Organize worksheet templates into custom categories for quick and easy access

Organize worksheet templates into custom categories for quick and easy access
—by T. L. Thomas

Application:
Microsoft Excel 97/2000/2002/v. X/2003
Operating Systems:
Microsoft Windows, Macintosh


As your custom template collection grows, it’s im-portant to keep it organized. Custom templates are only as easy to apply as they are to locate. One of the simplest and most effective ways to organize your templates is to categorize them on custom sheets in the Templates dialog box (the New dialog box in Ex-cel 97/2000), as shown in Figure A. In this article, we’ll show you how to set up custom sheets to or-ganize your templates.


Figure A:
You can organize your custom templates by category when you add custom sheets to the New dialog box.

Managing templates effectively
To access the Excel templates that are available on your system, choose File | New from the menu bar (File | Project Gallery on the Mac). Older versions of Excel immediately display the New dialog box. However, if you have Excel 2003, you must now click on the New Workbook task pane’s On My Computer link. If you have Excel 2002, click on the New Work-book task pane’s General Templates link.
As you’ll quickly notice, Excel’s available tem-plates are organized on various sheets. By default, the General sheet contains the default workbook template, and the Spreadsheet Solutions sheet con-tains Excel’s other built-in templates. Creating and populating your own custom sheets is a piece of cake. First, we’ll show you how you can create a custom category sheet. Then, we’ll explain how you can categorize your custom templates by rearranging the sheets on which they appear.

Add a custom sheet to the New dialog box
Before you can add your own custom category sheets to the Templates (or New) dialog box, you need to know where Excel stores its built-in templates. This location, which is known as the user template directory, v[...]