Spreadsheets can contain standard formatting and styles for the text, along with column and row background colours, and a range of formulas from simple addition of a series of figures, to complex functions that will automatically work out totals with the sum function, statistics such as moving averages and standard deviation across a numeric dataset.
Other functions that may be incorporated into spreadsheet templates could be arrays, database specific, date, engineering specific, dedicated financial functions, logical operators, lookup, math, operator, parser and web such as the hyperlink function.
Templates for spreadsheets are available for a wide range of tasks under categories such as personal, business, project management and education.
Spreadsheet Templates for Excel
Microsoft Excel has templates available from the start menu screen. Open Excel and the main screen will show the templates that come with Excel by default or have been saved to the default location by a user. This is a good place to save and store templates that will be used often in a business as they are placed ready for immediate use.
Excel can also open templates from any location on the user's hard drive, or even a network drive if that is being used in a larger organisation. Simply open Excel and go to the File... menu and select New from Template to open the main window if it isn't already open. From here select the Open button on the left to show the file browser. Click the computer or network drive that the template is stored on, and then browser to the folder containing the template file. It will have a file extension of .xltx so will be highlighted in the file browser. Select the required template to open it and make it available for adding text and data. Save it using the File... Save As... menu item so that it is a separate document from the template.
Spreadsheet Templates for Calc
The OpenOffice spreadsheet program is called Calc, and has a Templates... link on the opening screen for the overall OpenOffice suite of programs. This link opens a file browser for Templates and Documents where there is a My Templates folder. Open this folder and select a spreadsheet template from the files available. You can also browser from here to select a template that is on a hard drive or network drive. The Templates and Documents window can also be opened from the File... New menu at the bottom of the drop down.
From the File menu in either the start screen or from an open workbook there is a useful link to Templates that opens a further dialogue box with Organise... as an option. This allows the creation, deletion and importing of templates into the default template location.
The Templates and Documents window also has a "Get more templates on-line..." link that opens the Apache OpenOffice Templates website where there is a range of free templates that can be browsed by category, such as Business, Private and Education, sorted by Highest Rated or Most Popular, or searched by keyword. A highly recommended starting point for finding spreadsheet templates for the OpenOffice range.
Spreadsheet Templates for Google Docs
Google Docs online spreadsheet program Calc has a limited Template Gallery available that can be found when either opening the main Docs page, or from an open workbook using the File New menu item where there is a From template... option that will open the Template Gallery in a separate window.
Google Docs Calc doesn't have a system for creating and saving your own custom templates. There is a useful workaround that effectively allows you to use your own spreadsheet as a template. Once you have a workbook containing the text, headings, layout and formulas required, and formatted with fonts and colours etc, then make sure it is saved, ideally with a name that reflect that it will be used as a template, then select the File menu and Make a copy... This will prompt you for a new Name for the spreadsheet and a location to save it in the online drive. Once saved it is a separate document from the original 'template'.