# Why three sheets?



## Shinano (Jan 8, 2009)

Does anybody know why Excel workbooks open with 3 sheets as the standard? I googled it, but did not find an answer.

Is there any of you out there that happen to know?

Regards,


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## Jon von der Heyden (Jan 8, 2009)

I can't tell you why, but I can tell you how to change it (in xl2003):

Tools > Options > General (tab) > Sheets in new workbook:


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## Shinano (Jan 8, 2009)

Thanks for the reply, Jon, I appreciate it.

I know how to change it, but thanks anyway. Your advice is always appreciated.

I am just puzzled by the number three, as a start up standard. I mean why not just one, or ten for that matter?

Anyway, discussing it with a coworker some time ago, it came to me that often three is actually the number of sheets that one will end up using.

One sheet for raw data.

One sheet for data manipulation.

One sheet for presentation of the result.

Does this make sense?

It may be an idealistic way of thinking, when considering how Excel is often handled by the average user. But, this what I came up with.

Anybody else with an idea, comment or knowledge on this one?

Thank you very much in advance.


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## Gerald Higgins (Jan 8, 2009)

One reason that it is more than one, could be to show novice users that it is possible to have more than one.
If it only gave you one sheet, I suspect many people would never progress beyond single sheet workbooks.

Having said that, I have set mine to 1 by default, and prefer to add sheets as I need them. It always seems to me a bit "wasteful" to receive a spreadsheet from someone else that contains a few entries on sheet 1, and then empty sheets 2 and 3. It can also be a little time consuming, if you have to check them to see if there is anything on them.


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## Peter_SSs (Jan 8, 2009)

Gerald Higgins said:


> One reason that it is more than one, could be to show novice users that it is possible to have more than one.
> If it only gave you one sheet, I suspect many people would never progress beyond single sheet workbooks.
> 
> Having said that, I have set mine to 1 by default, and prefer to add sheets as I need them. It always seems to me a bit "wasteful" to receive a spreadsheet from someone else that contains a few entries on sheet 1, and then empty sheets 2 and 3. It can also be a little time consuming, if you have to check them to see if there is anything on them.


I agree with Gerald and also have mine set to one.

At least things have improved... My recollection is that some years ago (Excel 97??), the default was 16! Boy, did we have a lot of empty sheets hanging around wasting space then.


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## Norie (Jan 8, 2009)

Peter

I really don't think that's right.

The first time I used Excel, and it was the 97 version, the default number of sheets was 3.


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## Peter_SSs (Jan 8, 2009)

Norie said:


> Peter
> 
> I really don't think that's right.
> 
> The first time I used Excel, and it was the 97 version, the default number of sheets was 3.


Could it have been Microsoft Works before that?


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## Norie (Jan 8, 2009)

Peter

I honestly don't know.

I've only 'worked' with Works when I've bought a new computer.

And that's for about 5 minutes and I just install Excel and use that.

Mind you on this computer I think it's still installed, I think I'll have a shifty though.

Normally I'd remove it, but I don't think I bothered this time - lazy b.

Just found it - opens up with just 1 sheet and I'm still looking for an option for number of sheets in a new workbook.

Also found OpenOffice.org Calc, don't know why I installed it in the first place.

Anways, that also defaults to 3 sheets but, again, i can't find an option to change that.

I think I might need to 'clean' up the machine, seems like I've got a lot of redundant stuff on it.


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## Peter_SSs (Jan 8, 2009)

Looks like it might have been Excel 95 (I had forgotten there even was one with that title). See 
_1) Setting Up the Workbook_ here: http://www.edferrero.com/ExcelTutorials/ExcelDatabaseTutorialPart1/tabid/90/Default.aspx


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## Oorang (Jan 8, 2009)

Hmmm if I recall correctly works doesn't allow more than one sheet to a file.

cheap shot: For some reason everytime I see "Microsoft Works" I just want to shout "It does _not!"_


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## Domski (Jan 9, 2009)

Oorang said:


> Hmmm if I recall correctly works doesn't allow more than one sheet to a file.


 
I think you're right although like most other people I've only ever opened the app out of curiosity and then pulled the plug out of the socket in horror.

I seem to remember the first time I say Excel it opened with a shed load of sheets. I didn't know what a spreadsheet was then so it just puzzled me why you needed more than one page of empty boxes that seemed to do not a great deal.

One of the girls in my office still writes letters in Excel because she only ever used the Works before and can't get her head around Word and Excel not being one integrated application like Works (we don't give her anything very complex to do).


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## Jon von der Heyden (Jan 9, 2009)

Peter_SSs said:


> I agree with Gerald and also have mine set to one.
> 
> At least things have improved... My recollection is that some years ago (Excel 97??), the default was 16! Boy, did we have a lot of empty sheets hanging around wasting space then.


 
I use BOOK.XLT and that seems to supercede the default worksheets setting.  I suppose it depends on what you are doing.  In my instance I am typically building new reporting models, so I have 6 default sheets, each named appropiately.  My typical structure resembles: Index (for user navigation), Audit (notes to make it easier to audit, such as a list of named ranges etc.), Summary (because I tend to have summarised data tables), Charts, Data (because I like to keep my raw data seperate (often embedded queries for instance), Maps (lookup tables etc.).

I recommend BOOK.XLT to everyone because you can set-up so many great preferences (styles, regular names such as BigNum, BigText, some regular macro's, some page setup preferences such as headers and footers etc).

I also have a collection of macro's in my own addin, so if I want a quick and dirty 1 sheeter then that option is available to me too.


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## RoryA (Jan 9, 2009)

Just as an FYI, Book.xlt works if you use Ctrl+N or the File->New button. If you use File->New... and choose New blank workbook, your template is ignored. Go figure!


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## cornflakegirl (Jan 9, 2009)

How ridiculous!


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## Jon von der Heyden (Jan 9, 2009)

Now that is bizarre.  Just goes to show that I never use File > New


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## cornflakegirl (Jan 9, 2009)

I so never use File > New that it took me a couple of minutes to actually get a new file, because I didn't notice the popup thing it put at the right hand side of the screen to ask me exactly what I wanted to do...


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## Jon von der Heyden (Jan 9, 2009)

I've been caught out by that too before.


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## Domski (Jan 9, 2009)

cornflakegirl said:


> I so never use File > New that it took me a couple of minutes to actually get a new file, because I didn't notice the popup thing it put at the right hand side of the screen to ask me exactly what I wanted to do...


 
You know I don't think I've ever seen that 

When we were on 2000 is used to take an absolute age for the select what type of thingy you want window to open so I used to avoid using File...New... like the plague and have never got out of the habit.


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## Long Nose (Jan 13, 2009)

Anyone remember what Lotus 123, or Quatro-Pro opened with?  Some of you are bound to be old enough to remember those antiques.  My boss still begins his formulas with +.

Just a digression below.  I thought the original question was going to be the origin of how drunk a person is in "3 sheets to the wind."

Three sheets to the wind

Meaning

Very drunk.

Origin

Our colleagues at CANOE, the Committee to Ascribe a Nautical Origin to Everything, have been hard at work and, to their great pleasure, they can add this phrase to their list. 'Three sheets to the wind' is indeed a seafaring expression.

To understand this phrase we need to enter the arcane world of nautical terminology. Sailors' language is, unsurprisingly, all at sea and many supposed derivations have to go by the board. Don't be taken aback to hear that sheets aren't sails, as landlubbers might expect, but ropes (or occasionally, chains). These are fixed to the lower corners of sails, to hold them in place. If three sheets are loose and blowing about in the wind then the sails will flap and the boat will lurch about like a drunken sailor.

The phrase is these days more often given as 'three sheets to the wind', rather than the original 'three sheets in the wind'. The earliest printed citation that I can find is in Pierce Egan's Real Life in London, 1821:

    "Old Wax and Bristles is about three sheets in the wind."

Sailors at that time had a sliding scale of drunkenness; three sheets was the falling over stage; tipsy was just 'one sheet in the wind', or 'a sheet in the wind's eye'. An example appears in the novel The Fisher's Daughter, by Catherine Ward, 1824:

    "Wolf replenished his glass at the request of Mr. Blust, who, instead of being one sheet in the wind, was likely to get to three before he took his departure."

three sheets to the windRobert Louis Stevenson was as instrumental in inventing the imagery of 'yo ho ho and a bottle of rum' piracy as his countryman and contemporary Sir Walter Scott was in inventing the tartan and shortbread 'Bonnie Scotland'. Stevenson used the 'tipsy' version of the phrase in Treasure Island, 1883 - the book that gave us 'X marks the spot', 'shiver me timbers' and the archetypal one-legged, parrot-carrying pirate, Long John Silver. He gave Silver the line:

    "Maybe you think we were all a sheet in the wind's eye. But I'll tell you I was sober; "


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## riaz (Jan 15, 2009)

Nice one, Longnose.

In the case of this thread, could we then say Microsoft was three sheets to the Windows?


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## gardnertoo (Jan 19, 2009)

Long Nose: It never ceases to amaze me, the random things I learn on this board.  Thank you for that.


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