Excel Spreadsheets

grannybroon

My husband produces individual reports relating to his hobby, using Excel spreadsheets to record data.


When I set up a new spreadsheet I usually do it from scratch, formatting the columns, rows etc as required. Could I just do a 'Save as' of a previous version, rename, and delete the data when he requires a new one? It would certainly save quite a lot of time from my point of view to do this. However, something lingers at the back of my mind that you risk corruption of data if you keep 'Saving as' previous versions.


Any advice would be welcome.

rmg1

Doing what you want is fine (I've certainly never had a problem with it).

nicola00

Yes, so long as you save you"new" spreadsheet with a different name then your previous one will remain as you left it


with the renamed spreadsheet you are free to clear delete as you please


one suggestion I would make is save the spreadsheet as Master Copy......
Delete all the info an save this blank Master copy
each time you want to do a new one open the master copy and before you do anything with it save it as whatever you require it to be
enter your data etc and again your master copy will still live as a blank "master Copy"


sorry if that seems a bit longwinded, its really quite quick and easy


hope that helps

pinkteapot

'Save as' is absolutely fine to create a new copy of a file that you can then change the contents of.

Just make sure you do 'Save as', create the new filename, then double-checking you're working in the new version, before you delete his data.

grannybroon

nicola00 wrote: »

Yes, so long as you save you"new" spreadsheet with a different name then your previous one will remain as you left it


with the renamed spreadsheet you are free to clear delete as you please


one suggestion I would make is save the spreadsheet as Master Copy......
Delete all the info an save this blank Master copy
each time you want to do a new one open the master copy and before you do anything with it save it as whatever you require it to be
enter your data etc and again your master copy will still live as a blank "master Copy"


sorry if that seems a bit longwinded, its really quite quick and easy


hope that helps

I have various blank masters for Word documents but his spreadsheets can vary so much - depends on the number of days he wants to record data. However, it might be worth my while saving masters for the most commonly used formats, eg 14 days, 21 days etc.


Thanks for your suggestion.

Big_Graeme

Why not save as a template? That is what that function is there for.

paddyrg

+1 for template - this is exactly what it's for :-)

grannybroon

Thanks for the usual very useful help from you all. Think I will spend some time saving as templates.

brightonman123

start a tenplate (.xlt?), then save each new version from that, as normal xls..

paddyrg

Basically, a template includes all the bits that are standard, so formatting, formulas, graphs, tables, pivots, whatever. Spend time getting the template right, and you'll never have to touch it again . It's like a biscuit cutter. Only thing to be aware of is that by default excel will save them to a templates folder, whereas the desktop may be more actual use in your case. When it's time to use it, your husband double clicks on it and starts entering whatever - when he goes to save it, it'll prompt him for a name to save it as, it doesn't overwrite the template.