Creating a Packing Slip Template

It's easy to create a packing slip template or packing list template from your existing invoice template. This tutorial goes through the steps of creating a packing slip template based on your invoice template.

Note: This tutorial is based on Excel 2003. If you are using Excel 2007, the figures and Excel command names may slight vary on your system.

1. First of all, make sure your invoice template is customized and ready to use. For example, you have replaced the default LOGO image and entered your own company information. For information about how to do this, please see Before Using Excel Invoice Manager.
2. Copy your invoice template file. Name the new file Packing Slip.xls.
3. Open Packing Slip.xls file.
4. Unprotect the Invoice worksheet by clicking Excel menu Tools -> Protection -> Unprotect sheet if you are running Excel 2000/XP/2003. If you are running Excel 2007, see Customizing Invoice Template.
5. Switch to design mode by clicking the Design Mode button on the Control Toolbox toolbar in Excel 2000/XP/2003. For more information about how to do this in Excel, see Customizing Invoice Template.
6. Display gridlines and row/column headers. To do this, in Excel 2000/XP/2003 click menu Tools -> Options. On the View tab check the Gridlines and Row & column headers options.

   
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7. Replace the big title INVOICE with Packing Slip, by entering the text "Packing Slip" in cell $N$3 if you are using the default template. You can also customize the font, color, size of the title if needed, by using various tools provided by Excel.

   
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8. Now drag your mouse to select all cells of the Unit Price and Line Total columns on the invoice body, including the column header labels.
9. Move your mouse to the border of the selected area. The mouse pointer is changed. See the figure below.

   
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10. Push your mouse button and drag the entire selected area out of the invoice body. For example, you can place it in column V-W. Column V-W is out of the Print_Area range so it won't be included when you print the packing slip.

    
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11. Select all cells in the Subtotal/Tax/Total section. Move the cells out of the invoice body by dragging and dropping, as detailed in the above steps.

    
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12. Select the entire Quantity column. Drag and drop it into the last columns where the Unit Price and Line Total columns are located in the original invoice template.

    
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13. Select the cell with the text "Description" in it; drag your mouse to include the other two empty cells next to it. Click the Merge and Center button (on the Formatting toolbar) twice. The first click unmerges the cells included in the Description text label cell; the second click merges all selected cells.

    
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14. Now select the first Product Description cell (cell name oknProductName_1) and two empty cells next to it. Click the Merge and Center button twice.

    
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15. Repeat step 14 for all other product description cells. When finished, you get the result as the following figure.

    
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16. Select all product description cells; click the Align Left button on the Formatting toolbar.
17. As you can see, the Description label cell requires a top border and a bottom border. To add the borders, right click the cell and choose Format Cells from the menu. Switch to the Border tab. Click the top and bottom section to add the two borders.

    
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18. You may like to delete some buttons from the template. For example, usually you don't need the Save To DB and Payments buttons. To delete a button (or an image), click to select it, and then hit DEL key on your keyboard.

    Note: Please click the button or image control slowly. If you click a button twice quickly in design mode, Excel may think you are double-clicking a control, thus creates a macro automatically for you. If this happens, you can delete those macros by following Removing Auto-created Macros from Your Invoice Template.

19. You may also like to move the View Detail button to the new location below the Clear & New button. To do this, simply click to select the View Detail button, and then drag it to the new location you like.

    
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20. You may also like to delete some other buttons or controls. For example, you may like to delete Save As New Customer button, all Product Selection magnifier icon buttons, and all Taxable checkboxes.
21. Click Excel menu File -> Print Preview to review your packing slip template. Make any modifications as needed. For example, you may like to adjust font size, colors, cell borders, or even move more cells out of the Print_Area range.

    
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22. Once you are satisfied with the result, hide gridlines and row/column headers by using the Options dialog box, as detailed in Step 6.
23. Exit design mode by clicking the Design Mode button on the toolbar if you are running Excel 2000-2003. If you are running Excel 2007, please see Customizing Invoice Template.
24. Protect the Invoice worksheet by clicking Excel menu Tools -> Protection -> Protect Sheet if you are running Excel 2000-2003. If you are running Excel 2007, please see Customizing Invoice Template.

Now it's time to use your newly created packing slip template. To retrieve an invoice or packing slip from the backend database, enter the invoice ID (invoice #) in the Invoice # cell and press Enter on your keyboard. Or, you can also click the Invoices button, click Edit In Excel after you find and select the invoice you need.

To print the packing slip, either click Excel menu File -> Print, or click the Print button on the top of your packing slip template.

Download the packing slip template created in this tutorial:

• packing-slip.zip 105 KB
• packing-slip-2.zip 105 KB (no Terms and Due Date cells)