Excel Tutorial
Opening, Saving, closing Workbooks / Worksheets
Open New Workbook (File)
To open an new Workbook (File)
- Open File menu by Clicking on File tab in the Menu bar
- Click on New
Alternatively, you can open a new Workbook by a click on the New icon in Standard Toolbar
Open an Existing Workbook (File)
To open an existing workbook (file):
- Open File menu by Clicking on File tab in the Menu bar
- Click on Open.
- Browse to the location of the file you want to open.
- Click on the name of the Workbook you want to open to highlight it.
- Click Open
Alternatively, you can replace the first two steps noted above by a click on Open icon in the Standard Toolbar and follow the remaining steps to open an existing workbook.
Saving a Workbook (File)
To save a file with its existing name at the same location
- Open File menu by Clicking on File tab in the Menu bar
- Click on Save.
Alternatively, you can save a workbook with its existing name at the existing location simply by a click on Save icon in the Standard toolbar.
To save a Workbook with different name and / or at different location
- Open File menu by clicking on File tab in the Menu bar
- Click on Save As.
- Change the name and / or location in the pop-up window.
- Click Save.
Closing a Workbook (File)
To close a workbook
- Open File menu by clicking on File tab in the Menu bar
- Click on Close.
- If you have unsaved work / data, Microsoft Excel will display an alert asking you "Do you want to save the changes you made to "workbook name"?. If you click "Yes", the unsaved changes will be saved and workbook will be closed. If you click "No", the unsaved changes will be discarded and workbook will be closed. If you click "Cancel", no action will be taken, the alert will disappear and the workbook will not be closed.
Alternatively, you can close a workbook by clicking on 'X' mark on the top right of the toolbar area.
AutoSave/ AutoRecover Feature
By default, Microsft Excel Auto Recovers / Auto Saves the changes made by you in a file every 10 minutes. You can disable this feature or increase / decrease periodicity of Auto Save by
- Open Tools menu by a click on Tools in Menu bar
- Click Options
- Click Save
- Tick the box against "Disable AutoRecover" if you want to disable the feature.
- Change the periodicity to Save / AutoRecover in the Minutes box, as you wish.
- You can also change the location for Auto Saveof the workbook from the default location (My Documents folder).
Worksheet
A workbook can have several worksheets. By default, a workbook has 3 worksheets. You can delete a worksheet by right click on its tab at the bottom of the screen and clicking on Delete.
Worksheet Tabs
You can insert a worksheet bya right click on a worksheet tab and then clicking on Insert. A new worksheet will be inserted with its tab before the worksheet tab right clicked by you.
You can rename a worksheet by right click on its tab followed by clicking on Rename.
You change position of a worksheet tab by dragging and placing it at the desired location on the worksheet tab bar.