if you use one. Below you see thumbnails of various different templates that you can use in opening a new Excel workbook file.
Figure 1-1: The Excel 2016 program window as it appears immediately after launching the program.
The first template thumbnail displayed here is called Blank Workbook, and you select this thumbnail to start a new spreadsheet of your own design. The second thumbnail is called Take a Tour, and you select this thumbnail to open a workbook with five worksheets that enable you to play around with several of the nifty new features in Excel 2016.
Following the Blank Workbook and Take a Tour template thumbnails, you find all sorts of standard templates that you can select to use as the basis for new worksheets. These templates run the gamut from invoicing spreadsheets to a sales call log and organizer. (See Book II, Chapter 1 for more on creating new workbooks from ready-made and custom templates.)
Excel’s Ribbon User Interface
When you first open a new, blank workbook, Excel 2016 opens up a single worksheet (with the generic name, Sheet1) in a new workbook file (with the generic filename, Book1) inside a program window such as the one shown in Figure 1-2.
Figure 1-2: The Excel 2016 program window as it appears after first opening a blank workbook when both Ribbon tabs and commands are displayed.
The Excel program window containing this worksheet of the workbook is made up of the following components:
✔ File tab: When clicked, this tab opens the Backstage view, which contains a bunch of file-related options including Info, New, Open, Save, Save As, Print, Share, Export, Publish, Close, and Account, as well as Options, which enables you to change Excel’s default settings.
✔ Quick Access toolbar: You can click the Save, Undo, and Redo buttons to perform common tasks to save your work and undo and redo editing changes. You can also click the Customize Quick Access Toolbar button to the immediate right of the Redo button to open a drop-down menu containing additional common commands such as New, Open, Quick Print, and so on, as well as to customize the toolbar, change its position, and minimize the Ribbon.
✔ Ribbon: Most Excel commands are contained on the Ribbon. They are arranged into a series of tabs ranging from Home through View.
✔ Formula bar: This displays the address of the current cell along with the contents of that cell.
✔ Worksheet area: This area contains all the cells of the current worksheet identified by column headings, which use letters along the top, and row headings, which use numbers along the left edge, with tabs for selecting new worksheets. You use a horizontal scroll bar on the bottom to move left and right through the sheet and a vertical scroll bar on the right edge to move up and down through the sheet.
✔ Status bar: This bar keeps you informed of the program’s current mode and any special keys you engage, and it enables you to select a new worksheet view and to zoom in and out on the worksheet.
At the top of the Excel 2016 program window, immediately below the Excel program button and the Save button on the Quick Access toolbar, you find the File menu button (the green one with “File” in white letters to the immediate left of the Home tab).
When you click the File menu button, the Excel Backstage view appears. The screen in this view contains a menu of file-related options running down a column on the left side and, depending upon which option is selected, some panels containing both at-a-glance information and further command options.
Getting the lowdown on the Info screen
When you choose File ⇒ Info at the top of File menu in the Backstage view, an Info screen similar to the one shown in Figure 1-3 appears.
Figure 1-3: The Excel Backstage view displaying the Info screen with permissions, distribution, version commands, and more.
On the left side of this Info screen, you find the following four command buttons:
✔ Protect Workbook to encrypt the Excel workbook file with a password, protect its contents, or verify the contents of the file with a digital signature (see Book IV, Chapters 1 and 3 for more on protecting and signing your workbooks)
✔ Inspect Workbook to inspect the document for hidden metadata (data about the file) and check the file’s accessibility for folks with disabilities and compatibility with earlier versions of Excel (see Book IV, Chapter 3 for details on using this feature)
✔ Manage Workbook to recover or delete draft versions saved with Excel’s AutoRecover feature (see Book II, Chapter
