Change the starting page for your word-processing and spreadsheet documents
20 Aug 2010
Q Is it possible to change the default documents in Microsoft Word and Excel 2003?
It is tedious to have to change all the page settings every time I create a new document.
David Powell-Evans
A Excel can be told to open a worksheet automatically to use as a template for other workbooks.
Start Excel, create a new document and make all the changes you want included in the new template.
Click on the File menu and then Save. Select ‘Template (*.xlt)’ from the Save as type dropdown menu.
Click on the My Computer icon on the left then on Local Disk C:, Program Files, Microsoft Office, Office11 and XLStart. Name the file ‘book’ and click on Save. Restart Excel to confirm that the new template is being used.
Word already has a default template that can be edited to your preferences.
This is a little more complicated because there is a separate template for every person who uses the computer. This does make sure your changes won’t affect anyone else.
Click on the File menu and then on Open. Select Document Templates (*.dot) from the Files of Type dropdown menu.
Click on My Computer on the left and then on Local Disk (C:), Documents and Settings, your user name, Application Data, Microsoft and Templates.
Double-click on Normal.dot to open this template. Make such changes as you require and then save and close the template. These changes will now appear every time you start Word.