How to Open a Template in Excel
Excel templates are one of the most powerful and underused tools for getting work done faster. Instead of building a spreadsheet from scratch, you can start with a pre-designed structure for anything from a project plan to a monthly budget. This article will walk you through exactly how to open and use both built-in and custom templates in Excel.
What Are Excel Templates and Why Use Them?
An Excel template is a pre-built spreadsheet file that serves as a starting point for a new workbook. It can include specific formatting, layouts, formulas, and even charts - ready for you to plug in your own data. The actual template file is saved with an .xltx extension, which distinguishes it from a standard Excel workbook (.xlsx).
So, why would you use a template instead of starting with a blank sheet? The benefits are simple but significant:
- Save Time: The number one reason. Why spend an hour creating a calendar, an invoice tracker, or a financial statement when a professionally designed version is just a few clicks away?
- Ensure Consistency: If your team needs to produce reports that look the same every time, templates are the perfect solution. Templates ensure everyone uses the same layout, branding (like logos and colors), and calculations.
- Leverage Expertise: Many built-in templates are designed by people who know exactly what they're doing. A budget template, for example, will likely have all the necessary formulas and categories already set up correctly, reducing the chances of error.
- Get Started Quickly: Staring at a blank grid can be intimidating. A template gives you a clear structure to follow, making it easier to start entering your data and get to the insights faster.
Method 1: Opening Built-in Excel Templates
Excel comes packaged with a wide assortment of fantastic templates for business and personal use. These are the easiest to access and are perfect when you need a common type of document like a calendar, budget, schedule, or invoice. Here’s how to find and open them.
Step 1: Open Excel and Select 'New'
Start by launching the Microsoft Excel application. When it opens, you'll be greeted with the home screen. In the left-hand navigation pane, click on New. This will take you to the template gallery.
If you already have a workbook open, you can get to the same screen by clicking the File tab in the ribbon at the top left, and then selecting New.
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Step 2: Browse or Search for a Template
You'll now see a "Blank workbook" option followed by a large gallery of templates. You have two primary ways to find what you need:
- Use the Search Bar: This is a great place to start if you know exactly what you're looking for. Type a keyword like "invoice," "budget," "calendar," "project plan," or "Gantt chart" into the search box and press Enter. Excel will search its online collection and show you all the relevant options.
- Browse Categories: Just below the search bar, you'll find suggested categories like Business, Personal, Planners & Trackers, Lists, Budgets, Charts, and Calendars. Clicking on one of these will show you all the templates that fall into that category. This is useful for exploring what kind of templates are available if you're not sure what they're called.
Step 3: Select and Create Your Workbook
Once you find a template that looks promising, click on it. A new window will pop up showing you a larger preview of the template and providing a brief description of what it's for.
For example, if you search for "budget" and select the "Personal monthly budget" template, the preview will show you its layout and explain that it helps you track your income versus expenses. If it looks like a good fit, click the Create button.
Excel will then download the template and open it as a brand new, untitled workbook. The original template file remains untouched, so you can use it again and again. You can now start filling in your own data, and be sure to save the file (as a regular .xlsx workbook) when you’re done.
Method 2: Opening a Downloaded or Custom Excel Template
Sometimes you’ll download a template from an online source or create your own to reuse later. These files will typically have an .xltx extension. Opening them is simple, but there's an important distinction to understand to avoid accidentally overwriting your template.
The Right Way: Open from Your 'Custom Office Templates' Folder
For templates you plan to use frequently, the best practice is to save them in a specific folder so they appear directly within Excel's template gallery. This makes them much easier to find and manage.
Step-by-Step Instructions:
- Save the Template File: First, ensure your custom template is saved in the designated folder. In most newer versions of Office, this path is automatically created and is typically:
C:\Users\[Your Username]\Documents\Custom Office Templates. When you're saving a workbook as a template, choose Save As, and from the "Save as type" dropdown menu, select Excel Template (*.xltx). Excel should automatically direct you to this "Custom Office Templates" folder. Give it a descriptive name and save it. - Navigate to the 'Personal' Tab: Now, go back to Excel and click File > New. Just below the search bar where you saw categories like "Business" and "Personal," you should see two main tabs: Office and Personal (it might say "Custom" in some older versions).
- Open Your Custom Template: Click on the Personal tab. All the templates you saved in your "Custom Office Templates" folder will appear here. Just click on the template you want to use, and Excel will create a new, unsaved workbook from it, ready for you to fill out.
The Quick Way: Double-clicking the .xltx File
What if you just downloaded an .xltx file and have it sitting in your "Downloads" folder? The quickest way to use it is by simply finding the file in your Windows File Explorer or Mac Finder and double-clicking it.
This is where understanding how templates work is important. When you double-click an .xltx file, Excel does not open the template file itself. Instead, it instantly creates a brand new, untitled workbook that is a copy of your template. This behavior is designed to protect your original template from being accidentally changed. Your blank template file remains in the folder, ready to be used again.
Editing an Existing Template File
Now, what if you want to make a permanent change to your template - like adding your company logo or updating a formula? If you double-click to open it, you’ll be editing a copy, not the source file.
To edit the actual template file, you need to right-click the .xltx file and choose Open instead of New. This will open the source file, allowing you to make permanent changes. Once you’re done editing, just save the file (Ctrl + S), and those changes will be reflected the next time you create a new workbook from that template.
Quick Tips for Working with Templates
Opening templates is easy, but here are a few tips to help you get the most value from them.
1. Always Save Your New Workbook Immediately
When you create a workbook from a template, it will have a default generic name like "Book1" or "Personal budget1." The very first thing you should do after entering some data is save it with a proper name. Go to File > Save As and save it as a standard Excel Workbook (*.xlsx). This keeps your filled-out version separate from the clean, original template.
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2. Customize Templates to Fit Your Needs
Don’t be afraid to modify a template. If a built-in calendar doesn’t quite match your desired color scheme, change it! If a budget template has categories you don't need, delete them. A template is just a starting point, adapt it to fit your exact workflow and then save it as your own custom template for future use.
3. Protect Certain Cells
If you're creating a template for your team, you may want to prevent certain cells - especially those containing important formulas - from being accidentally edited. You can use Excel's sheet protection features to lock specific cells while leaving others open for data entry. This adds a layer of reliability to your templates.
4. Finding More Templates Online
The templates built into Excel are great, but there is a world of templates available online designed by professionals and specialists for just about any niche. Here are a few reliable places to look:
- Microsoft's Official Template Site: Microsoft offers thousands of additional free templates on its website that you can download directly.
- Third-Party Sites: Websites like Vertex42, Spreadsheet.com, and Smartsheet offer extensive libraries of both free and premium templates that often provide more features than the standard ones.
Final Thoughts
Excel templates are a fantastic way to streamline your workflow, maintain consistency, and save yourself hours of repetitive formatting and formula-writing. Whether you're using a built-in option or creating your own, mastering templates turns Excel into an even more indispensable tool for managing your personal and business data.
While templates drastically reduce the time it takes to build a report, you still have to manually collect, clean, and update the data yourself. Once your reporting needs grow beyond what's manageable in a spreadsheet, we built Graphed to automate the entire process. Instead of downloading CSVs and pasting data into a template, you connect your data sources (like Google Analytics, Shopify, or Salesforce) just once. From there, you can ask questions in plain English to create real-time, self-updating dashboards, getting you to the insights without the manual busywork.
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