MS Excel: Customizing Worksheet Defaults

There are certain things that we’d all like to have when we begin a new Excel workbook… such as number of worksheets, font, font size, etc…

For many people, this seems like an elusive process, since there are so many places to investigate looking for the old Default button.

Fortunately for all of us, a few of the most basic settings are available in one easy to reach location.

Where you ask?

Why in the Excel Options dialog box – probably the last place some people think to look when they find themselves flipping through the Ribbon tabs and deciphering all the available items.

At any rate, it’s off the the Options dialog box we will go… (File tab on the Ribbon, Excel Options choice)

Once the dialog box is open, you need the General category on the left.

On the right, you’re looking for the When creating new workbooks section.

As you can clearly see, in this one location you can set the font, font size, number of tabs that a new workbook starts with, and even what view the workbook will open in.

When you’ve made the changes you require, simply click the OK button.

*I absolutely must note that as the section title indicates… these settings are for new workbooks only. Already created files will not be affected by these changes. To make those types of changes, you’ll need to either go through the other option areas and locate the sections labeled for the current workbook or make changes using the Ribbon… in other words, business as usual.

While I know that these changes are small, I also know that the headache of changing these things every time you start a new file, isn’t worth the pain when you can do something about with just a few seconds of your time.

~ April