Excel is an amazing and powerful tool that has come to impact nearly every aspect of the business world and makes our lives easier (at least when it comes to math). But anyone who uses Excel on a regular basis knows just how frustrating it can be to alter the formatting of a workbook to suit your basic needs. You might alter the font, borders, and alignment defaults, or perhaps you might delete or add sheets to control the number each new workbook offers. Whatever your needs, here’s a sneaky way to tweak Excel so you’ll always start out right where you want to:

• When you open a new workbook, Excel creates a copy of a template file named book.xlt (the .xlt extension denotes a template file). If you make changes to the defaults in book.xlt, every new workbook will open with the settings you need and you can go right to work!

To customize your spreadsheet, open Excel, choose Open from the File menu, and navigate to one of the following folders to find book.xlt:

• C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates
• C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICEx\XLSTART

x is the version number. For instance, if you’re using Office 2003, that folder would be OFFICE11. If you can’t find book.xlt, use the Windows Search feature.

Once you have book.xlt open in Excel, make the necessary changes to bring the template into compliance with your organization.

You can even add a generic header or footer. For instance, you can enter a header that will display each new workbook’s name, as follows:

1. Choose Header And Footer from the View menu.
2. From the Header control, choose Book1.
3. Click OK and Excel will display the workbook’s name in the header. This header trick works in any workbook, not just Excel’s template file.

When you’ve finished customizing book.xlt, save it as book.xlt. Don’t change the filename. Specify Template (*.xlt) in the Save As Type control and be sure to save the altered template in the same folder where you found it. Customizing book.xlt makes sense. By reducing the amount of work necessary to get each new workbook file ready, you’ll be more efficient and productive.