What is the difference between a workbook and a worksheet?

If you use Microsoft Excel at all to make and edit spreadsheets, you have probably heard of Excel worksheets and workbooks. An Excel workbook is an Excel file that can contain multiple, somewhat independent spreadsheets called Excel worksheets. If you see multiple tabs in Excel files, each of those is an Excel worksheet. Businesses often organize related spreadsheets into a single workbook.

Understanding Microsoft Excel

Microsoft Excel is the most popular spreadsheet program currently in use. Businesses use it for everything from accounting to keeping track of attendance, and home users find a variety of uses for it as well, from tracking schedules to organizing records for tax time.

Excel, part of the Microsoft Office suite of programs, saves data in files called workbooks with the extension .xls or, in more recent editions, .xlsx. These files have become de facto standards in the spreadsheet world, and competing tools such as LibreOffice Calc, Google Sheets and Apple Numbers can open and save Microsoft Excel workbook files.

Note that if you use files from one spreadsheet program in another program, they may not function identically.

Using Excel Worksheets and Workbooks

When creating spreadsheets, you often need to use only a single worksheet inside a workbook to represent data. If you want to create a new workbook in Excel, click Blank workbook when you first open the program or if it is already open, go to the File menu and click New to open a new file.

Even a single worksheet is contained in a workbook. When you have a workbook with more than one worksheet, a set of tabs at the bottom of the screen represent the worksheets in the workbook. To add a new tab and worksheet, click the + button at the bottom of the screen or click the Home tab on the ribbon menu, choose Insert and select Insert Sheet.

Click the tabs to move back and forth between worksheets as you work. You can also drag the tabs with your mouse to reorder them.

Renaming a Worksheet in Excel

When you add a tab, you may want to give it a more evocative name than Excel's default, which is usually something like Sheet2. To do so, double-click on its name on its tab or right-click on its tab and select Rename.

Type a descriptive name for the worksheet and press the Enter key.

Deleting a Worksheet

If you want to delete a sheet from your workbook, right-click on its tab and select Delete.

You can also click a sheet's tab to open it, click the Home tab on the ribbon menu, choose Delete and select Delete Sheet.

Whichever method you use to delete a worksheet, you lose any data in that sheet.

Have Excel Duplicate a Sheet

Sometimes it's useful to duplicate an existing worksheet in a workbook. For example, you may use an Excel spreadsheet as a time sheet or some other type of log and want to add a new sheet for a different time period.

Duplicate an Excel worksheet by right-clicking its tab and selecting Move or Copy. Select the Create a copy check box and select the tab the copy should precede in the Before sheet section. Then, click OK.

References Between Worksheets

Worksheets within a workbook don't have to be completely independent. You can have cells in one worksheet reference another. To do so, precede the cell column and row with the sheet name, separated by an exclamation point.

That is, to refer to cell A5 on the sheet named Sheet3, use the notation Sheet3!A5 in your Excel formula. This allows you to update the data in one sheet based on changing figures in another sheet.

• Categorized under Software,Technology | Difference Between Excel Workbook and Worksheet

What is the difference between a workbook and a worksheet?
Excel Workbook vs. Worksheet

In Microsoft Excel, a workbook is simply an Excel file that stores entered related data. Workbooks are capable of holding an almost infinite number of worksheets, depending on the size and the relevance of the data. It is, essentially, a book filled with the data from multiple worksheets. Workbooks are usually labeled by the data which is on each worksheet – if all the pages of the workbook hold the same type of data, that workbook will be named for the relevant data that it holds.

In Excel, a worksheet is an amalgamation of a number of cells that hold data pertaining to a certain piece of information. It is also known as a spreadsheet. A user is able to enter, modify, and manipulate the data that is entered in the spreadsheet. With a spreadsheet, a user is essentially entering information onto a page of a workbook.

By default, each workbook automatically contains three worksheets. When a user opens Excel initially, the project on which they are going to begin work is entitled ‘Book 1’ until later renamed to fit the type of data being entered into each respective sheet. Essentially, when a user opens Excel, they are beginning creation on a workbook – a book that contains multiple pages of entered data. These pages fill the book and are, therefore, a part of the overall summation of information that the book is attempting to convey.

A worksheet, then, is nothing more than a page in the workbook. Each page is filled with a specific amount of data. Within a worksheet, the data can be manipulated to create charts, graphs, or arrays that visually project the main purpose of the data that was initially entered. The worksheet is what defines what the workbook is – without the worksheets the workbook would be without form or purpose. The worksheets are what make the workbook what it is, and holds all the data for the workbook.

A workbook cannot necessarily be manipulated. The manipulation of data is directly through the worksheets. These spreadsheets hold data that can calculate set formulas, the user can create formulas that are used to define the data in the worksheet, and the data can be turned into an entire project or table that defines the data as a set array of information for a specific problem. The workbook is just the vessel in which the worksheets and the data that is to be manipulated are held. The workbook is the same as any other book in that it simply stores the pages with all the information – in essence, the workbook is simply the name of the project.

Summary:

1. A workbook is a file that stores the entered related data; a worksheet is a page of the workbook on which all the data is held.

2. A workbook defines the data of the worksheets; the worksheets allow for the data to be manipulated for specific purposes.

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APA 7
, . (2010, December 25). Difference Between Excel Workbook and Worksheet. Difference Between Similar Terms and Objects. http://www.differencebetween.net/technology/difference-between-excel-workbook-and-worksheet/.
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, . "Difference Between Excel Workbook and Worksheet." Difference Between Similar Terms and Objects, 25 December, 2010, http://www.differencebetween.net/technology/difference-between-excel-workbook-and-worksheet/.

Written by : Amitash. and updated on 2010, December 25

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