbook as an Excel Macro-Enabled Workbook (.
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