iWork '09: The Missing Manual

Anatomy of a Numbers Template

The deep, dark secret of Numbers templates is that they have no deep, dark secret. Templates are basically just regular Numbers documents that you happen to stash in the Template Chooser. When you create a template, you build a normal spreadsheet, load it up with tables, sprinkle in your design, and then choose File → “Save as Template”. From then on, when you open the Template Chooser, you’ll find your new template, along with any others you’ve created, in the My Templates category.

Your own templates work just like Apple’s built-in beauties: Open a document from the Template Chooser and you get a clone of the original, model document as a fresh, untitled file. The spreadsheet is in exactly the same state as when you saved the original template. All the content, formulas, functions, tables, pictures—everything’s there as you saved it. Even the window itself is the same—Print view, comments, alignment guides, and rulers come back to life as you left them. Creating a template, in other words, puts your document into suspended animation, ready for you to revive as an entirely new document at any time.

Your custom templates don’t need to have any content at all, however: A template can open to a completely empty sheet. This might not seem like much of a timesaver, but even blank templates come loaded with table styles and a bevy of settings to define the look of new objects you add to your document. In fact, it turns out that creating a template like this ...