Beginning Excel

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URL.: http://www.karathecomputertutor.com

Date of copyright: September 2008

Beginning Excel

By Kara Glover

Excel is a spreadsheet program. A spreadsheet is a rectangular table, or grid,                           of information, according to Wikipedia. Excel has the ability to both calculate numbers and depict graphs. The program’s official full name is actually Microsoft Office Excel.

Excel consists of small, rectangular boxes, called cells, organized in an orderly fashion into columns (vertically) and rows (horizontally) on a worksheet, the overall grid. Several worksheets can be contained in a single file, or a workbook.

There’s not much chance you’ll run out of space using this program. Each worksheet in Excel 2003 and Excel 2004 (for the Mac) contain 65,536 rows and 256 columns, with a total of 16,777,216 million cells altogether. The newer Excel 2007 exceeds even those limits, with 16,384 columns and one million rows. Tell me how many cells altogether is that?

On each worksheet, the columns are identified by letters of the alphabet, and the rows by number. These numbers and letters are called labels. Every cell on the grid can be identified this way, using a combination first of its column name and then its row name. A cell could be labeled A10 or G25, for instance. After you get to column Z, the column names start with AA, AB, etc.

Typing in Cells

If you open a worksheet and click on a cell, you’ll notice a thick black border around it. This border, the cell pointer, signifies the active cell, or the one you plan to work with.

You can write text in the cell, type numbers, type dates, or type formulas. You can format the cells just like you would in Microsoft Word, for instance making your entries bold, italicized, or underlined. You can change the text font type or font size, or even center your entry within the cell. You can also change both the text and cell color.

Sample Worksheet – Part of an Expense Report:

Let’s start with hypothetical spreadsheet calculating how much you spend on office supplies. The first step is to title your worksheet. Click in cell A1 so you can see your cell pointer. Type your title, Office Supply Expenses.

Highlight the title and make it bold, just like you would in Word. (Click on the B at the top of your screen. It’s located on the Formatting toolbar in 2003 and on the Mac, and the ribbon under the Home tab in 2007.

Look for cell A1, the corner cell in the upper left. There are several ways to get to that cell. The most obvious is to click on it. But in some cases you might be creating a large spreadsheet and can’t get to cell A1 easily. In that case, hold down the Ctrl key on your keyboard and hit the Home key to get to the cell.

Another way to get to cell A1 is to type “A1” in the Name Box and hit Enter. The Name Box is located at the top left side of your screen, below the toolbars in 2003 and on the Mac, and below the ribbon in 2007.

You can also get to cell A1, or any cell for that matter, by using the Go To dialogue box. Get to this box by:

• Hitting the F5 key on your keyboard
• Holding down the Ctrl key and hitting the G key.
• 2003 and the Mac - Clicking on the Edit menu, and then on Go To.
• 2007 - Clicking on Find & Select on the right side of the Home ribbon, then click on Go To.

Put the mouse pointer around cell A1 using any method. Next, holding the mouse click down, drag across to highlight cells A1 through G1. Be sure not to highlight any other rows in the process.

There is an easy way to highlight the cells in just that row. After you click on cell A1, hold down the Shift key on your keyboard and click the Right Arrow Key. That way you can highlight one cell at a time. A group of highlighted cells is called a range.

Now click on the Merge and Center icon, a square white icon located on the formatting bar in 2003 and in the middle of the Home ribbon in 2007.  On the Mac, look for an icon with a capital “A” on the formatting toolbar to the right of the $ icon. Whichever way you do it, Office Supply Expenses should now be centered across the page.

A little note: Whenever you highlight cells in Excel, the first cell will never look highlighted. That cell is considered the active cell. So if the first cell was white before, it will stay white even when it’s highlighted.

You can read Kara's entire Beginning Excel article by going to her website: http://www.karathecomputertutor.com