Excel 2008 preference changes not saving, and can't use templates

[claude_sapp]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: intel

Excel 2008 is giving me fits. All changes I make to Preferences... are not saved, and I have tried to save a template to change the default view to 125%, and that does not work either.

An example of Preferences not saving is when I uncheck Show horizontal/vertical scroll bars, but when I close and open Excel, they are there again. Other changes, like default file type to .xls seem to save.

I also tried to save a .xlt and .xltx template to change the default zoom to 125%, but again when I close and reopen, the Zoom is back to 100%.

Any ideas?

Word 2008 and Powerpoint 2008 have been painless to transition to, but Excel 2008 is quirky enough not to use. I feel like the Excel product was developed by a team that never talked to the rest of the Office developers. The Excel UI is not consistent with the other products, and little glitches really affect my productivity.

 

[JE McGimpsey]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: intel

Excel 2008 is giving me fits. All changes I make to Preferences... are not
saved, and I have tried to save a template to change the default view to
125%, and that does not work either.

An example of Preferences not saving is when I uncheck Show
horizontal/vertical scroll bars, but when I close and open Excel, they are
there again. Other changes, like default file type to .xls seem to save.

Scrollbars are a Window-level preference (which is why the heading in
the Preferences/View dialog is "Window options". They only apply to the
particular window of the particular workbook.

I also tried to save a .xlt and .xltx template to change the default zoom to
125%, but again when I close and reopen, the Zoom is back to 100%.

Any ideas?

Yeah, you probably didn't follow Help's instructions for your default
template if you saved either an .xlt or an .xltx template with an
extension or in the wrong location.

If you save the template (an .xltx-style template) with the name
"Workbook" (no quotes, no extension) in the Startup Folder (by default
the

HD:Applications:Microsoft Office 2008:Office:Startup:Excel

though you can set an alternate in Preferences/General) the default
workbook will have the settings you saved in the template.

I feel like the Excel product was developed by a team that never
talked to the rest of the Office developers. The Excel UI is not
consistent with the other products, and little glitches really affect
my productivity.

Well, XL was developed first (as Multi-plan, then Excel on the Mac, and
eventually ported to Windows). So perhaps it was the others' fault...

Word was developed relatively simultaneously, but by separate teams, on
the PC and Mac. Word for DOS looked very different, but when Windows was
released, Word for Windows' look and feel was similar to Mac Word's.

Powerpoint was developed first by Forethought on the Mac, then several
years later was bought by MS and the three apps were bundled as Office.
Shortly thereafter, PPT was ported to Windows.

So the U/I's have always been somewhat different. They've converged in
some areas, but the outcry from power users of each app when ANY U/I
component is changed has kept them different.

 

[claude_sapp]

My error was saving the template with an extension. This was clearly stated in the Help, but I missed that step, that problem is solved.

So now I wanted to change the default font to Arial, and did so in Preferences...General, but new workbooks still came up Verdana. So I changed it in the template, and that worked, but when I add new sheets to a workbook, they still come up Verdana, not Arial like specified in the template and Preferences...

 

[JE McGimpsey]

So now I wanted to change the default font to Arial, and did so in
Preferences...General, but new workbooks still came up Verdana. So I changed
it in the template, and that worked, but when I add new sheets to a workbook,
they still come up Verdana, not Arial like specified in the template and
Preferences...

Try creating a one-sheet workbook, then saving it as a template named
"Sheet" (no quotes, no extension) in your startup folder. That will be
used for Insert/Worksheet.

 

[claude_sapp]

That worked. Does it matter if you save the Workbook and Sheet templates as .xlt versus .xltx? I tried both, both seemed to work, and I stuck with xltx, but I just wanted to make sure this does not mess with my defualt save as xls setting. Thanks again for the help.