From the course: Working with Computers and Devices

Create and save documents in Excel

From the course: Working with Computers and Devices

Create and save documents in Excel

- The first step to working with spreadsheets in Microsoft Excel is to open an existing workbook or to create a brand new one. You can start from scratch with a completely blank workbook or use one of the many available templates included with Office to create workbooks for making calendars, managing budgets, generating invoices, and lots more. To create a new workbook, open Excel. And with the Home tab selected, you can click Blank workbook to instantly create a new empty spreadsheet and start entering content into the cells right away. Or to create a new workbook based on a template, from here, go to File, and then select New. And below the blank workbook option, you'll find a large collection of templates to choose from, and you can scroll to browse through the templates. Or you can scroll back up and type a search term to look for online templates. I'll search for budget. And you can see these are all budget related templates now. Click any template to get a closer look and to read a description. And when you find a template you'd like to use, click Create. Let's zoom out a little here so we can see the whole thing. Now, the advantage of using a template like this is that it already includes formulas to perform these calculations. You'll be able to see the numbers and this Percentage bar updating as I make changes. Once you started making changes or adding content to your workbook, you should save it so you don't lose those changes. One way to do this is to click File and then Save as. Then choose a location to save the file. If you have a OneDrive account set up, you can save to your OneDrive folder to save your document to the cloud so you'll be able to access it from anywhere on any device running Excel. Or you can choose to save it locally to the computer you're currently using by choosing Browse. Navigate to the location on your computer where you want to save your file. My Documents folder is currently selected, which is where I'll leave it. Then name your file. I'll keep the current name of Monthly Food Budget and I'll click Save. So it's now saved to my Documents folder, and I can see that if I go to the Start menu and select Documents to open up that folder and there it is. So now I can continue working on my spreadsheet here in Excel. As you work, it's a good idea to periodically save your file to make sure you don't lose your changes. Once you've saved your file the first time, you can quickly save it again by clicking the Save button at the top of the Excel window. So that's how to create and save a new workbook in Excel.

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