Workbook

A spreadsheet document (or file) is called a workbook. Therefore, when we refer to Saving a file, we are saving the workbook. It is just a matter of a name. A workbook is a document and it is a file that gets saved to disk. Initially, a workbook is labelled Book1 or Book2 etc (see the Title bar in the image below), until you save it and give a name of your own.

When you open a workbook you will see a page filled with rows and columns.

Rows are labelled with numbers. There are 65 536 rows.
Columns are labelled with letters of the alphabet. There are 256 columns.

A Cell is identified by its row and column indicators. In the image below Cell A1 is in Column A and Row 1. We normally enter one piece of data in a cell.

When you open a new workbook, you will see that it is not only a big sheet of many rows and columns, but that it contains 3 worksheets (see below). Each worksheet contains 65 536 rows and 256 columns.

The Worksheets are labelled Sheet1, Sheet2 and Sheet3, until you rename them. Normally you only use one worksheet. You could use different worksheets, for instance, if you want to keep one class's mark records over several years in one document, or if you want to keep the records of all your classes in one workbook. You would then rename the sheets according to the years e.g. 1998, 1999 and 2000, or according to the classes e.g. Grade 8B, Grade 9A etc.

How to rename sheets

Click on the Sheet tab at the bottom the page (circled above). Then...
Click on Format
Click on Sheet
Click on Rename

Alternatively

Right Click the Sheet tab
Click on Rename

When to use a workbook and when to use a worksheet

The following extract comes from www.ehow.com

A "workbook" is a Microsoft Excel file. Each workbook can hold many "worksheets" (individual spreadsheets). Use multiple worksheets to group related data. For example, you might have a sheet for each quarter's detailed budget, plus a sheet for a streamlined version of the yearly budget. You can reference cells in other sheets: your yearly budget, for example, could reference data from the quarterly sheets. The following steps work with Excel 97.

Steps:

1. Use multiple worksheets when creating spreadsheets for several related groups of information.
2. Don't use multiple worksheets if your spreadsheets aren't related - create a new workbook instead.
3. Don't use multiple worksheets to create "what if" scenarios for the same group of information (for example, best case, worst case, and most likely scenarios for one budget); use the Scenarios command in the Tools menu instead.
4. To go to a new worksheet, click its tab at the bottom of the spreadsheet window.
5. To use data from one worksheet in another worksheet's formula, just select the cells you want to refer to and paste them in the formula as you would other cells.

Tip:

If sheets in your workbook will use similar formatting, you can create the first sheet, then save it as a template and use it as the basis for subsequent sheets. (Use the Save As command in the File menu to save the worksheet as a template.)