Open up your Excel program. Go to File and Page Set-up and choose the "page" tab. Now choose "landscape" and choose "ok". On your excel page, highlight the B Column and rows 1-37, then go up to fill color and choose gray. Fill Column B and every other Column to HJ, Rows 1-37 with the gray fill. When you get done, every other column will be gray. Next highlight all columns AA-HJ, or as many as you can, and Rows 1-37. Go up to "Format" on the tool bar and go to Column Width. Type in 0.33 for column width. For Row Height, put it at 12.75. Keep choosing Rows 1-37 and the remaining columns till you have reached the edge of the dotted line for page break. After you have completed that, go to Auto Shapes and choose "line". Draw a line between rows 2 & 3, and every 2 rows after that till you reach the bottom of your page. Go to Format and choose "Text Box", make a text box for each row you placed a line on. Type "Row" in each text box, leaving space for you to write in your Row # when you create your smocking plate.

To create a cable row, go up to "Insert" on the Toolbar and choose Picture, then Auto Shapes. Choose Basic Shapes, and then choose the "Block Arc" shape. Resize it to 0.08" high x 0.16" wide. You can do this by selecting the block arc on your page, then go up to "format" on the toolbar and choose AutoShape, then choose the size tab and type in the new size. You now have made an up cable. Now you can just copy and paste another block arc and go to "Draw" and "Flip Vertical", that will give you a down cable. Using these 2 cables, you can continue copy and pasting the up and down cables to make a full row. Once you complete a full row, you can copy and paste that full row to another row where you need it. If you want your smocking graph in a particular color, all you have to do is select your block arc and choose "fill color" to the color desired, then copy and paste the colored cable to complete your row.