iWork '09: The Missing Manual

Building Your Own Template

Start by opening a spreadsheet—it can be a document you’ve created in the past or a completely fresh spreadsheet from the template of your choice. Whatever you use, the idea is to start with a document that’s already as close as possible to the template you plan to save. This spreadsheet will become the model document that you use as the basis for your template. Choose File → Save As right off the bat to save the file. Don’t choose “Save as Template” just yet—you’re just saving this as a regular Numbers spreadsheet. Give it a name like Gamma Ray Worksheet Model. This way, you can save the file periodically as you work on it, since you won’t actually save it as a template file until you’ve completed your work on this model document.

Start off by getting your document and sheet settings squared away. In the Document Inspector, choose your preferred printer and paper size. Then, for each sheet that you plan to include, go to Print view and set up the headers and footers. Use the Sheets Inspector to set page margins and your page-numbering preferences. Now you’re ready to start defining all the styles and standard settings for the document’s various elements: table styles, text box styles, shape styles, connection lines, chart styles, image styles, and movie styles.

Adding Table Styles

What’s the status of your Styles pane? Does it include any table styles that you never use? Is it missing some that you do? Having the right set of prefab formats always helps, ...