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Excel Basics
Excel Basics
Excel Basics
What is a Spreadsheet?
Even if you arent familiar with the term spreadsheet, you have probably seen many
spreadsheets. A spreadsheet is a document containing rows and columns of data. The data
can be represented by either numbers or text. A spreadsheet can be quite simple, like a
nutrition label from a muesli bar, or it can be very complex, such as a detailed accounting
worksheet for a large company.
What to Learn?
You will quickly realise that the Excel software package is very powerful and capable of a
vast array of computations, suitable for many business and academic applications. Obviously,
it would be impossible to cover all of Excels available features in these guides. Although
you are encouraged to explore as much as you like, remember that these guides are designed
to get you familiar with the most important features; specifically, those features that you will
need to master in order to successfully complete your assessments.
Home
Insert
Page Layout
Formulas
Data
Review
View
Locate each of these and click on them, so that you can view the options available in each
menu. Additional tabs will appear if you click on any graphs or images in your spreadsheet.
Located within each editing tab, you will see several icons. These allow you to execute a
command by simply clicking on the appropriate icon. Some icons also contain pull-down
menus with more editing options. To find out what an icon means, point the mouse onto the
icon and wait until a text box appears, which will reveal the icons particular job.
You will notice that cell A1 is framed. This indicates that the cell is active. Anything you
type will be stored and displayed in this cell. You can select any cell to be the active cell
simply by clicking in that cell or by using the Tab key to move about the spreadsheet. After
selecting a cell, just start typing. Typing appears in the active cell and in the formula bar,
located just above the column letters of the spreadsheet.
You can select a range of cells when you want to work with more than one cell. A range is
a rectangular group of cells on your worksheet. To select a range of cells, click in the cell
located in the top left-hand corner of the range. Then click and drag your mouse to the cell
that will be the lower right-hand corner of the range. Selecting a range of cells is useful when
you wish to perform the same action on all the cells, such as copying and pasting.
You may find it useful to have several worksheets in one file. An Excel file is called a
workbook, which can be comprised of worksheets and charts (graphs). To switch to a
different worksheet, simply click the sheet tabs at the bottom of your workbook. These sheet
tabs can be re-named for easy reference. Just double-click the word Sheet1 and edit it to
whatever name you prefer.
Excel offers an extensive on-line Help menu. If time permits, you should click on Help (the
question mark icon located at the top right of the screen) and explore the many features
available to you in the Help menu. You will quickly discover that Excel has a vast library of
help available, and you will certainly want to refer to it in your future work.
You may also type in specific questions for which you require Excels help under the Answer
Wizard tab. Try this and see what happens. For example, try typing (into the question box)
How do I format numbers? and then click Search. Help will provide you with a list of items
that you can read to assist you in formatting numbers.
At any time, you can exit Help by clicking the X icon on the top right of the window.
1996
1997
1998
Total
B
Quarter 1
C
Quarter 2
D
Quarter 3
E
Quarter 4
F
Total
Now lets add some data to this spreadsheet. Key in the numbers shown in the revised
spreadsheet below:
A
1
2
3
4
5
1996
1997
1998
Total
B
C
D
E
F
Quarter 1 Quarter 2 Quarter 3 Quarter 4 Total
5750
3000
3100
3250
4100
2960
3150
3300
5900
3150
3100
3300
After keying in numeric data, it is always a good idea to proofread your entries. It is easy to
make a very obvious mistake, like typing 57750 instead of 5750. Obviously, this particular
error would inflate the total sales figures and would be incorrect (and potentially misleading
to the management of Clayton Cones). Be sure you know how to click on any given cell and
edit your entries if needed.
Next, we want to show that our numeric entries are in dollars. Normally, dollar signs are
added only to the top row of numeric data within the spreadsheet, and any total or sub-total
columns or rows. This convention is practiced to avoid needlessly cluttering the spreadsheet
columns so that they are easier to read. To add the dollar signs, use your mouse to select the
range of cells B2 to E2. In the Home tab, click the $ icon (other currencies are available from
the pull-down menu), and set the decimal places to zero, since we are not concerned with
cents in this case.
Your spreadsheet should now look something like this:
A
1
2
3
4
5
1996
1997
1998
Total
B
C
D
E
F
Quarter 1 Quarter 2 Quarter 3 Quarter 4 Total
$5,750
$3,000
$3,100
$3,250
4100
2960
3150
3300
5900
3150
3100
3300
The next step toward completing this spreadsheet is to generate totals for the columns and
rows. We will create a formula to instruct Excel to compute these totals. This spreadsheet is
very small and manual calculation is quite quick and easy, but that is not usually the case.
To generate the total sales made in the first quarter for the past three years, click in cell B5
and type the following: =sum(B2:B4) and then press enter. This is a very specific command
which Excel understands as a computation it is to execute. The column total of $15,750
should appear in this cell.
Now that we have the first total, generating totals for the remaining three quarters is quite
easy. Simply click on cell B5 again, where your first total is located, and move your mouse to
the lower right hand corner of the framed cell. You will notice that the cursor becomes a plus
sign (+). When the solid plus sign appears, click and drag the mouse to the right, until cells
C5 through E5 are highlighted. When you release the mouse button, the other three totals
should appear. For these three quarters, the totals are: $9,110, $9,350, and $9,850. This tool
is called the fill handle, and you will find it quite useful.
Obtaining the totals for the rows is done the same way as it was for the column totals. To
generate the total sales made in 1996, click in cell F2 and type =sum(B2:E2). The row total
of $15,100 should appear in this cell.
Now that we have the first row total, you should be able to generate the remaining totals (in
cells F3, F4, and F5) using the fill handle, as described earlier. You will do the same as
before, but this time you will need to click and drag the mouse down until cells F3 through F5
are highlighted. The totals should be $13,510, $15,450, and $44,060, respectively. Notice
that cell F5 contains the total sales for all three years.
Notice that we did not need to format our Total row or column to add dollar signs. This is
because Excel recognises that we are using dollars as the unit of measurement, from the
formatting you did earlier. As such, the dollar signs are automatically included in the totals.
Now you need to add commas to the numbers located in cells B3 through E3 and B4 through
E4, to be consistent with the other entries. To do this, click in cell B3 and drag the mouse to
cell E4 to highlight all of these cells. Then click the Comma Style icon (,) in the Home tab.
Make sure you use zero decimal places, to be consistent with your earlier work. All the
numbers should now be separated with commas.
To summarise, your final spreadsheet should look like this:
A
1
2
3
4
5
1996
1997
1998
Total
Quarter 1
$5,750
4,100
5,900
$15,750
Quarter 2
$3,000
2,960
3,150
$9,110
Quarter 3
$3,100
3,150
3,100
$9,350
Quarter 4
$3,250
3,300
3,300
$9,850
Total
$15,100
$13,510
$15,450
$44,060
1996
1997
1998
Total
B
C
D
E
F
Quarter 1 Quarter 2 Quarter 3 Quarter 4 Total
$5,750
$3,000
$3,100
$3,250
$15,100
4,100
2,960
3,150
3,300
$13,510
5,900
3,150
3,100
3,300
$15,450
$15,750
$9,110
$9,350
$9,850
$44,060
There are two ways to compute measures of central tendency with Excel: using the x
function or the Data Analysis tool. Verify that the two methods give the same results by
calculating for Quarter 1:
Mean
Mode
Variance
Standard deviation
Range
How to use these functions?
(1) Using the Data Analysis tool
Step 1: Select Data, Data Analysis and then Descriptive Statistics
Step 2: Enter the range for your data. Be sure to tick the Labels in First Row if the
range you entered includes the column headings.
Step 3: Tick the Summary statistics output option.
(2) Using the x function
Step 1: Click on an empty cell.
Step 2: Click on the fx function button on the Formulas tab.
Step 3: Choose the Statistical category option.
Step 4: Select a measure of central tendency to calculate.
Revenue
$8,000
$6,000
$4,000
$2,000
$0
1
2
3
Quarter
Step 1: Select Column graph and select the first 2-D option.
Step 2: Under the Chart Tools, Design tab click Select Data. Enter the range for
your data: B2:E2.
Step 3: Click on the Series tab and give your data the name 1996 sales revenue and
click Next.
Step 4: Give your axes appropriate labels and insert the chart into your Excel
workbook.
Excel automatically creates gaps between the columns. However, our data does not have a
gap from one quarter to another, so these must be removed. To remove the gaps between
columns:
Step 1: Right-click over one of the columns.
Step 2: Select Format Data Series and Series Options.
Step 3: Slide the indicator to the left or type 0 in the Gap Width edit box and click
OK.
You can alter the graph even after it is inserted into the workbook by right clicking on the
component you wish to alter.
1996
Quarter 2
1997
Quarter 1
$0
1998
$5,000
$10,000
$15,000
$20,000
Revenue
(b)
Quarterly Revenue
Revenue
$6,000
$5,000
1996
$4,000
1997
$3,000
1998
$2,000
Quarter 1 Quarter 2 Quarter 3 Quarter 4