Change the Default Number of Worksheets Created in a New Excel Workbook

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Learn how to change the number of worksheets that are in new Excel workbooks.

Excel workbooks always have 3 worksheets to start with and here is how you change that.

Here is the default new workbook with its three worksheets:

Change Default Number of Sheets in Excel Workbook

  1. Go to the File menu for Excel 2010 or later, the Office button for Excel 2007, and then click Options.

  2. Navigate to the General menu, it should be selected by default, and then look to the When creating new workbookssection.
  3. Change the number located after the option Include this many sheets.
  4. Hit the OK button and that's it.  Now let's hit Ctrl + Nto create a new workbook and see what happens:

You can see that the new workbook now has 5 sheets in it.

Now, every time we create a new file in Excel, it will start with 5 worksheets.  You can change this to any number from 1 to 255.

I usually have this number set to 1 to save me the time of deleting extra sheets when I am creating lots of new workbooks.  There is an accompanying workbook for this tutorial, but it's empty and just provided so you will have a simple reference file if you need it.


Downloadable Files: Excel File

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Downloadable Files: Excel File
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