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Everyone needs to perform simple math. Businesses need to keep track of sales and profits, and individuals need to keep track of budgets. In the old days, people not only had to write down numbers on paper, but they also had to do all their calculations by hand (or with the aid of a calculator). That’s why people use Excel. Instead of writing numbers on paper, they can type numbers on the computer. Instead of adding or subtracting columns or rows of numbers by hand, Excel can do it for you automatically. Basically, Excel makes it easy to type and modify numbers and then calculate new results accurately and quickly.
Understanding Spreadsheets
Excel organizes numbers in rows and columns. An entire page of rows and columns is called a spreadsheet or a worksheet. (A collection of one or more worksheets is stored in a file called a workbook.) Each row is identified by a number such as 1 or 249; and each column is identified by letters, such as A, G, or BF. The intersection of each row and column defines a cell, which contains one of three items:
Numbers Text (labels) Formulas
useful result, such as adding sales results for the week. Of course, just displaying numbers on the screen may be confusing if you don’t know what those numbers mean, so labels simply identify what numbers represent. Formulas usually appear as numbers, so at first glance, it may be difficult to tell the difference between ordinary numbers and numbers that represent a calculation by a formula. The strength of spreadsheets comes by playing “What-if?” games with your data, such as “What if I gave myself a $20-per-hour raise and cut everyone else’s salary by 25%? How much money would that save the company every month?” Because spreadsheets can rapidly calculate new results, you can experiment with different numbers to see how they create different answers.
Storing Stuff in a Spreadsheet
Every cell can contain a number, a label, or a formula. To type anything into a spreadsheet, you must first select or click in the cell (or cells) and then type a number or text.
Typing data into a single cell
To type data in a single cell, follow these steps:
1. Choose one of the following to select a single cell:
• Click a cell.
• Press the up/down/right/left arrow keys to highlight a cell.
2. Type a number (such as 34.29 or 198), a label (such as Tax Returns), or a formula.
Typing data in multiple cells
After you type data in a cell, you can press one of the following four keystrokes to select a different cell:
Enter: Selects the cell below in the same column
Tab: Selects the cell to the right in the same row
Shift+Enter: Selects the cell above in the same column
Shift+Tab: Selects the cell to the left in the same row
If you type data in cell A1 and press Enter, Excel selects the next cell below, which is A2. If you type data in A2 and press Tab, Excel selects the cell to the right, which is B2. However, what if you want to type data in a cell such as A1 and then have Excel select the next cell to the right (B1)? Or what if you want to type data in cells A1 and A2 but then jump back up to type additional data in cells B1 and B2? To make doing this easy, Excel lets you select a range of cells, which essentially tells Excel, “See all the cells I just highlighted? I only want to type data in those cells.” After you select multiple cells, you can type data and press Enter. Excel selects the next cell down in that same column. When Excel reaches the last cell in the column, it selects the top cell of the column to the right. To select multiple cells for typing data in, follow these steps:
1. Highlight multiple cells by choosing one of the following:
• Move the mouse pointer over a cell, hold down the left mouse button, and drag (move) the mouse to highlight multiple cells. Release the left mouse button when you’ve selected enough cells.
• Hold down the Shift key and press the up/down/right/left arrow keys to highlight multiple cells. Release the Shift key when you’ve selected enough cells.
Excel selects the cell that appears in the upper-left corner of your selected cells.
2. Type a number, label, or formula.
3. Press Enter.
Excel selects the cell directly below the previous cell. If the previous cell appeared at the bottom of the selected column, Excel highlights the top cell in the column that appears to the right.
4. Repeat Steps 2 and 3 until you fill your selected cells with data.
5. Click outside the selected cells or press an arrow key to tell Excel not to select the cells any more.
Typing in sequences with AutoFill
If you need to type the names of successive months or days in a row or column (such as January, February, March, and so on), Excel offers a shortcut to save you from typing all the day or month names yourself. With this shortcut, you just type one month or day and then drag the mouse to highlight all the adjacent cells. Then Excel types the rest of the month or day names in those cells automatically.
To use this shortcut, follow these steps:
1. Click a cell and type a month (like January or just Jan) or a day (like Monday or just Mon).
The Fill Handle, a block box, appears in the bottom-right corner of the cell. You can also type in a sequence of numbers in Step 1. So if you typed the numbers 2, 4, and 6 in adjacent cells, highlighted all these adjacent cells, and grabbed the Fill Handle, Excel is smart enough to detect the pattern and display the numbers 8, 10, and 12 in the next three adjacent cells.
2. Move the mouse pointer over the Fill Handle until the mouse pointer turns into a black crosshair icon.
3. Hold down the left mouse button and drag (move) the mouse down a column or across the row.
Formatting Numbers and Labels
When you first create a spreadsheet, numbers and labels appear as plain text. Plain labels might look boring, but plain numbers (such as 8495 or 0.39) can be difficult to read and understand if the numbers are supposed to represent currency amounts ($8,495) or percentages (39%). To make labels visually interesting and numbers appear more descriptive of what they actually represent, you need to format your data after you type it into a spreadsheet. You can format a cell or range of cells after you’ve already typed in data or before you type in any data. If you format cells before typing any data, any data you type in will appear in your chosen format.
Formatting numbers
To format the appearance of numbers, follow these steps:
1. Select one or more cells using the mouse or keyboard.
To select multiple cells, drag the mouse or hold the Shift key while pressing the arrow keys.
2. Click the Home tab.
3. Click the Number Format list box in the Number group.
The Number group also displays three icons that let you format numbers as Currency, Percentage, or with Commas in one click. If you click the downward-pointing arrow to the right of the Accounting Number Format icon, you can choose different currency symbols to use such as $, £, or €.
4. Click a number format style, such as Percentage or Scientific.
Excel displays your numbers in your chosen format.
Displaying negative numbers
Because many people use spreadsheets for business, they often want negative numbers to appear highlighted so they can see them easier. Excel can display negative numbers in parentheses (–23) or in red so you can’t miss them. To define how negative numbers appear in your spreadsheet, follow these steps:
1. Select the cell or range of cells that you want to modify.
2. Click the Home tab.
3. Click the Format icon in the Cells group.
4. Choose Cells.
5. Choose Currency or Number from the Category list.
You can choose how to format negative numbers only if you format your numbers using the Currency or Number category.
6. Click a negative number format and then click OK.
If any of your numbers become negative in the cell or cells you selected in Step 1, Excel automatically displays those negative numbers in the negative number format you chose.
Formatting decimal numbers
If you format cells to display numbers with decimal places, such as 23.09 or 23.09185, you can modify how many decimal places appear. To define the number of decimal places, follow these steps:
1. Select the cell or cells that contain the numbers you want to format.
2. Click the Home tab.
3. Click in the Number Format list box and choose a format that displays decimal places, such as Number or Percentage.
Excel formats the numbers in your chosen cells. You can click the Increase Decimal (increases the number of decimal places displayed) or Decrease Decimal icon (decreases the number of decimal places displayed).
Formatting cells
To make your data look prettier, Excel can format the appearance of cells to change the font, background color, text color, or font size used to display data in a cell. Excel provides two ways to format cells: You can use Excel’s built-in formatting styles, or you can apply different types of formatting individually. Some of the individual formatting styles you can choose include:
Font and font size Text styles (underlining, italic, and bold) Text and background color Borders Alignment Text wrapping and orientation Formatting cells with built-in styles
Excel provides a variety of predesigned formatting styles that you can apply to one or more cells. To format cells with a built-in style, follow these steps:
1. Select the cell or cells that you want to format with a built-in style.
2. Click the Home tab.
3. Click the Cell Styles icon in the Styles group.
A pull-down menu appears listing all the different styles you can choose .
4. Move the mouse pointer over a style.
Excel displays a Live Preview of how your selected cells will look with that particular style.
5. Click the style you want.
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