Manage collections with Excel

The guests at a big party, the music that has to be played that evening, a book, film or wine collection, what should be in the suitcase on holiday. It can all be organized and managed with the help of lists. And Excel is the champion of making lists. Thanks to the many possibilities of the tables in the program.

The many ready-made templates are completely easy. Create a new worksheet based on a template, adjust the template to your liking and just fill it. Below are some examples of templates.

• Book Collection: Type the search term “Book Collection” and use the “Book Collection List” template.
• Guest List: Type the search term “Guest List” and use the “Wedding Guest List” template.
• Movie List: Type the search term “Movie List” and use the “Movie List” template.
• Music List: Type the search term “Music List” and use the “Wedding Music List” template.
• Wine Collection: Type the search term “Wine Collection” and use the “Wine Collection List” template.
• Vacation: Type the search term “Holiday” and use the “Holiday Checklist” template.

Let your imagination run wild and browse through all the list examples. Of course, most templates do not exactly match your wishes. You don’t have to, because the user can adjust each template as desired,

Find a suitable template like this:

• Launch Excel.
• On the right, at the top, click More templates.
• Enter a search term in the search field. For example, ‘Book Collection’.
• Press the Enter key.
• Click on a suitable template.
• click on To make.

The template opens.

We will use the template ‘List of Book Collection’ as an example. Open this to practice with it. The actions we discuss apply to any template in Excel.

Delete column

The “Book Collection List” template contains the “Bookshelf Location” column. Few people will need this information. Get rid of that column!

• Right-click on the column you want to delete.
• Choose remove > Table Columns.

Add column

Add a missing section yourself. First determine before which existing column the new section should be placed.

• Right-click on the existing column.
• click on Insert > Table columns on the left.
• Give the new column a name. Click on the new column.
• Type the name.
• Press the Enter key.

Change title

The sample template is titled “Book Collection List.” Adjust this to your liking. Because the individual cells are not visible, it takes a while to find the right cell. It turns out to be ‘C1’. Click on that cell, type a different name and press the Enter key.

Other adjustments

Font and size, text color, formatting attributes; everything can be changed. If you need help with this, see the article ‘Excel: the basics’.

Don’t forget to save the example under your own name.

• click on File > Save as.
• click on To leaf through.
• Select the folder in which to save the list.
• Next to ‘File name’, type the new name.
• click on Save.

Anyone who manages a collection likes to keep an overview. For example, how many books are on the shelf? Therefore, add a counter to the ‘Book Collection List’ template.

• Click on cell H1 so that it is selected.
• Click on the tab Formulas.
• click on Insert function .
• Click the drop-down menu next to ‘Or select a category’.
• Click on Everything.
• Click in the list on NUMBER.
• click on OK.
• Click on the first title (in the example that is ‘The Call of the Wild’).
• Use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift +down arrow.
• click on OK.
• Cell H1 shows the number of books in the list. If you add books, the counter will count.
• Click on cell C1.
• Click on the tab Start > Copy/paste format.
• Click on cell H1.
• The cell now has the same formatting as the title. If you want to finish it off, do the following:
• Copy these characters: &” books”
• Double click on cell H1.
• Make sure the mouse pointer is at the end. So after the second parenthesis.
• Paste the copied characters with the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+V.
• Press the Enter key.

The template is now converted into a list that you can start filling. Good luck with that!

The sample templates are nothing more than tables. A table is created in this way in Excel. The article ‘Working with tables in Excel’ covers all the steps. So if you can’t find a template that you can work with, take a table you made yourself as a starting point.