Creating, Saving, Opening, and Closing Workbooks and Worksheets

What we call a Workbook is actually a collection of Worksheets. Each Excel file
is called a workbook, and each file can contain from one to as many as 1000+
worksheets (in Excel XP, the number of worksheets in a workbook is limited by
available memory). In earlier versions, the default number of worksheets was
14, but in the latest versions, it is only three. You can customize Excel to open
new workbooks with a specified number of worksheets by visiting Tools--
Options and selecting your preferred number under "Sheets in new workbook:".

Creating Workbooks

Once you have opened up Excel, you will be welcomed with a new workbook,
unless you have set up a different option (explained below).

To create a new workbook, just press Ctrl+N keys or select New from the File
menu at the top.

Did you realize that you can select a set of files always to be opened up by
default when you open Excel? You can set this option from the window in Tools--
Options; specify a directory in the line marked "At Startup, open all files in:".

Tip:

You can use this feature to point to a standard directory containing just one or two
files having your things to do or reminders.

Caution!

Excel will open any and all files located in the specified directory. It will not make
any distinction between Excel files or other files. If there are too many files in the
directory, it will just try to open up all the files placed there, and you might end up
getting stuck!

Saving Workbooks

It is simple to save workbooks--just press Ctrl+S or select Save from the File
Menu. You can also press F12 to bring up the Save As dialog box to save the
file as a new copy or to save a file with a new name.

Note:

Even if you try to close a file by mistake without saving it, Excel prompts you with
this question: "Do you want to save changes to Book1?" and gives you options of
Yes, No, and Cancel.

Opening Workbooks

You can open workbooks in several different ways: by selecting File--Open
from the menu, by clicking on the Open Folder icon in the standard toolbar, or
by pressing Ctrl+O (O for Open). The Ctrl+F12 keys also do the same job,
except that Excel will open up the My Documents page by default and ask you
to select your file.

If you are really organized and you store your Excel documents in a properly
identified location (let us say, D:AssignmentsExcel Docs), you will get tired
of selecting this path every time you open Excel. There are two solutions--one
is to create a shortcut to this location in the My Documents folder so that you
can select it straightaway. The second option is to make this folder your default
file location folder. This option is available from the menu item "Default file
location", available under Tools--Options.