Now that your excel spreadsheet is prepped and ready to go and you’ve started adding your pattern I’ll offer some tips and tricks I’ve found that help.

• It’s a great idea to add additional sheets to your file, so you have somewhere to work on different parts of your design. Just click the Plus sign at the bottom and right-click the new tab, click rename and label it something to help you quickly find what you need.
• For my Fantastic Beasts scarf I had 6 different sheets:
  • There was a sheet for the individual designs, all upright. This is where I transferred my sketches once I was done on graph paper.
  • I had a sheet solely for flipping and reorienting individual designs.
  • There was a sheet for what I thought was my finished, print-ready layout, before I flipped the scarf and tweaked it significantly.
  • I had a sheet where I mirror-flipped the entire scarf design so I could see the two designs side by side.
  • Then there were two sheets: one for the finalized version of the scarf as well as one that was formatted and edited for printing.

*And don’t delete pages at all if you don’t have to, but definitely not until you have a totally finished pattern, because you never know if you’re going to make more adjustments last minute and it may save you a lot of time to still have all of those intermediate steps handy!*

Sort & Filter Feature:

There are many reasons why you may want to use the Sort and Filter feature of Excel:

• If you are designing a scarf and you want to flip elements of your pattern upside down so that  they are upright on the other end of your piece when you’re wearing it…
• If you’re making a large design and you want to make it symmetrical…
• If you’re like me and decide 1/3 of the way through a 5 month-long scarf that you really think you want the main and contrast colors switched in your final pattern….

You can flip a design to make it a mirror image (from left to right ) and flip it upside down using the filter and sort feature.

To flip an image left to right:

1. Copy and paste the image into a separate sheet.
2. Add numbers running numerically along the top or bottom of the design.
3. Highlight the entire design plus the row of numbers.
4. Select “Sort & Filter” in the toolbar.
5. Select “Custom Sort”.
6. Click “Options” and make sure that “Sort Left to Right” is selected. Click OK.
7. Under the “Row” drop down menu, select the row that contains your numbers.
8. Under “Sort On” make sure the drop down is on “Values”.
9. And under “Order” choose the option opposite to how the numbers are currently oriented- i.e. if your numbers run smallest to largest from left to right then select “largest to smallest” and vice-versa.
10. Click okay and your image will be mirror image flipped. You can now copy and paste it back into your pattern.

*Note- if you are doing a face or other symmetrical design you can use the flip feature to make the second half of your face exactly match the first. Just paste a copy of the first half right next to it, flip it left to right, like laid out above, and you’ll have a fully symmetrical design!*

To flip an image up and down:

1. Copy and paste the image into a separate sheet.
2. Add numbers running numerically along the side of the design.
3. Highlight the entire design plus the column of numbers.
4. Select “Sort & Filter” in the toolbar.
5. Select “Custom Sort”.
6. Click “Options” and make sure that “Sort Top to Bottom” is selected. Click OK.
7. Under the “Column” drop down menu, select the column that contains your numbers.
8. Under “Sort On” make sure the drop down is on “Values”.
9. Under “Order” choose the option opposite to how the numbers are currently oriented- i.e. if your numbers run smallest to largest from top to bottom then select “largest to smallest” and vice-versa.
10. Click okay and your image will be flipped top to bottom. You can now copy and paste it back into your pattern.

*Note: If you flip the image top to bottom then it will actually appear to be a mirror image when you knit it and then look at it “right side up”. So if you want to flip your image upside down and maintain its original orientation when it’s hanging around your neck then you should add numbers along both the side and the top of your image and then follow both sets of instructions above, flipping it upside down and then left to right. Your image will flip like below:

Prepping for printing and/or publication:

When you are completely done and ready to produce a PDF of your pattern there are some things you need to do:

• First , select your whole design and Click “all borders” so that your cell grids show up when you print it.
• Then select your whole design except for the numbered rows and Click  “thick outside border” so that it’s clear that the numbered cells are not part of your pattern.
• To make it easier to keep my place I highlight columns 10,20,30 etc and then go to “Borders” and increase the weight of the left-hand line so that you can easily see where each 10 stitch section ends on the chart.
• You can click on “Add Header” and label each sheet with page numbers.
• If your pattern is a scarf and is oriented vertically in Excel and you save it directly as a PDF then the pages will come out in reverse order, with the last page you would be knitting first. So if you don’t have  Adobe editing software to let you change the order of the pages:
  • Highlight your entire pattern and go to File> print preview.
  • Under Settings choose Print Selection and make sure your orientation and paper size is right.
  • Select “Fit all columns on one page” for a vertical scarf or “Fit all rows on one page” for a horizontal cowl- whatever looks best to you.
  • Check to see how many rows fit on a page (it was 75 rows for Always)
  • Go back to your pattern and copy the entire “Column number” row and paste/ insert it after every 75 rows, from the bottom of your pattern to the top, so that your column numbers will show up on every page of the pattern.
  • Check your print preview again to see if you need to adjust your margins to make sure all pages look the same.
  • If everything looks good, go to your pattern again and copy the first 75 rows plus your 1st numbered row (this is your page 1) and paste it into a new sheet.
  • Copy the next 75 rows plus numbered row (this is your page 2) and paste it next after page one, etc.
• Now that you have everything ready, highlight your entire pattern and go to File> Print.
• Double-check that your formatting looks good.
• Under Settings choose Print Selection and re-check that your orientation and paper size is right.
• Again, select “Fit all columns on one page” for a vertical scarf or “Fit all rows on one page” for a horizontal cowl- whatever looks best to you.
• Then you can print or….
• Go to “Save as”> choose PDF under the “Save as type” drop down menu.
• Then go to Options and click the bubble for “Publish what: Selection”. Click OK. And click Save.
• Your PDF is ready and should look nice and chic! 🙂