In Chapter 4, we discussed the Microsoft Project Gallery, from which you can create a variety of blank or purpose-specific Office documents from templates. Several Excel workbook templates are available in the Project Gallery, mostly centering around the collection and management of financial data, with a few random list-keeping solutions thrown in. Each project template creates a workbook containing a single-sheet solution.
Other than the blank sheet templates, all the Excel templates in the Project Gallery are in the Home Essentials and Ledger Sheets categories. (And in the same vein, all the project templates in those categories are Excel templates.)
Here’s a misleading feature of the Project Gallery to watch out for: The Category list always displays all the category names, regardless of what filter is applied. There is no visible indicator of whether a category includes one or more project templates matching the filter you choose in the Show list. The only way to determine whether a category includes a specific type of template is to click the category or subcategory name. If the category doesn’t include templates of the selected type—for example, if you select Excel Documents in the Show list and then click anything other than a subcategory of the Home Essentials or Ledger Sheets category—the Template list displays only the Project Gallery splash screen.
You must click a category in the list to find out whether it includes templates matching the selected document type.
The Home Essentials category includes 23 templates. The templates in this category create colorful worksheets containing basic built-in calculation functions. You work in these sheets in Normal view.
The Home Essentials category includes templates to create the following worksheets:
Finance Tools. You can use these 9 templates to create worksheets to plan and analyze budgets, cash flow, leases, loans, and investments:
Home Budget
College Cash Flow
Investment Calculator
Investment Projections
Loan and Credit Planner
Standard Loan
Car Loan Comparison
Car Loan Worksheet
Car Lease vs Purchase
Fundraising. You can use these 3 templates to create worksheets to plan a fundraising event and track the results:
Event Budget Worksheet
Donations Log
Pledge Log
Graph Paper. You can use these 6 templates to create worksheets that depict graph paper of different grid configurations:
Plain Grid
Plain Small Grid
Plain Large Grid
5x5 Grid
5x5 Small Grid
10x10 Grid
You can enter data into the graph paper on your computer or print it out and take it with you. The graph paper worksheets don’t include any built-in calculations.
Planners. You can use these 3 templates to create worksheets to schedule important maintenance tasks for your tummy and your car:
Daily Food Planner
Meal Planner
Vehicle Repair Log
Travel Tools. Planning a road trip? You can plan and track your trip by creating worksheets from these 2 templates:
Itinerary
Vehicle Road Trip Log
The Ledger Sheets category includes 30 templates that create professional-looking ledger pages with the built-in functionality of list pages. You work in these sheets in Page Layout view.
The Ledger Sheets category includes templates to create the following list sheets:
Accounts. You can track information about bank and credit card accounts by creating worksheets from these 6 templates:
Business Checkbook
Personal Checkbook
Checking Ledger
Savings Passbook
Account Balance
Credit Card Statement
Budgets. You can forecast and track income and expenses by creating worksheets from these 6 templates:
Home Budget
Travel Budget
Event Budget
Bill Tracker
Expenses
Income
Invoices. If you have a small business but don’t use an accounting program that generates invoices, you can issue invoices by creating worksheets from these 3 templates:
Service Invoice
Retail Invoice
Wholesale Invoice
You can use the invoices created from the templates as is or personalize them with your company information.
Lists. You can keep track of a variety of information by creating worksheets from these 10 templates:
Address List
E-mail List
Shopping List
Guest List
Gift List
Thank You List
Phone List
Phone Call Log
Inventory
Vehicle Maintenance
Portfolios. You can track your investments by creating worksheets from these 2 templates:
Stocks
Funds
Reports. You can report financial invoice and expense information by creating worksheets from these 3 templates:
Customer Statement
Outstanding Invoices
Expense Report
You’ll notice in the lists above that there are some purposes for which multiple templates exist. Select the template that most closely addresses your information management needs, and then modify it to make it your own. In addition to the project templates, you can create a standard blank workbook or create a list by using a wizard. These options are available from the Blank Documents category.
All of the Ledger Sheets project templates that are available from the Project Gallery are also available from the Sheets tab of the Elements Gallery. Creating a sheet from the Elements Gallery inserts it into the existing workbook.
See Also
For information about the Elements Gallery, see "The Elements Gallery" in Chapter 1.