Excel 2021 Beginners

Excel 2021 Beginners
Excel 2021
Table of Contents
Section 1- Course Introduction ..................................................................................................................................................... - 7 -
Course Introduction ..................................................................................................................................................................... - 7 -
Excel 2021 vs Excel 365 .............................................................................................................................................................. - 8 -
Section 2 – Launching Excel ........................................................................................................................................................ - 10 -
Applying Number Formats ..................................................................................................................................................... - 10 -
The Start Screen .......................................................................................................................................................................... - 12 -
Exploring the Interface............................................................................................................................................................. - 16 -
Ribbons, Tabs, and Menus....................................................................................................................................................... - 20 -
The Backstage Area.................................................................................................................................................................... - 23 -
The Quick Access Toolbar ....................................................................................................................................................... - 25 -
Useful Keyboard Shortcuts ..................................................................................................................................................... - 29 -
Getting Help .................................................................................................................................................................................. - 32 -
Exercise 01 .................................................................................................................................................................................... - 35 -
Section 3 – Working with Templates ...................................................................................................................................... - 36 -
Working with Templates ......................................................................................................................................................... - 36 -
Working With Workbooks and Worksheets ................................................................................................................... - 39 -
Saving Workbooks ..................................................................................................................................................................... - 42 -
Entering and Editing Data ....................................................................................................................................................... - 45 -
Navigating and Selecting Cells and Ranges (1) .............................................................................................................. - 48 -
Exercise 02 .................................................................................................................................................................................... - 51 -
Section 4 – Formulas and Functions Explained .................................................................................................................. - 53 -
Formulas and Functions Explained..................................................................................................................................... - 53 -
Calculating with the SUM Function ..................................................................................................................................... - 57 -
Counting Values with the COUNT Function ..................................................................................................................... - 60 -
Finding the Average with the AVERAGE Function ........................................................................................................ - 63 -
Working with Min and Max .................................................................................................................................................... - 65 -
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Excel 2021
Handling Errors in Calculations............................................................................................................................................ - 66 -
Absolute vs Relative Referencing......................................................................................................................................... - 69 -
AutoSum and AutoFill ............................................................................................................................................................... - 71 -
Flash Fill ......................................................................................................................................................................................... - 74 -
Exercise 03 .................................................................................................................................................................................... - 76 -
Section 5- What Are Named Ranges? ...................................................................................................................................... - 78 -
What Are Named Ranges? ....................................................................................................................................................... - 78 -
Creating Named Ranges ........................................................................................................................................................... - 80 -
Managing Named Ranges ........................................................................................................................................................ - 82 -
Using Named Ranges in Calculations ................................................................................................................................. - 84 -
Exercise 04 .................................................................................................................................................................................... - 86 -
Section 6 – Applying Number Formats................................................................................................................................... - 88 -
Applying Number Formats ..................................................................................................................................................... - 88 -
Applying Date and Time Formats ........................................................................................................................................ - 92 -
Formatting Cells, Rows, and Columns ................................................................................................................................ - 94 -
Using the Format Painter ........................................................................................................................................................ - 97 -
Exercise 05 .................................................................................................................................................................................... - 99 -
Section 7 – Working with Rows and Columns ................................................................................................................... - 101 -
Working with Rows and Columns ..................................................................................................................................... - 101 -
Deleting and Clearing Cells ................................................................................................................................................... - 104 -
Aligning Text and Numbers .................................................................................................................................................. - 107 -
Applying Themes and Styles ................................................................................................................................................ - 111 -
Exercise 06 .................................................................................................................................................................................. - 114 -
Section 8 – How to Structure a List ........................................................................................................................................ - 116 -
How to Structure a List .......................................................................................................................................................... - 116 -
Sorting a List 1 ........................................................................................................................................................................... - 118 -
Sorting a List 2 ........................................................................................................................................................................... - 120 -

Excel 2021
Sorting with Custom Sort ...................................................................................................................................................... - 122 -
Using AutoFilter to Filter a List........................................................................................................................................... - 125 -
Format as a Table ..................................................................................................................................................................... - 127 -
Creating Subtotals in a List ................................................................................................................................................... - 131 -
Exercise 07 .................................................................................................................................................................................. - 134 -
Section 9 – Using Cut and Copy................................................................................................................................................ - 136 -
Using Cut and Copy .................................................................................................................................................................. - 136 -
Paste options .............................................................................................................................................................................. - 138 -
Pasting from the Clipboard................................................................................................................................................... - 141 -
Linking to other Worksheets and Workbooks ............................................................................................................. - 143 -
3D Referencing .......................................................................................................................................................................... - 145 -
Inserting Hyperlinks to Worksheets................................................................................................................................. - 147 -
Exercise 08 .................................................................................................................................................................................. - 150 -
Section 10 – Looking up Information with VLOOKUP.................................................................................................... - 152 -
Looking up Information with VLOOKUP ......................................................................................................................... - 152 -
VLOOKUP Approx Match ....................................................................................................................................................... - 155 -
Error Handling Functions ..................................................................................................................................................... - 157 -
Basic Logical Functions .......................................................................................................................................................... - 159 -
Making Decisions with IF Statements .............................................................................................................................. - 163 -
Tidying Data using Text Functions .................................................................................................................................... - 165 -
Working with Time and Date Functions ......................................................................................................................... - 169 -
Exercise 09 .................................................................................................................................................................................. - 172 -
Section 11 – Choosing the Correct Chart Type .................................................................................................................. - 175 -
Choosing the Correct Chart Type ....................................................................................................................................... - 175 -
Presenting Data with Charts ................................................................................................................................................ - 178 -
Formatting Charts .................................................................................................................................................................... - 182 -
Exercise 10 .................................................................................................................................................................................. - 186 -

Excel 2021
Section 12 – Highlighting Cell Values .................................................................................................................................... - 188 -
Highlighting Cell Values ......................................................................................................................................................... - 188 -
Data Bars ...................................................................................................................................................................................... - 191 -
Color Scales ................................................................................................................................................................................. - 193 -
Icon Sets........................................................................................................................................................................................ - 195 -
Exercise 11 .................................................................................................................................................................................. - 198 -
Section 13 – Inserting Pictures ................................................................................................................................................ - 200 -
Inserting Pictures ..................................................................................................................................................................... - 200 -
Inserting Shapes and Textboxes ......................................................................................................................................... - 204 -
Inserting Icons and 3D Models ........................................................................................................................................... - 207 -
Creating Diagrams Using SmartArt ................................................................................................................................... - 209 -
Inserting Screenshots ............................................................................................................................................................. - 212 -
Inserting Comments ................................................................................................................................................................ - 214 -
Exercise 12 .................................................................................................................................................................................. - 216 -
Section 14 - Work Book Views ................................................................................................................................................. - 219 -
Workbook Views....................................................................................................................................................................... - 219 -
Using Zoom in a Worksheet ................................................................................................................................................. - 222 -
Arranging Workbooks and Worksheets .......................................................................................................................... - 223 -
Freezing Panes ........................................................................................................................................................................... - 225 -
Exercise 13 .................................................................................................................................................................................. - 227 -
Section 15 – Margins and Orientation .................................................................................................................................. - 229 -
Margins and Orientation........................................................................................................................................................ - 229 -
The Print Area ............................................................................................................................................................................ - 231 -
Inserting Page Breaks ............................................................................................................................................................. - 233 -
Print Titles and Background ................................................................................................................................................ - 235 -
Headers and Footers ............................................................................................................................................................... - 237 -
Printing a Workbook ............................................................................................................................................................... - 239 -

Excel 2021
Exercise 14 .................................................................................................................................................................................. - 242 -
Section 16 – Protecting Workbooks and Worksheets .................................................................................................... - 244 -
Protecting Workbooks and Worksheets ......................................................................................................................... - 244 -
Spellcheck .................................................................................................................................................................................... - 247 -
Inspecting the Workbook ...................................................................................................................................................... - 249 -
Saving Different Formats....................................................................................................................................................... - 252 -
Sharing a Workbook ................................................................................................................................................................ - 254 -
Exercise 15 .................................................................................................................................................................................. - 256 -
Section 17 – Course Close .......................................................................................................................................................... - 258 -
Video: Course Close ................................................................................................................................................................. - 258 -

Excel 2021
Section 1- Course Introduction

Video: Course Introduction
Deb: Hello everyone, and welcome to this course on an Introduction to Excel 2021. My name is
Deborah Ashby and I've been a Microsoft trainer for about 25 years now in various different forms.
And, I'm going to be your host for this course.
Now, Excel 2021 is the latest standalone release from Microsoft. And it opens up many of the features
and functionality currently only available in Microsoft 365 to customers who don't have or maybe don't
want to sign up for the subscription service. And we're going to explore all of these new features and
everything else Excel in this course.
Now this course is aimed at Excel novices; Excel beginners. So, if you are brand new to the world of
Excel and are looking for guidance, or maybe you have some very basic skills and would like to learn
more, this course is going to give you a great foundation from which to build from. The only
prerequisite required is that you have Excel 2021 downloaded to your PC. So before we begin and dive
into the content, let's run through some housekeeping so you understand how this course is structured,
and how everything works.
So, this course has a total of 85 lessons. And those 85 lessons are split across 17 logical sections. And all
of the lessons are bite-sized. So, they're between 5 to 15 minutes in length. Each lesson contains a video
where I'll demonstrate to you a discipline in Excel using some course files. And those course files are
available to download from the Course Files folder so that you can follow along with what I'm doing.
And throughout this course, you'll get a chance to practice what you've learned with end of Section
exercises and also quizzes.
So, the first thing to do here is to download those course files and make sure that you have them
somewhere easily accessible. Grab yourself a drink and let's dive straight in. Once again, my name is
Deb, and I am thrilled to be your host for this course.

Excel 2021
Video: Excel 2021 vs Excel 365
Deb: If you're trying to decide whether you want to use Excel 2021, or Excel for Microsoft 365, this
lesson is here to help you make that decision. And what you can see on the slide here is just some of the
differences between Excel 365 and Excel 2021.
Now the main difference between these two is that Excel 365 is essentially a subscription service. And
what that means is that you sign up with Microsoft, and you pay a small monthly fee to effectively rent
the software from Microsoft. So, you don't actually ever own the software. And over time, if you have
that software for a number of years, you end up paying a lot more for it than if you just purchased the
software outright. And this is the main reason why a lot of people prefer to go for the standalone version
of Excel, as it's a one-time purchase option. And you'll see in a moment the difference in the price.
And I'm going to show you in a moment where you can go to purchase Excel 2021, and then we can
compare it against the subscription service. Now if you do have a subscription to Microsoft 365, as a
subscriber, it means that you're automatically going to receive the latest updates directly from Microsoft.
So if they make a change to Excel, that's going to get pushed out to your PC automatically. Whereas if
you've purchased Excel 2021, whilst it is yours to keep and you own that software, it doesn't receive
perpetual updates.
Now, Excel 365 can be installed on up to five devices. So if you're in a household and you have a
laptop, maybe an iPad, maybe another PC, if you have a subscription, you can install your Microsoft
applications on five different devices. With Excel 2021, because it's not a subscription service, it can
only be installed on one device. And I would say that that is a general rule that it can only be installed on
one device, there are methods you can use to try and get that onto another PC. But in general, one device
only.
Also with the 365 application, it gives you access to the online versions of those applications, which
means you can work and access your documents and files anywhere anytime. So, if I'm sitting on a train,
and I want to look at a spreadsheet that I created in Excel back at the office, I can log in to my online
portal for Microsoft 365 and open the document from there. Whereas with Excel 2021, you don't get
access to a subscriber’s hub, the Microsoft 365 portal from which you can access lots of other
applications and also all of your files. So, it really is your choice.
Now looking at this table, you might think to yourself, well, Excel 365 sounds like a much better deal.
And I would say that for most people using Excel these days, most people are using the Microsoft 365
subscription service. But depending on your situation, you may decide that you would rather just pay
outright for Excel and not have to pay an ongoing monthly subscription fee. And speaking of fees, let's
take a look at the difference.

Excel 2021
So, if you go on to the Microsoft website, and all I did here was I typed into Google, “Purchase Excel
2021”. You can see here the two options that I have. The first one is that I can buy Excel outright for
149.99. All of my prices are in pounds, because I'm in the UK. So things may differ depending on your
location. Alternatively, I can choose to subscribe to Microsoft 365 and get Excel that way. And for me
to subscribe, it cost me 599 per month. And I'll be paying that subscription fee every single month. So if
you wanted to download Excel 2021, all you need to do is come on to this page and click Buy Now.
Now I will say that this price here of 149.99 is the Microsoft price. You can purchase this software for a
greatly reduced price from other third party websites. Now, you always have to be a little bit careful
here, which ones you choose. So I'm going to recommend a site to you. And the reason why I'm
recommending this one is because I've purchased many pieces of software from this website, and I've
never had any problem at all. And that website is brytesoft.
Now notice here the difference in price. It’s currently in dollars, but it's only 79.99. And not only do I
get Excel 2021, I get all of the other applications as well. So Word, OneNote, PowerPoint, Outlook. So
this is a much better deal. And if you look at this price compared to paying for a subscription monthly,
this is a lot more cost effective.
However, I'll leave it to you to choose which one you want to download. This course is for Excel 2021.
But if you have purchased this course and maybe at this stage you decide that you would prefer to buy
Excel for Office 365, this course is still fine for you to use. Because, Excel 2021 was really released to
bring the standalone versions in line with the features and functionalities currently available in Excel
365. So just bear that in mind.
If you want to download 365, you can and this course will still work for you. So download Excel, make
sure you have the course files saved, and let's get to work.

Excel 2021
Section 2 – Launching Excel
Video: Applying Number Formats
Deb: Now that we've downloaded and installed Excel 2021 onto our PC, it's time for us to launch the
application for the first time. And the way that you do this really does depend on the operating system
that you're using.
So for me, I'm using Microsoft's latest version, which is Windows 11. But I'm going to hazard a guess
that most people who are watching this course are going to probably be using an older version, so
possibly Windows 10, maybe even something older. Now, from what I recall from Windows 10, pretty
much everything I'm going to show you when it comes to launching applications is pretty much the
same.
So the first place that we need to go to here is we need to open up the Start Menu. And the Start Menu,
you'll find down in the Taskbar, and it's this Windows icon just here. If you're using Windows 10, you
should have something on the Taskbar which looks similar to this. When you hover over it, you're going
to get that little ScreenTip pop up that says “Start”. So, you can click to pop that menu up.
Or alternatively, if you're into your Keyboard Shortcuts, you can press the Windows logo key on your
keyboard. Now for me, this pops open the Start Menu. And what do I have on the Start Menu? Well, at
the top, I have a Search Bar, which is going to allow me to search through all of the applications and
files that I have on my PC. Underneath that, I have some Pinned applications. So these might be
applications that I use all the time.
Now if you can't find Excel in this pinned area, we have an All Apps button, which is going to take us
into the full list of applications we have available to us. And everything in here is organized in
alphabetical order. So, I could scroll through to find Excel. Or alternatively, I can use the Search Bar at
the top, simply type in Excel, and the best match is the Excel application. One click, and it's going to let
me launch the app.
Now, if Excel is going to be one of the applications that you're using on a regular basis, so maybe you
go into Excel every single day, then I would definitely advise you to pin Excel either to your Taskbar or
to your Start Menu. Now notice that once I have Excel open, if I looked down in my Taskbar, I can see
the application on the end here.
So if I want to pin it to this Taskbar permanently, so it's available like these other icons, I can simply
right-click my mouse, and choose the Pin to Taskbar option. Now even when I close Excel down, that
icon is going to remain on the Taskbar and I can simply click to re-launch Excel. Another thing I can do

Excel 2021
again from the Start Menu. So let's press the Windows key to pop that back up again. It's I could pin it to
this Pinned area at the top.
So, once again, I'm going to jump into All Apps, let's search for Excel. This time, I'm going to right-
click and I'm going to say Pin to Start. So now that's going to pin it to that Start Menu. And if you can't
see it in this list, if you scroll down, you might find that it's right at the bottom. And of course we can
reorganize our Pinned icons and applications.
So, if I want Excel to be further up this list, I can click and then just drag it into the position that I want
it to be in. So, let's put this right at the start. And then it makes it very simple for me to click Excel and
launch the application from here.

Excel 2021
Video: The Start Screen
Deb: When you launch Excel, it's going to open up by default in something that we call the Start Screen.
And you only ever really see this screen in this configuration, this exact layout, when you launch Excel
for the first time. So let's take a quick look around at some of the things that we have on this page.
Now notice over on the left-hand side, we have three icons; Home, New, and Open. And currently, I'm
clicked on the Home page, and we can tell that because it's highlighted in dark green. So what do we
have on this Home page, that's going to be useful to us? Well, look at the section at the top called New,
this is where we can go to create a new blank Workbook, or maybe select a Template. And the
Templates that you can see run across the top there are ones that I've created.
So these are my own Personal Templates. And if you cast your eyes over to the right-hand side of the
screen just under those Templates, you can see that there is actually a link to take us to More Templates.
Now it's worth noting at this stage that within Excel, there are hundreds of Office Templates that are free
for us to use. And I'm going to talk to you more about Templates and how you use them. And even, how
you create your own in one of the later lessons. But for now, just know that if you do need to access the
full library of Templates, you can click on the More Templates link from this Home screen.
Now underneath our New Section, we then have a Recent and a Pinned Section. Now, this area really
allows you to access files that you've opened and used recently. And you'll see underneath the Recent
List, this is basically all of the files that I've been into over the last couple of days. You can see the date
modified column, I've been into most of these files either today, or yesterday.
Now the amount of files that you see listed in Recent is really dependent on what you have set up in
Excel Options. But the default for Recent Documents is 50. And I'll show you a bit later on how you can
modify the number of Recent Documents you're seeing in your copy of Excel. So this area is really great
if you just want to quickly access something that you've been working on recently.
Now one thing to remember about this particular list is that this is what we call a Dynamic List, meaning
that it's going to change all the time. So as I open new documents, those documents will appear at the
top of this list, and the ones at the bottom of this Recent List are going to kind of fall off the end.
Now if you have a particular document that you want to use all the time, so maybe it's something that
you go into every single day and update, and you want to make sure that it doesn't start moving down
this Recent List, you want to pin it to the top of the list, so it's permanently available. Well, you can do
that.
So let's take this second document in this Recent List, the document called Lookup Functions. As I
hover my mouse over that file name, notice over on the right-hand side, we get this little pin icon. When

Excel 2021
I hover over it, it says: “Pin this item to the list”. So if I click the Pin, that item is now pinned in Recent.
And I'm also going to be able to find it underneath this Pinned Section. And there you go. There it is. So
again, this makes it super easy for me to access. So that's what we have on this Home page. Let's jump
across to the next icon which is this New icon.
Now this is where you would come to create new Workbooks. So again, we have something very similar
to what we had in the New Section on the Home page. This is where we can quickly create a blank
Workbook, or we can access any Templates that we've created. And once again, the ones that I've
created, and the ones that I use are at the top of this list. Now if we scroll down, this is where we can
find our Template library.
Now notice again that I have two headings, Office and Personal. Now the Office section is where you go
if you're looking for a particular Template, and all of the Templates that are available in Excel are
categorized. So it might be that you're looking for a Business Template or maybe something related to
Planners and Trackers, maybe you want to create a Household Budget. So you're looking for all of the
Budget Templates.
Notice underneath where we have the Search box, we have these different categories just here. So if I
click on Budgets, it's going to search through all of the Templates in the library and just present me with
all of the Templates that are related to Budgets. Let's click the back arrow to go back. What about if I
want to actually search for a Template as opposed to looking or browsing through each of these
categories? Well, I can click in the Search box.
Maybe I'm looking for an invoice Template, I can hit Enter, or I can click on the magnifying glass to
kick off that search. And there we go, we have all of the Templates which match the criteria that I
specified. So super simple. We're not going to select a Template at this stage, because we do have an
entire lesson on Templates. But just for now, make sure that you know where you go to access them.
And I'll also talk a little bit more in that lesson about what this Personal section is, and how it differs
from the Office section.
Let's move down and select the next icon. So this time, Open. This is where you can come to open any
Workbooks or folders. So if we've created a Workbook previously, and we've saved it to a location on
our PC, maybe to the Documents folder, or maybe to our OneDrive cloud storage folder, and we want to
reopen that this is where we would come. So every time you want to open a file, come to the Open
Section. And this is just showing us a list of different locations that we can open files from.
So currently, I'm clicked on Recent. And on the right-hand side of the screen, you can see that I have
Recent Workbook showing currently. So again, these are the Workbooks that I've used most recently. If
I want to open any of them, it's simply a case of clicking, and it's going to load up that Workbook in
Excel.

Excel 2021
What I also have here is Folders. So this is going to show me any recent folders that I've saved into. So
again, all of this is here to help us access files quicker. Underneath Recent, I have a couple of other
storage locations that I have access to. So, to OneDrive accounts effectively. And I can open files from
my cloud storage from here, and I can also choose to browse this PC. So if I'm more comfortable going
to File Explorer and working my way through my folder structure, then I can definitely open files from
here as well in that way.
Now right at the bottom of this menu, we have three little options here; Account, Feedback, and
Options. So if we click on Account, this is where you're going to find some useful information related to
your account. You can see your user information at the top. So this is your login credentials for
Microsoft. I can choose to change my account photo, I can sign out of my account, and I can also switch
account from here as well if I do have multiple.
I can choose an Office Background from here and also an Office Theme from here as well. So if I
wanted to, I could change my Office Theme to black, we've also got dark gray, white, and of course,
colorful. I can see what services I have connected from here as well. So in general, I usually have
OneDrive connected, so I can save my files, and also a SharePoint site. And if I want to add or connect
up any new services, I can do that from down here as well.
And on the right-hand side, I just have product information about the version of Office that I'm using. So
you can see here that we are using Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2021. This is also where I can
come to check to see if we have any updates available for Office. So, very useful to know where this is.
Underneath the Accounts section we have Feedback. So, this is really if you just want to send some
feedback about a particular feature of Excel to Microsoft. So, you can do that if you choose to.
And then finally at the bottom, we have Options. And this is a really important area and one we're going
to dip into and dip out of throughout this course. I'm not going to go into this in any great detail at the
moment other than to say, this is where you come to customize how your copy of Excel works. So, this
is effectively all of your settings. You can set up AutoSave from here, you can check what language
you're using, you can customize your Ribbons and even create your own Ribbons. You can modify the
Quick Access Toolbar and turn off and on different add ins as well.
Now I've just scratched the surface there with the types of settings that you can change. But make sure
that you know where Excel options is because we're going to be coming in and out of here a lot. Now if
I click on Cancel, notice what happens here, it doesn't take me back to that Start Screen. And if I click
on the File menu, I don't get exactly the same screen. So, I get things that are fairly similar.
I've got Home, New, and Open at the top here, but I have some additional options underneath which
weren't part of that Start Screen. And remember, I said at the beginning you only ever see the Start

Excel 2021
Screen in that particular layout when you launch Excel for the first time. So if I close down Excel one
more time and click to reopen it, there I get back to my Start Screen. So, just remember that.
So, that is the Start Screen. Make sure you're familiar with it and you know where to go to create new
documents, where your Templates are, and also how to open files and check your Account settings

Excel 2021
Video: Exploring the Interface
Deb: So now that we're comfortable with this Start Screen, it's time to create a new blank Workbook and
make ourselves familiar with the Excel interface. So I'm on the Start Screen, I'm clicked on Home. If I
want to create a blank Workbook, I can select Blank Workbook from here.
Alternatively, I can go to New, and click on Blank Workbook from here as well. As soon as I click it, it's
going to load it up into Excel. And the first thing you'll notice with Excel 2021 is that we have a lovely
shiny new interface. This definitely has a much more modern look and feel to some of the older versions
of Excel. For example, we now have these curved corners, and the icons have been slightly refined. So,
everything just has a much more modern look.
So now that we have a blank Excel Workbook open in the main screen in Excel, let's take a look at the
interface so we understand what we're looking at. So let's start at the top of the screen with this green bar
that we can see. This is what we call the Title Bar. And among other things in this bar, you're going to
see as you would expect the title of your document.
Now currently, I haven't saved this file. So the title of this document is really the generic default file
name that Excel gives new Workbooks. And that is normally Book1, Book2, Book3, something along
those lines. So my file name is currently Book1. When I save this file, this is going to update and I'm
going to see the new name in this Title Bar.
Now to the left of where we have Book1, we have a number of different little icons. And this is called
the Quick Access Toolbar. And again, we have an entire lesson dedicated to looking at the Quick Access
Toolbar and also customizing it to suit our needs. So we're going to come back to that in a later lesson.
Moving across to the middle of this Title Bar, we have a Search Bar in the middle. And notice that there
is a Keyboard Shortcut for this Search Bar of Alt + Q. And from here, we can search for pretty much
anything.
Moving all the way over to the right-hand side. This is where you're going to find your Account
information. Again, I can also sign out of my account from here also. I then have the Minimize button
which is going to minimize Excel down into what we used to call the System Tray, now down into the
Taskbar. Now when you minimize it doesn't close Excel, Excel is still there, it just means you have to
hover over the Excel icon in your Taskbar and click to maximize that window.
The button next to that allows us to restore this window down to a smaller size. So sometimes if you
want to move this around and see something underneath this window, that can be quite useful. If we
hover over again, I can click to make this full size. If you're wondering what these little pop up grid
structures are when I hover over that button, that's related to a new feature in Windows 11, called Snap
Layouts. It’s not actually part of Excel. And then right in the corner here we have the Close button.

Excel 2021
Now a really important thing to note here. If you click the cross in the top right-hand corner, it's going to
close all of Excel. So if you have multiple Workbooks open, it's going to close them all because this one
closes Excel. If you want to close just the file that you have open, you would do that from file and you
can see that you have a Close option in here.
Alternatively, there is a Keyboard Shortcut to close the file that you have open on your screen of Ctrl +
W, that's gonna close down just the Workbook, but it's going to leave Excel open. So now that we've
done that, we really need to load up another Blank Workbook. Now a quick way of doing this is again to
use a Keyboard Shortcut. So to create a Blank Workbook, Ctrl + N is going to do that for you.
Now underneath the Title Bar, we have these little Tabs at the top here. So we have Home, Insert, Draw,
Page Layout, Formulas, so on and so forth. And each time I click on one of these Tabs, it shows me a
Ribbon. And that is the terminology in Excel. These are the Tabs and each Tab has its own Ribbon. So
currently, I'm clicked on the Home Ribbon. And what you see on these Ribbons are basically the
commands that you're going to use to execute tasks and actions in Excel. And these commands are
categorized logically on two different Ribbons.
So in general on the Home Ribbon, you're going to find most of the things that you use most frequently.
So things like Cut, Copy, Paste, Format Painter. You're going to find your Formatting options,
Alignment Tools, Number Formatting, things like that. The Insert Ribbon is where you find all of the
things that you can insert into your spreadsheet. So things like Pictures, Shapes, Charts, Links,
Textboxes, Symbols, all of that good stuff.
The Draw Ribbon is there if you need to make any annotations. This is particularly useful if you work
with a touchscreen device and a stylus. You can ink up your documents, make annotations, and notes.
The next Ribbon along deals with the layout of the page. So from here, I can do things like apply
specific Themes to my Workbook, I can change the Margins, maybe I want to change the Orientation of
the Workbook from landscape to portraits. I can do things like add a Background Image, turn the Grid
Lines off and on, and also align objects, things like that.
The Formulas Ribbon is where we go if we want to access our Formula library. And formulas are really
the backbone of Excel. It's really what it's known for, its calculations. So we're going to be doing a lot of
work in here a bit later on in the course. The Data Ribbon is where we go to do things like connect to
external data sources. So if you want to import data in from other applications, you would come into this
Ribbon. We can Sort our data, we can Filter, we can do things like Remove Duplicates, and do various
different types of data analysis.

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The Review Ribbon is generally the Ribbon that I come to last. So once my spreadsheet has been done, I
come to the Review Ribbon. Because this is where you come to do things like spell checking, you can
add comments in, and you can also do things like protect the Worksheet and the work book.
The View Ribbon contains how we're actually viewing our Workbook when we're working in it. So by
default, you're always going to be in Normal View. But you do have some other views here that you can
switch between. I can also do things like zoom in and out from here, create new windows, arrange
windows, and also switch between any open Workbooks.
Now, I've got two Ribbons turned on here that you might not see in your copy of Excel. So the
Developer Ribbon and also the Power Pivot Ribbon are not turned on by default. If you want to use
these, then you need to go into Excel Options, and toggle these on. And the Developer Ribbon contains
a lot of the more advanced commands in Excel. So this is where you would come if you want to work
with macros, if you want to take a look at the VBA code, or things like that. And we're not going to
touch this Ribbon in this beginner's course. So we're going to go in and turn those Ribbons off in a
moment.
The final Ribbon, Power Pivot, this is actually an add in that I've turned on. And again, this is one of the
more advanced features of Excel. So for this course, you don't need to have that Ribbon either. So the
final Ribbon that you might possibly see, and again, this is one that isn't always turned on by default is
the Help Ribbon. And that is pretty much what it says on the tin. This is where you can come if you need
to access the help files.
So let's quickly jump in to Excel options because this will give you a good little introduction to how
Excel Option works, and turn off Developer and Power Pivot Ribbons because we're not going to be
using them. So we're going to go to File, and all the way down to Options. Now in these categories on
the left-hand side, I'm going to go to Customize Ribbon. And here I can see all of the Ribbons that I
have turned on. So I'm going to deselect Developer, and Power Pivot just to turn those off. And there we
go. Hopefully, my Excel now looks more similar to yours.
Now underneath these Ribbons, we then have something called the Name Box over on the left-hand
side, which is currently just showing the Cell Reference of where my cursor currently is. Now, if you're
not sure what I mean by Cell Reference, just wait a few minutes, I'm going to explain that to you. And
then next to the Name Box, we have the Formula Bar. And this is where you can come to edit your
formulas. And you can also see what you have in your cells in this Formula Bar as well.
And then underneath, we have the main parts of the Workbook. And that is the Worksheet. Now each
Worksheet has a grid structure. You can see it's organized by columns that are labeled with letters, and
rows that are labeled with numbers. And all of these rectangles that you can see in this grid are referred

Excel 2021
to as Cells. And how do we identify different cells in a Worksheet? Well, we use what we call the Cell
Reference. So take a look at where my mouse is clicked currently.
Notice the column that it's in is shaded in gray. It's in column H and it's also row number 8. So, the Cell
Reference for this particular cell is H8. And you can see that in the Name Box just here. So wherever I
click on this Worksheet, you're going to see it highlighted in the column and the row. And you'll also see
the Cell Reference in the Name Box. And Cell References are so important. You're going to be using
these all the time, particularly when you're doing things like formulas in Excel.
Now, at the bottom here, I have Sheet1, this little Tab. So we're working in a Workbook, and we're also
working in a Worksheet. And I can have numerous different Worksheets as part of this Workbook. So
that is the structure; you have a Workbook, but that Workbook might contain many different sheets.
Notice that we also have horizontal and vertical scroll bars to help us navigate and scroll through our
Worksheets.
And then finally, at the bottom, we have the Status Bar. And this Status Bar is pretty much fairly plain at
the moment, but you can customize this to show different pieces of information that's going to be useful
to you when you're working in Excel. Way over on the right-hand side, we also have quick ways of
switching our document views or our Worksheet views. And we also have a Zoom Slider, which lets us
zoom in and zoom out of this particular Worksheet.
Now, all of these things we're going to go into in a lot more detail. But I just want to give you a whistle
stop tour of the different elements of the screen so that you'll start to become familiar with some of the
Excel terminology and where you need to go to access different options and commands.

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Video: Ribbons, Tabs, and Menus
Deb: In the previous lesson, we started to introduce the concept of Tabs and Ribbons. And in this
lesson, we're going to take a bit of a deeper dive into Tabs and Ribbons. And we're also going to take a
look at menus as well. Because all of these are really important concepts to grasp when you're working
in Excel.
Now as we mentioned previously, we have our Tabs running across the top, and each Tab has a
corresponding Ribbon. And what we'll find on each of these Ribbons are commands that will allow us to
execute different actions within Excel. And all of these commands have been arranged logically onto
their corresponding Ribbons to make it a little bit easier for you to find the command that you're looking
for.
For example, if I wanted to insert a shape into my Worksheets, the logical Tab to click on would be the
Insert Tab. And I'm going to find shapes within this Illustrations group. Which brings me on to my next
point, all of the commands on each Ribbon are organized into these different groups. So if we jump back
to the Home Ribbon, once again, you can see that for things like Cut, Copy, Paste, Format Painter, those
are all part of the Clipboard group.
My Font Formatting options are part of the Font group. My alignment tools, part of the Alignment
group, so on and so forth. Now, with so many different commands in Excel, if you're fairly new to the
application, you're probably going to go through a good few weeks where you're not 100% sure what
each of these commands does. Now fortunately, in Excel, we have something that can help demystify
this for us.
If I was to hover my mouse over any of these commands on the Ribbons, notice I get a little ScreenTip
pop up, which tells me the name of the command, it gives me a short description of what that command
does, and it's also going to show me if there is a Keyboard Shortcut for this command. Now, some
commands have Keyboard Shortcuts, and some do not.
For example, if I hover over Bold, I can see that that one, yes, that does have a Keyboard Shortcut. But
if I hover over, let's say, Increase Font Size, you can see that it's not showing me a Keyboard Shortcut.
Also, what you'll find with these commands is that if you right-click your mouse on any of them, you're
going to see what we call a Contextual Menu.
Now, Contextual Menus appear throughout Excel, and they're called Contextual Menus, because they're
kind of contextual to where you're currently clicked. So because I've right-clicked my mouse on the
Format Painter command, in that Contextual Menu, I'm seeing menu items related to that particular
command. So what you see in this Contextual Menu changes depending on where you're clicked.

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For example, if I was just to click on a cell in the Worksheet, and right-click my mouse, I get a much
longer completely different Contextual Menu. So this is basically showing me all of the actions that I
can take in relation to the cell that I'm clicked on. So I can copy this cell, I can paste it, I can insert new
cells, I can delete it, so on and so forth.
Another thing you'll notice, when you right-click on the Worksheet, in addition to that Contextual Menu,
you're going to see what we call the Mini Toolbar just above. And this Mini Toolbar contains some
formatting commands. And these are in general, formatting commands that you'll find yourself reaching
for all of the time.
And the idea of this Mini Toolbar is that it just makes it a little bit easier for you to access these
formatting options without having to drag your mouse all the way up to the Home Ribbon. Now, some
people love this Mini Toolbar, some people really don't. And this is one of those things that you can
control within Excel options. So let's just divert for a second and let me show you where you can go if
you'd like to turn that Mini Toolbar off or on. So we're going to backup to File, into Excel Options. I
told you at the beginning, we will be coming out of here fairly frequently.
Now in the General section in this first group where it says User Interface Options, notice that this
second option down is Show Mini Toolbar on selection. So if you don't like that Mini Toolbar, and you
find it just gets in the way when you're right-clicking, you can deselect this box just here and it's not
going to come up when you right-click. Now another place you can go to get access to more commands
is by clicking on this little diagonal Down Arrow in the corner of the group.
Now notice not every group has one of these diagonal Down Arrows for example, Styles, Cells, and
Editing don't have them, but we have this arrow in all of these other groups. Now if I hover over the one
for Fonts, you can see here it says Font Settings. And this does have a Keyboard Shortcut of Ctrl + Shift
+ F. So if I click this, it's going to open up a little dialog box, it's going to jump me straight to the Font
Tab, and in here, I have a few additional options for formatting my font that I don't actually have on the
Ribbon. Let's cancel out of there.
Let's click on alignment. Now notice it takes us to the same box, it's still the Format Cells box. But
we've jumped to a different Tab, and that is the Alignment Tab. And again, we have a few more controls
that we can use to deal with alignment in our Worksheet. Now what about if I click on this one here in
the Clipboard group? Let's see what this does. Now here, we get something completely different. This
opens up the internal clipboard.
Now this clipboard is here to basically collect items that you can't or copy in your Worksheet. And
again, I'm not going to go into this in too much detail because we do have a whole lesson about this later
on in the course. The main thing I wanted to highlight to you there is that by clicking on that dialog box
launcher, the little arrow in the corner doesn't necessarily always open a dialog box. In this particular

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scenario, it's opened up what we call a pane on the left-hand side of the screen. And if I want to close
down a pane, I can just click the cross in the top corner.
Now the final point I'd like to mention here in relation to Ribbons is that you can choose to hide the
Ribbon from view. By default, this Ribbon is going to be visible at the top of the Workbook all of the
time. And mostly, that's absolutely fine because you're going to find yourself reaching for your different
commands frequently.
However, if maybe you're viewing or scrolling through a very, very large Worksheet, and you want to
basically maximize the real estate that you have on the page, you could choose to temporarily collapse
up the Ribbon.
Now, there are a couple of different ways that you can do this. And by far, the easiest way is to use the
Keyboard Shortcut. And the Keyboard Shortcut to collapse or expand the Ribbons is Ctrl + F1. You'll
notice as soon as I do that, I'm just left with those Tabs, and the Ribbons no longer display. Ctrl + F1
again to bring the Ribbon back. Alternatively, if I go all the way over to the right-hand side, notice that I
have this little drop Down Arrow. And when I hover over it says Ribbon Display Options. So if I click
this here, I have some other options when it comes to showing the Ribbon.
Now I can choose to Always Show the Ribbon, I can show Tabs only, which is pretty much what we had
when we press Ctrl + F1. And notice that once this is collapsed, I don't have a little Down Arrow
anymore to bring that back again. What I can do is simply click on one of these Tabs, and it's going to
drop that Ribbon back down. I can then choose to Always Show the Ribbon.
And if I want to truly maximize the space that I have on the screen and also get rid of these Tabs, if I
click the drop down, I could choose Full Screen Mode. And that's really just going to leave me with the
spreadsheet in view. To come out of here, we can click at the three dots in that Title Bar, click the drop
down again, and switch it back to Always Show Ribbon.

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Video: The Backstage Area
Deb: So far, there's one Tab at the top here that we haven't really spoken about in any great depth. And
that is the File Tab. Now, the File Tab is different from these other Tabs as it doesn't contain a Ribbon.
So, when we click on File, instead of getting a Ribbon, it takes us into what we call the Backstage Area.
And this area is a little bit similar to the Start Screen that we see when we first launch Excel. But there
are some major differences. We have a lot more options that we can select in that left-hand menu from
file. And this Backstage Area is really what we consider to be the Admin Area. This is where we can
come to create new Blank Workbooks or even select a Template.
We can open Workbooks from here, we can save Workbooks from here. We can also do things like print
Workbooks, share them with other people, export them out to different file formats, and even publish
them to the Power BI service. And we're going to be using each of these options throughout this course.
But just for now, know that in order to get to these options, you need to click on File and go into what
we call the Backstage Area.
Now one page here that I do want to draw your attention to is this Info page. Now in Info, we kind of
have two parts to this. This is where we can come to do things like protect our Workbook. So if we want
to add a password to our Workbook to protect which parts of the Workbook other people can add it, we
can do that from here. We can also inspect our Workbook. So we can check for any metadata or
information that's stored in the background of each file, such as things like the author's name, when the
document was created, things like that, we can remove all of those things before we send this out to
other people.
This is also where we can effectively recover any Unsaved Workbooks. So, if we're working away in a
Workbook, and we haven't saved it and Excel crashes, we're going to be able to see our Unsaved
Workbooks listed here, and we can effectively recover them. And then finally, we also have some
Browser View Options. So if somebody else was viewing this Excel Workbook on the web, we can
control how they're viewing it.
And once again, we are going to go through all of these options as we go through this course. Something
else we also have in here are the Document Properties. Now, I haven't saved this document yet. So we
don't have too many Document Properties. It hasn't got a title, and it's blank so it doesn't really have any
size as yet. But we do have a little bit of information about this document, I can see when it was last
modified, when it was created, when it was last printed, and I can also see that I'm the author, and I was
the person who last modified this.
Now the only other option that I really want to highlight in this Backstage Area at this stage is Close at
the bottom here. If you recall, previously, when we were working in our Excel Workbook, I mentioned

Excel 2021
that if you click the cross in the top right-hand corner, that's basically going to close all of Excel. So if
you've got multiple Workbooks open, it's going to close them all. If you simply want to close the
Workbook that you currently have open, you would choose Close from here. Now it's recognizing that I
haven't saved this file. And that's fine, we don't really need this. So I'm going to say Don't Save, that file
is going to close down, but notice that Excel remains open.
And remember, if I want to quickly create a new blank Workbook again, I can use my Keyboard
Shortcut of Ctrl + N. Notice the file name at the top is now Book3. So every time you create a new
Blank Workbook and you don't save it as something else, when you create another one, it's going to be
Book3, Book4, Book5, so on and so forth. So just be aware of that. This close in here will close the
Current Workbook, the cross in the top corner will close all of Excel.
Now if you want to backtrack out of this Backstage Area and go back to your Excel Workbook, you
have a couple of different options. At the top here just above where it says Home, we have a Back
arrow. If I click this is going to take me back to my Workbook. Another way that we can do this is we
can also press the Escape key on our keyboard and that's going to take us back as well.

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Video: The Quick Access Toolbar
Deb: So now, we're a bit more familiar with the general overall layout of Excel, it's time to switch our
attention to the Quick Access Toolbar. And again, this is something I briefly mentioned at the start of
this course when we were exploring the Excel interface.
Now for me, my Quick Access Toolbar is right at the top here in the left-hand corner. And it's this tiny
little toolbar that has a few little icons on it. So where you can see the Save command, we also have
Undo, and Redo, this is basically my Quick Access Toolbar. And currently, I don't have a great deal on
there, apart from the default commands that display when you enable the Quick Access Toolbar. So
what exactly is this?
Well, the Quick Access Toolbar or QAT as it's known for short, is where we can add commands that we
use frequently. So instead of having to go through and hunt through different Ribbons for commonly
used commands, we can simply add them to this Quick Access Toolbar, which makes them super easy
to access.
Now, before we start doing that, let me show you how you can change the position of the Quick Access
Toolbar. Because currently, mine is kind of shoved up in that top left-hand corner. And when I leave
mine up there, I tend to forget that it's even there, and I very rarely use it. So I prefer to have mine
displaying underneath my Ribbons. So how do we change the position of the QAT?
Well, if we hover our mouse over this little drop Down Arrow, notice that the ScreenTip says Customize
Quick Access Toolbar. And when I click it, it's gonna open up a menu of different items. And right at
the bottom of this menu, we have an option to Show Below Ribbon. And that's going to move this to
underneath your Ribbons.
Now notice that the Save icon is still showing up in this Title Bar. So this Save icon isn't actually part of
that Quick Access Toolbar. You're going to find that this is just part of Excel’s Title Bar. So the only
commands that I currently have on my Quick Access Toolbar are Undo and Redo. Now if I click this
drop Down Arrow again, you can see that I have a few different commands in this menu that I can add
on to my Quick Access Toolbar with one click. And these are really the 15 or so commands that
Microsoft have deemed are going to be useful to you.
So, if I want to add any of these that I can see in this list to my QAT, I simply need to just select them,
and it's going to add that command. Let's also add Spelling in here as well. Now, if I want to add Save to
the Quick Access Toolbar, maybe I forget that it's up here in the top left-hand corner, I can add another
Save icon to the QAT as well.

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Now if you're looking at your Excel and you're thinking well, I don't actually see anything that
resembles this Quick Access Toolbar, it might be that you don't have it turned on. And this is one of the
things that's very different from older versions of Excel.
In the last version of Excel 365 that I used, and in versions before that, the Quick Access Toolbar was
turned on by default. And there was no way for us to control if we have it toggled on or if we have it
toggled off. But now in Excel 2021, we do have that option. So let me just show you that.
Let's jump up to File. And again, we're jumping back into our Excel Options. Now notice in this list, we
have a whole page dedicated to customizing the Quick Access Toolbar. And we're going to come back
into here in a moment and start adding commands this way. But I want to draw your attention first of all
to this bottom section.
Notice I have Show Quick Access Toolbar selected. If I deselect this box and click on Ok, it's going to
get rid of that Quick Access Toolbar altogether. So if you find that you never use it, and it's just taking
up additional room, you can definitely turn it off. Now I quite like having my Quick Access Toolbar
turned on. So, let's jump back into there and put a tick in this box.
Another thing we can do is also Display Labels for the items on our Quick Access Toolbar. So, if I
select this checkbox as well and click on Ok, now look at my Quick Access Toolbar. Instead of just the
icons, I have the actual labels. So, it's a lot easier for me to determine what each of these does. So, I can
see Undo clearly, Redo clearly, Email, so on and so forth.
So now that we've established how to activate the Quick Access Toolbar, and how we can very simply
add any of the commands from this customized Quick Access Toolbar menu, let's take a look at some
other customizations we can make. Now obviously in this right-click menu, we're not seeing all of the
commands available in Excel. So what if I want to add a completely different command onto my Quick
Access Toolbar? Maybe I'm always using Conditional Formatting.
Well, this is very simple. What you can do is right-click on any command on any Ribbon. And the first
option that you're going to have in that Contextual Menu is Add to Quick Access Toolbar. Notice as
soon as I do that, it appears with its label.
Now I mentioned in an earlier lesson that not all commands available in Excel have an icon on the
Ribbons. There are some commands that purely exist in the background, and they’re usually commands
that you don't tend to use all that often. So, what about if I want to add one of those to my Quick Access
Toolbar?
Well, this is where we can jump back into Excel Options. So let's go to File, into Options, and we're
going to go straight to Quick Access Toolbar. Now over on the right-hand side, this is where you can see

Excel 2021
the current Quick Access Toolbar. And you can see the icons that I have showing Undo, Redo, Email,
Spelling, Save, and Conditional Formatting, which is the one I just added. And on the left-hand side,
currently, I'm showing all of the popular commands in Excel.
If I wanted to see the full list of every single command available in Excel, I can choose All Commands
from this first menu. And now I have every single command in Excel available listed out in alphabetical
order. So I can now go through and I can choose any of these that I want to add. So, let's say I want to
add Shape After, click the Add button in the middle, and that's going to put that on to the Quick Access
Toolbar. And I can carry on going through adding different buttons to my Quick Access Toolbar, like
so.
And of course, if I want to remove them, I can do exactly the same thing. So, I'm actually going to
remove these Separators. And I'll explain to you what Separators are in a moment. Let's select the first
one, click Remove, select the second one, click Remove. So now that I have all of my Quick Access
Toolbar commands showing, I can reorganize these using the arrows on the right-hand side.
So, maybe I want to move Save so it's the first icon on my Quick Access Toolbar, I just need to select it
and use my arrow keys to move it up. So, don't be afraid to reorganize your commands on your QAT.
Now we just deleted out a couple of Separators there. So let me explain to you what Separators are.
Separators will effectively separate your commands on your Quick Access Toolbar into groups that you
specify. And all it really is, is a tiny, little line, it's actually barely visible. But it just does give a little bit
of structure to the Quick Access Toolbar as opposed to just having a horizontal list of commands.
So at the top of any list, you select whether it's All Commands or Popular Commands, you're going to
see a Separator. And you can add in as many Separators as you like. So, I'm going to add three into here.
And then I can move these into the correct position. So maybe I want to separate Save from everything
else. Maybe I want to separate Undo and Redo from the rest of my commands. And then finally, let's
just move this one up to let's put that just there.
Once you're happy with how you have your QAT organized, if we click on Ok, it's going to update with
those changes. And I don't know if you can just see very faint line in between these; that is the
Separator. So I definitely recommend that once you've been using Excel for a while, you're going to get
an idea of the kinds of commands that you use all the time.
And once you do know that, start adding them to your Quick Access Toolbar to make them super easy to
access so you're not digging around the different Ribbons looking for your commands. It's also worth
noting that if you want to remove commands that you've already added to the Quick Access Toolbar,
you don't have to keep going into Excel Options.

Excel 2021
You can simply right-click on the command, and then in the Contextual Menu you have a Remove from
Quick Access Toolbar option. So I'm actually going to remove the three that I just added.

Excel 2021
Video: Useful Keyboard Shortcuts
Deb: In this lesson, we're going to run through some of the most useful Keyboard Shortcuts. And we've
used quite a few Keyboard Shortcuts so far in this course. And for me, they are the number one thing to
learn if you want to improve your efficiency when working in Excel.
Now there are hundreds and hundreds of Keyboard Shortcuts and you are definitely not going to
remember all of them. Now what I would say is that most people have 10 to 15 that they use all the time.
So let me show you some of the most popular ones. Now if you take a look at my Workbook, I currently
don't have anything open. And as we've already seen, if we want to create a new Blank Workbook, we
can use the Keyboard Shortcut of Ctrl + N.
If I now wanted to save this Workbook, and bear in mind, we haven't really discussed saving in any
great detail at the moment, we could press Ctrl + S, and that's going to prompt us to save this file into a
location. Now I'm not going to do that at the moment, because we have an entire lesson on saving. Let's
just click Cancel. So now let's type something into a cell.
So I'm just going to pick a random cell somewhere in the middle here, H7 is the Cell Reference. And I'm
going to type in the number 1,000. Now what about if I want to format this number? Well, there's a
couple of things I can do here. The Ctrl + B Keyboard Shortcut is going to apply Bold Formatting. If I
then choose Ctrl + I, it's going to apply Italic Formatting.
Now notice, as I've used these Keyboard Shortcuts, if we take a look up on the Home Ribbon in the Font
group, notice that now both Bold and Italic are showing as being toggled on. What I could also do is Ctrl
+ U, that's going to toggle on the Underline. And if I want to undo the underline the Italic and the Bold,
a very important Keyboard Shortcut, which you're going to use all the time is Ctrl + Z, that's going to
undo your last action. So, I can go all the way back to how the number was originally simply by doing
Ctrl + Z three times. What about if I want to move this number to a different cell in the Worksheet?
Well, for that I can use Cut, and we have a Keyboard Shortcut for cut of Ctrl + X. Notice as soon as I
press Ctrl + X, I now have what we refer to as marching ants, or sometimes dancing ants around the
outside of the cell. And that really just lets me know that I've cut this information. Now if I was to click
the diagonal arrow next to clipboard, if you remember previously we looked in here, this is where any
cut items will be gathered.
So you can see at the top here, because I haven't pasted this yet, I've simply cut it, it's now being held on
this clipboard until I paste it elsewhere. Okay, so now what I can do is click in another cell and use the
Paste Keyboard Shortcut, which is Ctrl + V. And that is going to move that number from one cell to
another. But what about if I want to make a copy as opposed to cutting it?

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Well, the Keyboard Shortcut for copy is Ctrl + C. Again, I have my marching ants. I can select another
cell, and I can do paste Ctrl + V, and now I have a copy. Notice that the original is still showing with
marching ants around the outside. So I need to press the Escape key to deselect that cell. Now to
demonstrate some more super useful Keyboard Shortcuts, we're actually going to open a file that
contains more data, and there is a Keyboard Shortcut for Open.
If we press Ctrl + O, it's going to jump us into that Backstage Area and straight to the Open page. And
the file that I want to open, I've accessed recently. So I'm going to go to my Recent List of Workbooks,
and it's this one here. So I can just click once to open that file. So now we have quite a bit of data in
here, we can demonstrate some other useful Keyboard Shortcuts.
Now if I'm clicked in cell, A1 where we have the word Date, and I want to jump down to the last row in
this data set, I can press Ctrl + Down Arrow, and that's going to jump me to the last row. If I want to
jump back up to the top, Ctrl + Up Arrow. If I want to jump to the last column in my data set, Ctrl +
Right Arrow, and Ctrl + Left Arrow to go back.
What about instead of just moving around, I want to actually make a selection. I want to select all of the
data in column A? Well for that, we can just add in the Shift key, so Ctrl + Shift + Down Arrow, will
select all of the data in that column. If I do Ctrl + Shift + Right Arrow, it's going to select everything.
Now another way that we can select all of the data in this little table here is to press the Ctrl + A
Keyboard Shortcut. Ctrl + A is Select All. And this functions slightly differently depending on where
you're clicked.
So if you're clicked within some data, and you press Ctrl + A, it's going to basically select all of the data
that surrounds where you're clicked. So it's super useful for making very quick selections of tables and
data sets. But if I was clicked somewhere over here, just in a blank cell on this Worksheet, and I press
Ctrl + A, that's going to select every single cell in my Workbook.
Now, a Keyboard Shortcut that we've already been introduced to is Ctrl + F1. And that is going to
minimize up the Ribbon, Ctrl + F1 again, to bring it back. What about if I want to print this spreadsheet?
Now, again, we haven't really covered printing yet. But this is a very popular Keyboard Shortcut; Ctrl +
P is going to jump across to that Backstage Area, and into the Print page where we can then select our
printing options.
Remember, to come out of this Backstage Area, we can press the Escape key. So those are some of the
ones that I use all the time. Now, if you're somebody who finds it may be difficult to work with a mouse.
I know some people who have wrist injuries really struggle working with a mouse and very much prefer
to do the majority of their work using the keyboard.

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Now, if you're one of those people, and you want to navigate entirely round Excel using just the
keyboard and really cutting down on the amount of times that you're using the mouse, this next shortcut
is going to be super useful to you. If you press the Alt key on your keyboard, notice what happens to my
Ribbons, I get a special shortcut key assigned to all of the Tabs, the Search area, the items on my Quick
Access Toolbar, so on and so forth. So maybe I decide that I want to insert a shape into this Worksheet.
And I know that shapes are on the Insert Ribbon.
Instead of clicking on insert with my mouse, I could use the assigned letter. So I can see that that is N. If
I press N, it's going to jump me to that Insert Ribbon, and I get a whole new set of Keyboard Shortcuts.
So I want to go to shapes, I can see the key combination there is S + H. So I'm going to press S + H, and
it's going to drop down that Shapes menu. What I can then do is use my arrow keys to move down and
select the shape that I want to use. So it could be any of these, I'm going to go with a rectangle. And all I
need to do to select this is press the Enter key on my keyboard, and it's going to insert my shape.
If I want to nudge this or move this off of my data set, instead of using my mouse to drag it, I could use
my arrow keys, which is going to move this shape along. So, you can pretty much navigate and execute
actions entirely using your keyboard. So, don't forget about that Alt Option. If you find yourself in here,
and you want to come out of this setting, just press Alt again to get rid of those letters.
And finally, if you're really interested in Keyboard Shortcuts, and you'd like to know the full
comprehensive list of all of them available in Excel, and as I said there are hundreds, then your best bet
is to go to the Help file. And this in itself has a Keyboard Shortcut. So if we press the F1 key, this is
going to pop open Excel Help. And again, we do have an entire lesson on how to access Help. But just
to show you, if we just type in Keyboard Shortcuts and hit Enter, it's going to search the Help files.
The top option here will show us all of the Keyboard Shortcuts available in Excel. So if I click this, it's
going to open up this little pane. And if I scroll down, the Keyboard Shortcuts are divided down into
different topics. So if I go to Frequently used shortcuts, I'm going to see what all of those are. So some
of these we've already used Close a Workbook; Ctrl + W, Open; Ctrl + O, Save; Ctrl + S, Cut, Copy,
Paste, Undo, that one that you're going to be using all the time. So, this is a great little reference guide if
you are super keen on using shortcuts, as opposed to using your mouse to click on commands.

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Video: Getting Help
Deb: To finish off this introductory section, I just want to make sure you know where to go if you ever
need help when you're working in Excel, because let's face it, we all need a little bit of help sometimes.
It might be that you're not sure what a particular command does. Or maybe you know the command that
you want to use, but you don't know which Ribbon it's located on. Or maybe you just want to do some
additional reading about a command so that you know if it's going to be fit for purpose. And there are a
few different ways that we can get help in Excel.
Now two of them we've already kind of had a little look at. The most basic way to get some help is by
hovering over any of the commands in this Ribbon. These ScreenTips in themselves are help. If you just
want to know what a command does, the ScreenTips are going to show you this information. For
example, I'm hovered over Merge and Center, I can see underneath the short description, and it tells me
that if I click this button, it's going to combine and center the contents of the selected cells in a new,
larger cell. This is a great way to create a label that spans multiple columns.
And if I want any more information, if I want a bit more detail, notice that I have this little Tell Me
More link at the bottom. If I click this, it's going to jump straight into the Excel Help files and to the
exact place in these help files that I need. So now I get help on Merge and Unmerge cells. And notice in
here, I have a little tutorial video that I can play. And then underneath, I have some instructional text that
walks me through the process step by step of how to merge cells and also unmerge cells.
So, these ScreenTips are a really great way to get a quick look at what it does. And if you need more
information, you have the Tell Me More link at the bottom. And you'll notice that you have this for all
of these commands; Conditional Formatting, I have a Tell Me More link. If I go to Font Color, I have a
Tell Me More link. So a really nice way of getting to help.
Now these help files can also be accessed by pressing the F1 key on your keyboard. And if you have the
Help Ribbon showing at the top, notice that the first command on here is basically what you get when
you press the F1 key, it's exactly the same thing. We do have some other options on this help Ribbon as
well. So if you're in the US, you might want to use this Contact Support option. Now I'm in the UK, and
unfortunately, this feature isn't supported if you're outside the US.
We have a Feedback section. So this is where we can provide some feedback to Microsoft maybe about
features that we think could be improved. We have a Show Training section. So this is super useful. If
you're looking for a little bit of training in the form of video files, you can come into here and you can
search for what it is that you're looking for.

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So maybe I want to find a video, that's going to show me how to format a Table, I can click on the link
to format an Excel Table. I'll say there isn't a video for everything that you search for. But at the very
least you will get step by step instructions.
Now we also have a group here called Community. And these are going to take you to external websites.
So if we click on the Community command, it's going to open up a web browser and jump me straight
across to the Microsoft Excel Community. And this is where I can come to get some really good
information. I can become a member; I can start discussions. So if I have a particular issue, I could post
it here and get help from the Excel community. So, a really nice little option there.
I could choose Excel Blog. Again, this is going to jump me across to the Microsoft web page and to the
blog specifically about Excel. And blog posts are posted here on a frequent basis. It's a great place to
come if you're interested in keeping up to date with new things in Excel, and you're somebody who
enjoys reading blog posts.
And then finally we have the Suggest a feature button, which again allows you to make some
suggestions to Microsoft. Now aside from all of these options for Help, we have a couple of other
options. Now notice at the top of the screen, we have a Search Bar. If you click somewhere down here
on your Excel spreadsheet, and you want to quickly jump up to that Search area, notice the Keyboard
Shortcut, Alt + Q, it's going to pull your cursor up to the top.
So what I can do here is I can search for something in Excel. So maybe I want to know how to format a
table again. And what this will do is it will find if what I've typed is a command that exists in Excel. So,
Format as a Table is an actual command. And it's listed up here and it basically jumps me straight to the
command that I need. It also gives me some other selections that are similar to what I've typed. It's also
going to show me any Excel files I have that contain the words Format a Table.
And if I want to get some help on this, I can also get help from here simply by clicking Get Help on
Format a Table, and it's going to pop open that Help area again. Now, the final way that you can get help
is what we call Contextual Help. So let me show you an example. If I click the diagonal arrow in the
bottom corner of this font group, notice that in this Format Cells dialog box, I have a little question mark
icon, I have a question mark symbol. And if I hover my mouse over this symbol, it says Help. And what
this does is it provides Contextual Help.
So because I'm in the Format Cells dialog box clicked on the Font Tab, when I click on Help from here,
it's going to find me help related to the Font dialog box, which is where I currently am. So that option is
a great way of getting Contextual Help. Notice that if I do the same thing in this Alignment group,
which is basically the Format Cells dialog box again, we're just on a different Tab.

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If I click the question mark this time, it's going to open up a web page and take me to the correct page of
Help information. So, those are all of the ways that you can obtain help when you're working in Excel.

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Video: Exercise 01
Deb: It's now time for us to do our first exercise of the course, Exercise 01. And in this exercise, I'd like
you to practice the skills that you've learnt in this section.
So first, I would like you to launch Excel. And I would also like you to pin Excel to the Taskbar to make
it easy to access. Once you've done that, I would like you to customize the Quick Access Toolbar and
add the following three commands AutoSum, Wrap Text, and Fill.
I'd then like you to add a Separator to the Quick Access Toolbar. And then the final thing I'd like you to
do is to practice creating a Blank Workbook using the Keyboard Shortcuts. See how you get along with
that. And if you'd like to see my answer, then please keep watching.
So the first thing we need to do here is we need to launch Excel, and then pin it to the Taskbar. Now I'm
using Windows 11. So I'm going to jump down to my Search, type in Excel, there it is in the list. I'm
going to right-click on the application and choose to Pin to Taskbar. Now that I have it pinned to the
Taskbar, I can simply click on the icon to launch Excel.
The next thing I asked you to do was to customize the Quick Access Toolbar and add the commands
Auto Sum, Wrap Text, and Fill. So let's jump across to the Formulas Tab, find AutoSum, right-click,
add to Quick Access Toolbar. Let's go to Home, find Wrap Text, right-click, add to Quick Access
Toolbar. And the final one is also on the Home Ribbon, right-click, add to Quick Access Toolbar.
I then asked you to add a Separator to the commands on the QAT. And, I don't really mind where you
place the Separator. But to do this, you need to go into File, into Options, and Quick Access Toolbar.
And from here, we're going to select the Separator at the top, and click Add. And then, we can move it
into position using our Up and Down Arrows.
And the final thing I asked you to do in this exercise is to create a Blank Workbook using the Keyboard
Shortcut. So, all we need to do here is press Ctrl + N.

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Section 3 – Working with Templates
Video: Working with Templates
Deb: Sometimes, it can be a little bit daunting if you're asked to put together a spreadsheet from scratch.
If you're faced with just a blank Workbook, and your manager asks you to create a budget spreadsheet,
or maybe something like an invoice, you might not really know where to start. And that is where
Templates can be your best friend.
A Template is simply a pre-built spreadsheet. It contains formatting, formulas, and lots of other items.
And the great thing about Excel is that we have a whole host of inbuilt Templates that we can use for
free. So if we want to find our Templates, let's jump up to the File menu to go into that Backstage Area,
and let's jump down to New. Now if we scroll down to the lower half of this page, notice we have a tab
at the top that says Office, and one that says Personal.
Now I'm going to get into what Personal is in a moment. Let's now concentrate on this Office section.
This is where you're going to find all of your Templates. And all of the Templates in Excel are
organized into different categories to make them easier for you to find. And you'll notice just under that
Search bar at the top where it says, Search for online templates, we have some suggested search
categories.
So for example, if I was looking for some kind of Budget Template, I could click on the Budgets link
just here. It's going to search through all of the inbuilt Templates in Excel, and just present me with the
ones that are related to Budgets. And you can see in there we can go through and take a look for the one
that most suits our needs.
For example, I have some Monthly Company Budget Templates, we have a Wedding Expense Budget,
College Budget, Holiday Planner Budget, so on and so forth. Let's click the back Arrow to go back to
the main Template page. What I can also do is I can search for Templates as well using the Search bar at
the top. So maybe I need to create an invoice. I don't want to do it from scratch. So I'm going to search
to see if Excel has any Invoice Templates that I can use. And you can see that yes, we do, we have quite
a few in here.
So once you find a Template that you want to use, and I think I'm just going to choose this simple
Invoice Template. Let's click it once, it opens up a little window that gives me a little bit of information
about this Template. It also tells me who is providing this Template, in this case, Microsoft. And I also
get to see the download size as well. And I can check in that preview to make sure that this is the
Template that I want to select.
Notice that I have Arrows either sides, if I want to scroll through and take a look at some other
Templates, I can definitely do that as well. Now I'm pretty happy with this Template, so I'm just going to
click the big old green Create button in the middle there. And that is going to load up that Template into

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the main window of Excel. Now one thing to notice here is if you look up in that Title Bar, you can see
that it just says Simple Invoice1. And that is the name of this actual Template. And the cool thing about
these Templates is that they are reusable.
So if I was to come into here and make some changes, so maybe I need to change the company name,
let's just change that to IT Train Now. If I try and save this Template, it's going to ask me to save it
under a new file name. So effectively, I can't overwrite this Template, which means that if I want to
reuse this, I can just go into File, New, and reselect it again. Now all of the elements of these Templates
can be customized.
So if you don't particularly like the colors that are in use here, you can change things like that by simply
using your Formatting tools at the top. Also notice that all of these fields are editable, I can just double-
click in them if I want to add information. And also notice that I have some formulas included in this
Template as well. So if I click on cell G9, if you take a look up in the Formula Bar, you can see there's
already a formula in that cell. And what this is basically going to do is when I start adding in Line Items
it’s automatically going to calculate.
So if I add in the Line Item, let's just add something in. I'm going to put in webinar, I've got one, the unit
price is 250, and there's no discount. Notice that it automatically totals for me. So by using this
Template, I've saved so much time because it means that I don't have to hash out the main structure of
this invoice myself, I don't have to add formulas, I don't have to add formatting.
Now once I've finished editing this, I have two options when it comes to saving. I'm going to talk a bit
more about this when we get into the lesson related to saving. But I could choose just to save this as a
regular Excel Workbook. Or I could choose to save this as a Template file. And in fact, I can save any
Workbook that I create as a Template file if I want to.
So maybe, let's delete out what we've added in here. Maybe I make some changes to this Template. So
let's just change the background fill at the top here, I'm going to change that to this dark red color.
Maybe I've made some other changes, maybe I've added my company logo, something like that. And
now maybe going forward, I always want to use this Template, which I've now customized a little bit
instead of starting from the blank invoice Template every single time.
So if I want to use my customized Template, I would need to save this as a Template file. So if I jump
up to File and go down to Save As, I'm going to browse for location to save this in, and for the time
being, I'm just going to save this on my Desktop. But what I need to do here is I need to give it a name.
So maybe I want to call this Train IT Now Invoice Template, but I need to change the type of file that
I'm saving it as.
So instead of just saving it as a regular Excel Worksheet, I want to save this as a Template file. And
you'll see if we click the drop down just here, we have this file type .xltx, which is an Excel Template
file. Now notice that as soon as I change this Save As file type, it jumps me to an entirely different
folder. If you remember, I had selected my Desktop to save this to. As soon as I change this, I am now in

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the Custom Office Templates folder. And this is the default folder where Microsoft saves any Templates
that you create.
Now, you could choose to override this and go back and save it to whichever folder you prefer. But
there is one big advantage of saving it into the default folder. So let's click on Save. I can now see that
that file name has changed, and I'm going to close down this Template. And for this, I'm going to use the
keyboard shortcut Ctrl + W.
Now if I want to reuse that Template, if I go to File, and down to New, this is what this Personal section
is for at the bottom. So when you save a Template into the Default Templates folder is going to save it to
Personal in here. And it just means that any Template that you create, you can access very quickly from
this Personal section. And you can see there is my Template on the NTA Train IT Now Invoice
Template.
If I had chosen to save this Template to my Desktop, as opposed to in the Custom Templates folder, I
wouldn't be able to select it from this Personal section. So, I'll leave that up to you to determine if you
want to save it in here or if you have a specific folder that you'd like to save your Templates into. But
just be aware of that distinction, because saving it into Personal makes it so much easier to access.
Let's just click to open this again. It's now opened my Template with my customizations. I can update
this file maybe for a new client, and then I could choose to just save this as a regular Excel file if I need
to send that to the client, and then reuse my Template again for the next client. So, Templates are
definitely worth checking out if you want to get a head start on spreadsheet creation.

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Video: Working with Workbooks and Worksheets
Deb: As I mentioned previously, every Workbook in Excel can contain numerous different Worksheets.
And you can have up to 255 Worksheets per Workbook. So, that is a lot of data. So, you have the
potential to have a lot of data stored within each Workbook.
The Workbook is the overall container that houses the Worksheets. So, if we take a look at my
Workbook, this Workbook is currently unsaved. But the Workbook is called Book1. And currently, I
have one Worksheet in this Workbook called Sheet1. And you can see that as a tab at the bottom of the
screen. And it's fundamental to your understanding of basic Excel to know how to work with your
Worksheets.
So let's take a look at some of the basic things that are important to know. Each Worksheet in your
Workbook contains a grid structure of what we call Cells. Each Workbook contains columns represented
by letters, and rows, represented by numbers. And these rows and columns where they intersect, we
have what we refer to as cells. And it's in these cells where we type all of our information. And each cell
can contain numerous different types of data.
It might be that we're typing text into a cell, or it could be that we're typing numbers into a cell. We can
type things like percentages into cells, or even dates. And everything you type into a cell in a Worksheet
can be formatted so that it looks exactly as you want it to look. And as we already know, we identify
different cells in a Worksheet by using the Cell Reference. So where the column and the row intersect,
we get our Cell Reference.
So currently, I'm clicked on cell G5. And it's these Cell References that are used consistently throughout
Excel when we're building things like formulas. And pretty much when we're doing anything in Excel, it
all relates to the Cell Reference. Now when it comes to your different Worksheets, you'll notice that
when you create a new blank Workbook in Excel, you're just going to get a default Worksheet, that's
called Sheet1. And each Worksheet contains over 1 million rows.
If I click in cell A1 and press Ctrl + Down Arrow, that's going to jump me down to the very last row in
this Workbook. So you can see they're just over a million, Ctrl + Up Arrow to jump to the top. If I do
Ctrl + Right Arrow, it's going to jump me to the last column. And there are just over 16,000 columns in
one Worksheet. Ctrl + Left Arrow to jump back to cell A1. So what that means is that within each
Worksheet, we have roughly 17 billion cells, and we have the potential to fill all of those with data.
Now, this is not something I would advise when you start getting into spreadsheets that are that large,
you're probably going to find Excel starts to slow down greatly. But, just be aware of the potential
amount of data that you can squeeze into every Worksheet. Now, what about managing different
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Well, again, if we go down to the bottom, where we have Sheet1, this isn't a particularly meaningful
name, it's rather generic. So what I would probably do here is immediately rename this Worksheet to
make it a little bit more meaningful, depending on what I have on this Worksheet. Now, I don't have
anything at the moment, but let me just show you how you can rename your Worksheets.
If you right-click on the tab, it's going to pull up that contextual menu. And we have a number of
different Worksheet-related menu items in here. And one of them is Rename. You can now see Sheet1 is
highlighted, and I can just go in and call it something else. It's also worth noting that to rename, you can
simply double-click on the tab, and it will let you rename that way as well. Let's right-click again and
take a look at some of these other options.
Now if I want to insert another Worksheet in this Workbook, I have an Insert option just here. It's going
to ask me what I want to insert. The first option that's highlighted is Worksheet. So I'm just going to
click on Ok. And now I get a brand new Worksheet. Now a much quicker way of doing exactly the same
thing is simply to click on the + just here. So when I click on +, I get yet another Worksheet.
And once again, I can right-click, and I can rename so let's call this one Calculations. Let's right-click
and call this one Tables and hit Enter. If I want to reorder my Worksheet, so maybe Summary needs to
be the first Worksheet in this Workbook, I can simply drag and drop. So let's click on Summary, drag it
over, notice I get that little down facing black Arrow, which is going to show me where this tab will be
placed when I let go of my mouse. Let's let go to reorganize those tabs.
Let's right-click again, I have a Move or Copy option in here. So from here, what I could do is I could
choose to move or copy this particular Worksheet to a completely different Workbook that I have open.
Now I don't currently have another Workbook open, I just have Book1. But if I was to select New Book,
and click Ok, it's going to move the Summary tab to a brand new Excel Workbook. If I want to create a
copy, as opposed to moving it, I would need to make sure I select Create a copy.
If I click on Ok, now, what you'll see is that I now have a new book at the top, Book2, which contains
that Summary tab. Now I don't need this, so I'm going to do Ctrl + W to close this down. Let's right-
click one more time and on the subject of Moving and Copying, if I want to make a copy of a Worksheet
within the same Workbook, I can simply hold down my Ctrl key, drag and drop, and it's going to make
an exact copy of that Worksheet. And it will copy across all of the data contained on that Worksheet as
well.
And of course, we can right-click and delete any Worksheets that we no longer need. Another cool thing
to do is to change the Tab Color of the different Worksheets and essentially, color code your Workbook.
This is particularly useful if you are working on a large project where you have numerous different tabs,

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grouping them together using colors is a really nice visual way of adding some structure to your
Worksheets and letting people know that these tabs are related.
So if we right-click, we have Tab Color just here. I can choose green from the palette, and maybe Tables
and Calculations are related but Summary isn't. So maybe, I want to make the other two tabs exactly the
same blue color.
And one final little tip before we move on. If you're interested in knowing the keyboard shortcut to
quickly insert a new tab, it is Shift + F11. Let's move this by dragging and dropping. I'm going to right-
click and change the color to blue, and then I'm going to rename this to Pivot, and hit Enter.

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Video: Saving Workbooks
Deb: So far in this course, we've been working away inside different Workbooks. But I haven't yet
shown you how to save your Workbooks. So let's take a look at that now. Now most of us are familiar
with saving documents and spreadsheets. And I will say that if you're used to saving documents in other
Microsoft applications, such as Word and PowerPoint, then this is pretty much exactly the same.
Now there are a few different methods that you can use when it comes to saving Workbooks in Excel
2021. And there is a fundamental difference between Excel for Microsoft 365, and the new Excel 2021
version. If you're used to using Microsoft 365, or specifically Excel in Microsoft 365, you may have
noticed that in the Quick Access Toolbar, there is an AutoSave Slider. And basically what this means is
that as you work away in your Worksheets, Excel is constantly saving your Workbook.
And the cool thing about that is that it means you are very unlikely to lose any work if Excel was to
unexpectedly crash. Now in Excel 2021, because this is a standalone version and not a cloud version, we
don't have the AutoSave toggle. So this means that you need to save your document or your Workbook
as you're working. Now, of course, we do have some backup to that. There are AutoSave capabilities
within Excel 2021, which I'll show you in a moment. But just be aware of that fundamental difference if
you are coming to this course after using Microsoft 365.
Now when it comes to saving, you have a few different options. We have a Save button on the Quick
Access Toolbar. And you can see as I hover over that you can also see the shortcut key for save, which
is Ctrl + S. And that is probably the quickest way to save your Workbook as you're working. I know that
for me, I am now in the habit of periodically sort of every five minutes or so just quickly doing Ctrl + S
to make sure that everything that I'm doing is saved.
Also notice we have a Save icon up in that Title Bar. And if we go to the File Tab to jump into that
Backstage Area, we also have Save, and Save As in here. Now what is the difference between these
two?
Well, you would use Save As if this is the first time that you're saving your Workbook. So if you create
a new blank Workbook, as we have done here, it's going to be assigned the generic name of Book1,
Book2, Book3, so on and so forth. So effectively, when I save this, I'm going to be saving it for the first
time. So I would need to do File, Save As.
Now the thing is here that if I was just to press Ctrl + S to Save, it's going to basically ask me to Save As
anyway. The same thing is going to happen if I go to File, and down to Save as opposed to Save As, it's
gonna jump me across to the Save As tab anyway, because it's the first time I'm saving. So now from
here, I can browse to a location where I want to save this file. Now I'm going to save all of my course
files on my Desktop. And I would recommend that for the purpose of this course you find a location like

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your Desktop, or maybe even My Documents, create yourself a little folder and call it something along
the lines of, Course Files, just so you have somewhere to save all of these files that we’re creating
during this course.
So I've created a brand new little folder, let's double-click to open it up. And now I can give my file a
name. Now when it comes to naming files, a lot of people like to use some kind of naming convention.
And it might be that within your business, you have a standard way that you name files. For example, if
you're saving an invoice, you might start all file names with INV, and then maybe the date and then the
invoice number, something like that.
Now for this first file, because it is our first one, I'm just gonna call it My First Workbook. Now by
default, if you want to save an Excel file, the file extension is .xltx. And you can see that underneath that
is the default file extension that it's giving me. And basically the main point of file extensions is really to
help identify what type of file this is. For example, if I'm in File Explorer, and I double-click to open a
file with the file extension .xltx, File Explorer knows that that's an Excel file and it needs to launch
Excel.
Now in this Save As type, if we click, you can see that we have so many different file types that we can
save our Workbooks as, and we will dip in and out of some of these as we go through the course. In fact,
in the last lesson we briefly took a look at saving files as Excel Templates. But for the time being, we
just want to save this as a regular default Excel file, so let's just click on the Save button. Now as soon as
I do that, it jumps me back to my Workbook. And you can now see in the Title Bar, it's updated to say,
My First Workbook.
So now I can go in, and I can start to work. So maybe I'm just typing some numbers into this Workbook.
And if I want to save as I go along, I can press Ctrl + S keyboard shortcut, or I can click the Save button
on the Quick Access toolbar. Now what about if I've been working for two to three hours, and I've just
completely forgotten to save. If that does happen, I have the potential to lose quite a lot of work if I
accidentally close down Excel or maybe it unexpectedly crashes.
So to help with this, we have some AutoSave options that we should be reviewing before we really start
working in Excel. And we'll find those options underneath the File Tab. And if we go all the way down
to Options at the bottom, notice in here we have a page specifically related to saving Excel Workbooks.
Now it's this section just here that you want to double check.
I can see here that I'm saving files by default in the standard Excel format, which is perfect. And then
underneath, I have this little checkbox selected, “Save AutoRecover information every”. And then I
have mine set to 5 minutes. But you could choose to take this down to 1 minute, 2 minutes or even take
it up to 10 minutes, 15 minutes. But that basically means that if Excel does crash and you haven't saved

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it, you're really only going to lose up to 5 minutes of work, because Excel is going to AutoSave every 5
minutes.
Also know that I have checked underneath, “Keep the last Auto Recovered version if I close without
saving”. So what does that exactly mean? Well, let's click on Ok. I'm going to make a few further
changes to this Workbook. I'm just going to add some numbers in here. And I'm not going to save, but
I'm going to just close this Workbook.
Now notice it says, “Want to save your changes to My First Workbook.xlsx?” So it's recognized that I
have unsaved changes and has prompted me to save, so I can now choose to save or don't save. Now I'm
going to click Cancel here. Now sometimes if Excel crashes, it's not going to pop up that message. But
because we've chosen to AutoRecover, the next time we open Excel, we're going to get a message at the
top saying that files have been auto recovered, and we're going to get the chance to restore them.
And in that scenario, what I could also do is go to File, into Info, and underneath this Manage Workbook
area, I have an option to Recover Unsaved Workbooks. So this is going to pop me to a folder where any
unsaved files are stored. And you can see that I have one in here. So this is one I was working on
yesterday, I think, and my laptop actually ran out of power and just closed itself down. So you can see
that Excel has actually recovered that book just there.
If I want to reopen that, I can, just by clicking the Open button. So the main takeaways here are the
different methods you can use to save your file, how you can Save As into a folder, and also how you
can review your AutoSave and AutoRecover options.

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Video: Entering and Editing Data
Deb: All different types of data can be entered into cells in an Excel Worksheet. We can enter text, we
can enter numbers, decimal numbers, percentages, formulas, and many other data types. So let's take a
look at some of the basic things you need to know when it comes to entering and editing data in cells.
So currently, I am in My First Workbook, and I'm clicked on the Calculations tab. And what I'm going
to do is I'm going to jump up to cell B3, and I'm going to type in the word, Months. So to type into a
cell, simply select the cell and start typing. Now notice as I type into the cell, the word that I've typed
also appears in the Formula Bar.
So anytime you click on a cell that contains numbers or text, you're going to see the contents of that cell
also reflected in the Formula Bar. And you could in fact, if we just backspace out of here, if I wanted to
use the Formula Bar, instead of typing into the cell, I could click up in the Formula Bar, type the same
thing, and it's going to enter it into the cell.
Now one thing to note here is, once you finished typing in your piece of data into the cell, you have a
couple of different options. If I press the Enter key, the cursor is going to move down to the cell below,
ready for me to type in my next piece of data. Now, if I type into a cell, and I want to stay in the same
cell, I can press Ctrl + Enter, and it's going to leave my cursor there. And that's particularly useful in
many, many different scenarios.
If I want to type something in the cell to the right of where I've typed Jan, I can simply press the Tab
Key, or I could use my mouse to click on the cell. I can also use my Arrow keys to navigate horizontally
and vertically in a spreadsheet. Now that I have Jan in here underneath the heading Months, what I
effectively want to do is I want to list out all of the months of the year. So what I could do, I guess is go
through and just type them all in. There aren't that many, so it's not going to take too long.
But we have a special little tool in Excel which recognizes certain standard patterns, so things like
months of the year, and days of the week. So if I just delete out, and I'm just highlighting both of those
cells and pressing the Delete key on my keyboard, what I could do is use my AutoFill handle to fill the
rest of these months into the Worksheet.
Now the AutoFill handle is this tiny little solid green square in the bottom right-hand corner of the cell.
If I hover my mouse over it, you can see that it changes to a small black cross. So what I can do now is
click and start to drag down. And notice the ScreenTip, it’s telling me what it's going to fill into the cell
when I let go. So I can drag this all the way down to December, let go, and I haven't had to type those in,
Excel has done all the hard work for me. So Excel recognizes certain patterns.

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If I go to cell C3, and type in Days, and hit Enter, and now type in Monday, this would be a good
example of when I want to stay in the same cell because I want to use that little AutoFill handle again.
Ctrl + Enter to stay in the cell, and then I can drag down and complete the days of the week. So, a really
nice quick way to get that information into a spreadsheet. We can also do this with things like dates.
So if you need to type in lots of dates, let's just say the 01/01/2021, I'm going to do Ctrl + Enter to stay
in the cell. And if I drag down, you can see it goes up by different days. And just a quick point to note
here for all of our American viewers, I'm actually using the British format for my dates, we do switch
around the day and the month. So if that's confusing you a little bit, that is why. Now what about if I
type in something like let's say week number?
The first thing to note here is that week number kind of breaches the boundaries of column E. You can
see it looks like it's spilling across into column F. Well, in fact, it actually is all contained within cell E3,
but it's too wide for the current width of the cell. So in this type of scenario, you're going to probably
want to resize the width of column E to accommodate the full length of the text. And there's a very quick
way that we can do this.
If we hover our mouse over the boundary between column E and column F and double-click, that's
going to auto fit that column to the width of the longest item in the column, and that is a really useful
little trick. You can also apply that trick to multiple columns. So if I select all of these columns, again, I
can double-click, and it's going to resize or auto fit those columns. Now what about if I type in numbers?
Well, if I start to type in 123, I could carry on going. But again, I could use my AutoFill to make this
even more useful. So what I could do here is select all of those numbers, carry on dragging down, and
you can see that it's going to fill in the rest of them for me. And a bit later on in this course, when we
talk about AutoFill, I'm going to show you an even quicker way to fill in lots of different numbers. So if
you need to type into an Excel spreadsheet numbers 1 to 10,000, there is a very quick way of doing that.
But what about if I want to go back and edit cells, so maybe I want to change where it says Jan, to
January? Well, again, there's a couple of different ways that I can do this. I can click on the cell and
double-click my mouse, and that's going to put me in edit mode. And I can now just go in and change
that to January and hit Enter.
And for this, I think I'm probably going to want to widen out this column, and I can actually drag this
and customize how wide I have that column. Another way that I can edit cells is to press the F2 key on
my keyboard, which again, puts me into Edit mode, and I can simply jump in there and edit.
The third way I can edit is to go up to the Formula Bar and make any changes I need to from up there as
well. And now that I have these all in long format, I'm going to select them all and re-drag down and it's
going to switch or auto fill the rest of those long format months. Now other common ways for getting

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data into your Worksheet is to import data from other Worksheets or other sources. You can even import
things from Word or PowerPoint if you wanted to, using Copy and Paste. And you can even copy and
paste things from one part of your Workbook to another part of your Workbook.
So for example, if I now wanted this little column of data here, where we have the Months, if I wanted
to copy that and paste it over here in column L, I can simply do that using Copy and Paste. So I'm going
to select all of these months, up on the Home ribbon, you can see in the Clipboard group, we have
options for Cut, Copy, and Paste. And all three of these have keyboard shortcuts, Ctrl + X, Ctrl + C, and
then Ctrl + V. So it's up to you which method you use.
And the difference between Cut and Copy is that Cut will move, and Copy will copy. So I'm going to
click Copy. Notice that as soon as I click, that cell range now has those marching ants around the outside
to show that I've selected and I'm about to copy, I can then click in cell 3, and I can click the Paste
button to paste that information in. Remember, if you want to deactivate this selection that you've made,
just press the Escape key.
Now Cut, Copy, and Paste works across the Microsoft applications. So if I have something in Word that
I want to bring into Excel, I can do that by using Copy and Paste as well. So here I just have, “Hello
World” in a Word document. I can select it, and I can use the same tools on the Home tab, I can Copy.
Let's go back to Excel, I can choose a cell and then I can simply click the Paste button to paste that text
in. And of course, if I want to I can reformat this so it matches the font of everything else in my
Workbook.
So currently, I can see that this is Calibri font, and the rest of my Workbook is in Arial. So I can simply
go in and also change this to Arial. Now the final thing that's worth noting here is that if you're going to
use the Formula Bar to enter data in, so for example, let's select cell C4. If I want to change this to
Monday, I can do that up in the Formula Bar, and I can simply type in Monday.
Notice that I also have a little tick and cross next to the Formula Bar. And the tick is basically the same
as pressing the Enter key. If I decide I want to cancel and just go back to the word “Mon”, I could click
on the cross to cancel. So in this case, I'm happy with this. Let's click the tick which is basically the
same as clicking Enter. I'm now going to drag down to change all of those to the long version of the day.

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Video: Navigating and Selecting Cells and Ranges (1)
Deb: Another important thing to know when you're learning Excel is how you can make different
selections in your Worksheet. Now for this example, we're going to switch to another Workbook that
contains a lot more data.
Now before we do that, let's just very quickly give my first Workbook a save. So I'm going to press Ctrl
+ S, just to save those changes. So now what we're going to do is we're going to flip across to a larger
dataset that contains sales data. And you'll find this file saved in the Course Files folder. Now, notice
here, this is standard sales data, we have some column headings running across the top, and then we
have our data.
And this data set is reasonably large, at least a lot larger than the ones that we've been working on in
previous lessons. And if I press Ctrl + Down Arrow, as we know that jumps us to the last row of our
data, you can see that I have just over 21, and a half thousand rows. Ctrl + Up Arrow is going to jump
me to the top. Also remember when it comes to navigating, if I press Ctrl + Right Arrow, it's going to
jump me to the last column of data and Ctrl + Left Arrow will jump me to the first column.
Now there are lots of different ways that you can make selections in Excel. And a basic cell selection
would be simply clicking on a cell in our Worksheet. If we want to select more than one cell, we can
simply click and drag our mouse to select the cell range that we're interested in.
So maybe I want to apply some formatting to the column headings in this Worksheet, I can make my
selection just by clicking and dragging. And then I can go up to my Font Formatting area, I'm going to
click the Font Color drop down, and I'm going to change this to a red font. So cell selections are very
straightforward. Simply click, drag to make your selection.
Now, notice here, all of the selections that I've been making using this method are cells that are all next
to each other. What about if I want to select what we call non-contiguous cells or cells that aren't next to
each other. What I could do here is select the first few cells, hold down my Ctrl key, and then make
another selection, hold down my Ctrl key again, and make another selection, and just keep doing that.
So the addition of the Ctrl key when you're selecting cells will allow you to select cells which aren't
necessarily next to each other. And if I wanted to apply formatting to all of these cells, for example,
bold, I can simply click Bold, and I get the effect that I want. Now, I don't want these to be in bold, so
let's just toggle our bold Back off. Now what about if I want to make a selection in my Worksheet of an
entire column of data?
So for example, in column H, where we have some sales figures, I have some numbers that currently
aren’t formatted. As in, they don't have any currency symbols or decimal places or anything like that.

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What about if I want to change the format of all of the sales figures in here? Do I really want to be
clicking and dragging my mouse down 27,000 rows in order to select this cell range? Well, no, not
really, it's not the most time efficient way to do this.
What I could do instead is click in the first cell, H2, and press the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + Shift + Down
Arrow, and that's going to select every cell downwards that I have in my data set. Now that I've made
that selection, I can simply go in and apply some currency formatting. And we haven't really spoken a
great deal about number formatting so far in this course, so I'm going to jump ahead very slightly here.
So just above in this number group, I can click the drop down. And I'm going to say that I want this
formatted as a currency. And you can see how that affects those numbers. So, don't forget that very
useful keyboard shortcut of Ctrl + Shift + Down Arrow to make a selection of all of the data in the
column.
Now, so far, we've been very much focused on making cell selections. But cell selections aren't the only
things that we can select when we're working in Excel. For example, maybe I want to make a column
selection, or maybe I want to select an entire row. So this is very straightforward. If I want to select a
column, I can simply hover my mouse over the top of the column where we have the letter. Notice that I
get a little black downward facing arrow. And if I click that is going to select the entire column.
And I mean, it's going to select the entire column as in, it's going to select every single cell in that
column all the way down to the bottom of the Workbook. If I want to select multiple columns, again, I
can simply drag my mouse across to make multiple selections. If I want to select columns that aren't
next to each other, again, I just add in that Ctrl key when I click. And the same works for making row
selections.
I can hover my mouse over the row until I get the right pointing black arrow, I can click to select one
row, I can click and drag to select multiple rows, or I can add in that Ctrl key to select non-contiguous
rows. It's also worth noting that you can make selections just using your keyboard. So if I'm clicked in
cell A2, and I want to select all of the data in this particular row, if I hold down Shift and then use my
Arrow keys, it's going to allow me to select that data. If I keep Shift held down and use my Down Arrow
key, it’s going to go down the rows, I can use my Up Arrow to refine my selection further.
And then the final thing that's worth pointing out about making selections is Select All. And Select All
functions differently depending on where you're clicked in your Worksheet. So if I'm clicked within my
data, and I press Ctrl + A, which is the keyboard shortcut for Select All, it's going to select all of the data
that it finds surrounding where I'm currently clicked.
Now, if I was clicked on a blank cell somewhere else in the Worksheet or not within my actual data, and
I press Ctrl + A, it's going to select every single cell in my Worksheet. Now I find myself using Ctrl + A

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with inside my data all the time. If I want to format this data as a table, or maybe I want to add borders
or something like that, I'll find myself making this selection. And then from there, I can go up and
maybe add a border around the outside of every single cell. It just makes this entire process a lot
quicker. So, that is how you can make basic cell, row, and column selections when you're working in
your Worksheets.

Excel 2021
Video: Exercise 02
Deb: So guys, it's time for Exercise 2. And in this exercise, we're going to practice the skills that we've
learned in this section.
So the first thing I'd like you to do is create a Template. So I'd like you to search for the key word
“Invoice” in the Template library. I'd like you to open one of the Invoice Templates, and I'll leave it up
to you to decide which one you want to open. And I'd like you to save it as Invoice Template with the
correct Template file extension. And I want you to make sure that you save it to the Default Templates
folder.
Once you've done that, I'd like you to create a new blank Workbook. I'd like you to rename Sheet1 to
Summary, and then add three more Worksheets and then rename each of those Worksheets to Sales
Data, Calculations, and Charts. Next, we're going to practice entering data into our Worksheets.
So on the Sales Data Worksheet, in cell A1, I'd like you to type in a title that says Sales Data for 2020.
I'd like you to format that title. So make sure that the font size is 14 points, and it's in Bold. Then in cells
A3 to C3, I'd like you to enter the headings, Month, Revenue, and Profit. And then in cell A4, enter the
word Jan. I'd then like you to use the fill handle to copy down the months, February and March.
And then finally, I’d just like you to add some values for Revenue and Profit like I have in the
screenshots. And then the final thing we need to do for this exercise is simply save this Excel
Workbook. So I'd like you to create a folder on your Desktop and name it Excel Practice Files, and then
save the Workbook as Exercise02 Practice. That's it guys. If you'd like to see my answer, then please
keep watching.
So the first thing we need to do here is search for an Invoice Template in the Template library. So let's
go to File, and down to New. I'm going to scroll down to my Templates, and in the Search box, I'm
going to type in Invoice and hit Enter. Now I didn't mind which one of these you chose. So I'm just
going to choose this first one just here. Let's double-click to open it up and load it into Excel.
Next, I asked you to save this as a Template file into the Default Templates folder. So we're going to say
File, Save As, let's click on Browse, and remember, we need to change the Save As type to an Excel
Template. Now that is automatically going to jump across to the correct folder. And I'm just going to
call this Invoice_Template, and click on Save.
Next I asked you to create a brand new blank Workbook, so Ctrl + N to do that. We're going to rename
Sheet1 to Summary, so we can double-click and type in the word Summary. I then asked you to add
three more sheets. So let's click the plus once, twice, three times, and then rename these Worksheets to
Sales Data, Calculations, and the final one is going to be Charts. We're then going to switch to the Sales

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Data tab and in cell A1 we're going to add a title. So this is Sales Data for 2020. We're going to format
this font so that it is 14 points and also Bold. And then in cells, A3 to C3, we're going to type in some
headings; Month, Revenue, and Profit.
And then underneath, we're going to type the word Jan, Ctrl + Enter to stay in the same cell, and I'm
going to use my AutoFill handle just to fill down February and March. I then asked you just to enter
some numbers into the Revenue and Profit fields. And again, I don't really mind what numbers you
entered in here. And just to finish this off, I'm going to give these headings a bit of Bold formatting. And
we're also going to apply a Background fill.
Next I asked you to create a folder on your Desktop, and call it Excel Practice Files. So all we need to do
here is right-click our mouse, go to New, and Folder. We'll call this Excel Practice Files, and hit Enter.
And then we're going to save this file into that folder. So let's go to Browse, to our Desktop, and open up
that new folder. And I'm going to call this Exercise02_Practice, and click on the Save button.

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Section 4 – Formulas and Functions Explained
Video: Formulas and Functions Explained
Deb: It's now time for us to move on and concentrate on the exciting part of Excel. And that is Formulas
and Functions. Formulas are really what Excel is most known for. And all Formulas are, if you're not
familiar with them, are basically calculations. And the simplest example of the type of Formula that you
can do in Excel is a SUM calculation. And what I mean by that is just simply adding up a list of
numbers in a Worksheet.
Now before we get too far ahead of ourselves, let's fully explore what Formulas and Functions are, and
I'll show you the basics of how they work. It's really important that you understand how Formulas are
constructed and the general layout and how they calculate before you can move on to more complex
Formulas. Now, you'll notice there that I've used the words Formulas and Functions kind of
interchangeably. And in many respects, that is absolutely fine.
A Formula is a calculation that uses Excel Functions. And if you're wondering what a Function is, well,
if you take a look on your Formulas tab, notice here we have a Function Library. And there are over 500
Functions in Excel that will help you construct very simple to very complex Formulas. Each Function is
assigned to a specific group. So really, whatever it is that you're trying to do determines which Function
you're going to use in your Formula.
Now, I will say that throughout your Excel career, you're probably never ever going to use all 500
minutes. A lot of them are very specialized and tailored towards specific industries, like engineering or
accounting. But there are definitely 15 to 20 Formulas that you'll find yourself using all the time. And
it's really important that you have knowledge of the basic Formulas, or what I call the Big Five Formulas
in Excel. And that is what we're going to start out with in this section. So, let's take a look at how
Formulas are constructed.
Now I'm working in the Formulas and Functions Explained Workbook. And you'll find that in the
Course Files Folder. We have three tabs at the bottom, and I'm currently clicked on the Intro tab. So let's
start out with a basic SUM calculation where we're adding numbers together. If I have a couple of
numbers in a Worksheet, so let's just say I have 10 and 20 in here, and I now want to add both of these
together, I could construct a very basic Formula.
Now when you're typing in any Formula into Excel, you must always start with an equals in the cell.
That tells Excel that you want to type an actual Formula as opposed to typing text into the cell. So if I
want to add 10 and 20, together, I could type 10 + 20. And when I hit Enter, it's going to give me that
correct answer of 30. Now the way that I've done this, and if I click on this cell, you can see in the

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Formula bar, this isn't the most efficient way of working with numbers in Excel. Because what this
means is that if either of these numbers above were to change. So let's change the 10 to a 5, the Formula
isn't going to update because I've hardcoded the numbers into the Formula.
A much better way of working with numbers when you're doing calculations is to use the Cell
References instead. So what I could type instead is = F3 + F4, and hit Enter. So that gives me the answer
of 25. But because I'm using the Cell References, now, when any of the numbers change in either of
those cells, the Formula is going to automatically update. So, this cuts down on the amount of editing
I'm having to do if numbers are constantly changing. So, my first tip is always use Cell References in
your Excel Formulas. So, that is one way I could add up some numbers.
But what if I have a much longer list of numbers like I have in this little table? I have some figures in
here, let's just say they’re sales figures for the months January to December for the year 2020. And I
want to add them all up so that I get a total in cell C15. Well, what I could do here, I guess is I could
type in equals and I could use the same method I could select cell C3 + and I can go to C4 + C5 + so on
and so forth. But that's going to take me quite a bit of time.
Imagine if I had 10,000 rows of data, and I wanted to add up all of the numbers in 10,000 rows. Do I
really want to go through and start individually selecting cells and separating them with a + symbol? No,
I don't. So this is where we could use an Excel Function, instead of just the Cell References. So, let's
escape out of here, because we're going to use the SUM Function instead. And SUM is normally the first
Formula that everybody learns in Excel.
Now notice, as I typed in the word SUM, I have a list of Functions appear underneath. And this is
something called IntelliSense. As I start to type in a Formula, Excel searches through its massive
Function Library, to try and match what it is that I'm typing. So currently, it's brought up all of the
Functions that have something to do with SUM. Now, the one that I want is the one at the top of this list.
So I could press the Tab key simply to select it.
Now notice what it's also done there, it's put in an open bracket or a parenthesis if you're in the US, and
brackets contain what we call our Function Arguments. That is the information that we need to provide
to the Function so it knows what to calculate. And you'll notice underneath we get a little bit of helper
text. So it's telling me that I need to provide some numbers, basically, what do I want to add up? So
what I can do here is simply select the entire Cell Range that I want to add up.
Now notice that I have two dots, separating C3 and C14, which basically means Cell Range C3 to C14.
Now if you've got an open bracket, you must always remember to close off as many brackets as you've
opened. So now if I hit Enter, it's very quickly use the SUM Function to add up everything in the Cell
Range above. Now notice that I have a little green triangle in the left-hand corner of this cell. And I'm
going to talk to you more about what exactly that is and why it's appearing when we talk about Error

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Checking. So now that we've seen our first very basic Formula, I just want to talk to you in a bit further
detail about Operators. So, let's jump across to the Operator Worksheet.
Now, when you're doing calculations in Excel, you can do additions, subtractions, multiplications,
divisions, and other things, these are by no means all of the Operators that we can use in Excel, they're
just really the main four, and the four we're going to be focusing on in this section. So again, if I had a
couple of numbers in some cells here, and I wanted to subtract these, what I could do is I could say, cell
F5 - F4, and that's going to give me my total.
Similarly, I could do F5, multiplied, which is the Asterix symbol on your keyboard by F4, to get a
different total. And if I want to do a division, I can select the cell, and we want to put a forward slash in
there, and then select our other cell to perform that calculation. So don't forget about these different
Operators and make sure you know where to find those on your keyboard. Now, so far, we've been
taking a look at very simple Formulas in their structure. And what I mean by that is that we've just been
adding, subtracting, and multiplying two numbers together.
Now what about if I have a more complex calculation? So what if I wanted to type in something like 10
+ 2 / 2? What do you think the result of that calculation is going to be? Because in my mind, this
calculation is doing 10 + 2, which is going to be 12, /2, which is going to give me 6. If I press Enter,
Excel comes back with 11. Now why is it giving me a result of 11 as opposed to 6?
Well, this has something to do with what we call the order of operations. And this is going to take you
all the way back to Maths class when you're at school. So let's jump across to the BODMAS Worksheet.
Now in Maths we have the BODMAS principle or the BODMAS rule. And I know that the acronym for
this role is different in different countries. In some places, it's referred to as PIDMAS, sometimes
PIDMAS, but the rules are effectively exactly the same. So, I've got two versions of it listed out here.
And what this rule does is it tells us the order in Maths that calculations are performed. So basically,
anything that's in brackets within a calculation is going to be calculated first, it will then calculate the
orders, so things like square roots. It will then do division, followed by multiplication, then addition and
then subtraction. So, based on this rule, we can work out why we're getting the answer of 11, as opposed
to 6. So if I go back to my BODMAS page, and let's just type this in again, 10 + 2 / 2.
So if we now look at the BODMAS rule, do I have anything in this Formula in brackets? No, I don't. Do
I have any orders? No, I don't. Do I have any divisions? Yes, I do. So Excel is going to do the division
first. So in this case, 2 / 2, which gives us the answer of 1. It's then going to do any multiplications,
additions, or subtractions. And we have an addition remaining. So then effectively, what it's going to do
is 10 + 1, which is why we get the answer of 11.

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If I wanted this to calculate so that we have an answer of 6, the easiest thing to do here would be to put
the 10 + 2 within brackets. Because then, Excel is going to calculate 10 + 2 first, and then it's going to
do the division, which will give us an answer of 6. So, this is a really important rule to get your head
around because it runs through every single Formula that you construct in Excel.

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Video: Calculating with the SUM Function
Deb: In the last lesson, we started to take a look at the SUM Function. And as I said, this SUM Function
is by far the most popular Function in Excel, and one you'll find yourself using all the time. And all the
SUM Function does is it takes a range of numbers, and it will add them together.
And as you get into more complex Formulas, you can use the SUM Function for many different things,
and combine it with other Functions to make it really powerful. But let's not get too far ahead of
ourselves at this stage, but let's delve into the SUM Function in a little bit more detail.
Now, once again, we have a very basic spreadsheet here, we have some years running across the top and
some months of the year. And then we just have some random numbers here, possibly sales figures,
something along those lines. And what we want to do is we basically want to complete the total for each
of the different years.
Now, as we've already seen, we can simply click in the cell, type in equals, and as we start to type in the
word, SUM, it's going to come up in the list below, we can press Tab to put that first bracket in. And
then all we need to do is select the list of numbers that we want to add up, in this case, C3 to C14, close
off the bracket, and hit Enter to get our result.
Once again, we have that little green triangle in the corner, and I'll explain what that is in a couple of
moments. Now there are other ways that we can perform this SUM Function. Now it might be that when
you're first starting to learn Formulas, you don't particularly like typing Functions directly into the cell.
And I know that a lot of people who are new to Excel prefer to use the Functions dialog box to construct
their Formulas. So, let me just show you what that is, and then you can decide for yourself which
method you prefer.
So instead of typing =SUM into this cell, what I could do is jump up to this little fx button. And you'll
notice here it says Insert Function. It's also worth noting that we have this button on the Formulas tab as
well, it's this one just here with the Keyboard Shortcut of Shift + F3. So when we click this, it's going to
open up the Insert Function dialog box. And this is a really nice method to use if you're not entirely sure
what the Function name is that you need to use.
You can see at the top here; you can search for any Function available in Excel. Or you can browse
through the different categories of Functions. Now, I'm going to select ALL just here, because what I
could do is I could type a brief description of what I want to do. So, maybe if I just type in add numbers
and click on Go, it's going to pull up all of the Functions that will help me do that. And I can see that
one of them in there is the SUM Function.

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Now I can double-click to select this, and it's basically going to open my Function Arguments. Now
remember, when we're typing the Function into the cell, these Function Arguments appear in that little
ScreenTip underneath where we're typing. And this is basically exactly the same, it's just saying provide
the numbers that you want me to add together. And you can see here, it's made a good guess, based on
where I'm clicked as to the numbers that I want to add up D2 to D14. And if I check my spreadsheet,
that's not quite correct, because D2 is actually a date.
So what I'm going to do is I'm just going to remove those numbers and make my selection again, which
is D3 to D14. Notice it puts the Formula in the cell for me, click on Ok, and then I get my result. So
that's another method you can use not only with the SUM Function, but with any Function that you're
using in Excel, the Functions dialog box. Now another way that we can very quickly add up numbers is
to use the AutoSum button. Now AutoSum, you're going to find on the Formulas tab in the Functions
Library Group, and this is one of those double-sided buttons. So I can click the top half, or I can click
the lower half.
Now if I click the lower half, it's going to show me the different Functions that I can use AutoSum
width. So, I can use it for other Functions aside from SUM. However, the default action for the
AutoSum button is to use the SUM Function. So, that means I can just click the top half of this button.
So if I do that, notice what happens. Again, it tries to select the data that it thinks I want to add up. And
most of the time this selection is fairly accurate.
But again, if I look at my data, I can see that within this range that it's selected, it's also including the
column heading, because effectively the column heading is also a number. Now what I could do in this
scenario is I can simply adjust my range. Notice I have these marching ants around the outside, and in
the corner there, I have these little blue squares.
As I hover my mouse over, it allows me to adjust the selection. So I'm going to move it down one cell,
and then I can simply hit Enter to complete my SUM Formula. And an even quicker way of invoking
AutoSum is to use the Keyboard Shortcut, which you can see there is Alt + =.
Now again, if I do Alt + = it’s going to make the cell selection. But for this example, I need to readjust
that cell selection, so it doesn't include the date and hit Enter. So a few different methods that we can use
there to quickly input a SUM Formula. Now the final thing I want to talk about here are these little green
triangles in the corner of each of these total cells. What are they, and why are they there?
If you see a green triangle, this is some kind of warning. And warnings are always worth checking into
further so you can determine if this is actually an error that needs to be fixed, or if it's something
inconsequential. Now when I click on a cell that has one of these green triangles, notice that I get a little
icon next to it, which is a little warning icon. And if we click this, this is kind of going to give you an

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idea as to what the problem is. So I can see here at the top of the list, it says Formula Omits Adjacent
Cells.
So what this is basically telling me is that in this SUM Formula, and if we look in the Formula bar, C3 to
C14, it says it's found other data nearby that I haven't included in my Formula. And that would be
correct, because I have these dates at the top here, which are effectively numbers to Excel, but to me,
they're dates and I don't want them included in the Formula. So that is what this error is referring to.
It's basically saying, hey, you've missed out a number in cell C2, do you want to correct this before you
go on? Now I know that these years are not supposed to be included in these Formulas. So what I can
safely do here is select all of the cells where I have this little warning, click the drop down and just say
Ignore Error to get rid of them.

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Video: Counting Values with the COUNT Function
Deb: Another Function that belongs in the category of the Big Five Functions that everybody needs to
know in Excel is the COUNT Function. And what this Function allows you to do is basically count the
number of items in a range or a list. So let's take a look at a basic example. Because there is a very
important point here that you need to understand.
Now in this Worksheet, I just have a list of student names, and I have the score that they've achieved in a
test. And basically, all I'm trying to do here is count the number of students that took a test. So, we just
want to count the number of items that I have in this list. Now bear in mind that this list is a very short
list, and this is probably something I could just do visually.
But again, remember with all of these examples, imagine if you have a list of thousands and thousands
of students, that is where the COUNT Function is going to be really useful. So what we can do here is
we can type into the cell equals, and this Function is simply called COUNT. And notice again, as I start
to type it in excels IntelliSense is pulling up a list of all of the Functions that it finds in its library, related
to COUNT.
And if you find the one that you want to use, and if the one that you want isn't at the top of the list, you
can use your arrow keys to move further down and select the one that you want. Also notice that with
COUNT highlighted, I get a little bit of informational text to the side, which tells me what that Function
does. So it says counts the number of cells in a range that contains numbers. And that is a really
important part; in a range that contains numbers. So let's press the Tab key to make our selection and put
in that first bracket.
Now, our Arguments here are basically the values that we want to count. So I want to count the number
of students. So I'm going to go across to my little table, I'm going to select all of the student names so
that I have my range B3 to B15, I'm going to close off my bracket and hit Enter, I get a result of zero.
Now why is that?
Well, it's down to that very important part of instructional text, the COUNT Function will count
numbers in a list. So, because I selected these student names, which are effectively text for my Formula,
that's why I'm getting an answer of zero.
If I double-click to edit this Formula, and instead of cells B3 to B15, I'm going to count using the test
scores instead. So this time, my range contains numbers. I'm going to close off my bracket, hit Enter,
and now it's working. It's telling me that I have 13 items in the range that I selected. So, what do I do if I
want to count anything in the cell, regardless of whether it's text or if it's numbers?

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Well, for that, I need to use a slightly different Function. So let's double-click on our cell, I'm going to
delete everything out. So if I want to count basically all I would use the COUNTA Formula. Notice this
time it says counts the number of cells in a range that are not empty. So, it's not going to count empty
cells either. So now that I'm using COUNTA, which will count all or count everything, if I open a
bracket, I can use either the student range or the test score range, and this Formula should work. So let's
use the student name because this is the one that didn't work when we were just using COUNT.
Let's close the bracket, hit Enter, and now I'm getting the correct result of 13. Now how does this work if
we have blank cells? Well, let's go in and delete out Olivia from this list. So effectively, I have a blank
cell in this Cell Range. Notice immediately as soon as I did, that the number of students decreased to 12.
So COUNTA doesn't COUNTBLANK cells. What about COUNT? Well, let's try that.
Let's double-click. Let's type in our Formula again, let's do COUNT. I'm going to count the test scores
because with COUNT, we can only count numbers, close the bracket and hit Enter. And again, that also
gives me 12. So it also doesn't count the blank cells. Now what about if I just wanted to count the blank
cells in a range? Well, we have another count Formula that we can use for that as well. And that is
COUNTBLANK.
I can see it's the third one in my list, I'm going to use my arrow keys to go down, Tab key to select it.
And this time, I just need to select my range of cells. So if I select these student names, cells B3 to B15,
and hit Enter, it's returning the result of 1, because in this range, it's found one blank cell. So there's
three Formulas there related to counting items; COUNT, which will count numeric values in cells,
COUNTA, which will count anything, and COUNTBLANK, which will count just the blank cells.
Now, I'm going to Ctrl + Z a few times just to put Olivia back into my student list. Because remember,
with these Formulas, you can also use other methods as well. So we looked at previously, the Functions
dialog box, we can use that for COUNT as well. So if I click the fx icon, I could go in here and search
for COUNT. There it is at the top of the list. And basically, I can then go in and select the values that I
want to count. So I'm going to select the test scores, click on Ok, and the Formula works.
I could also use that AutoSum button. So if we go back to the Formulas tab, click the lower half of
AutoSum, we can also use this to count numbers. Now notice a problem as soon as we do this, because
the cell where I want my result to be returned is far away from the actual data, it doesn't know which
values I want to count. So it's just put the COUNT Formula in there for me, and now it's asking for me
to select these values. So I would need to go in, select the range, and hit Enter.
If I was doing this Formula directly underneath where I have these numbers, if I choose AutoSum and
Count Numbers, because the results cell is right next to the numbers that I want to count, it's recognized
that those numbers are there, and it's automatically input the Cell Range for me, so I just need to hit

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Enter. So, just be aware of those little things when you're using things like AutoSum. But that, in its
essence, is how you can construct three different types of COUNT Formula.

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Video: Finding the Average with the AVERAGE Function
Deb: Another one of the Big Five Functions that all Excel users need to know is the AVERAGE
Function. And the AVERAGE Function is pretty much what you would expect it to be. It's a Function
that helps you find the average of the values in the selected Cell Range.
And much like the other Functions that we've looked at, in the last few lessons the SUM Function and
the COUNT Function, we can either type this Function directly into the cell, or we can use the Functions
dialog box. So, let's take a look at how the AVERAGE Function works.
So on this Worksheet, I have some years running across the top, and then again, some months running
down Column B. And then we have some values in this table. And what I want to do is at the end here,
in Column G, I want to find the average amount of sales for January across all four of these years 2018
to 2021.
So for this, we can simply type in average, into the cell. Once again, as soon as you can see it in Excels
IntelliSense menu, you can just press the Tab key to select it. And we have very similar Arguments to
the SUM and COUNT Functions. Here, Excel just requires us to select the Cell Range that we want to
find the average of. So, I want to find the average of these four cells, C3 to F3. I'm going to close my
bracket, and I'm going to do Ctrl + Enter so that I stay in the same cell. And there I have the average
sales figure. So really nice and straightforward.
Now of course, we've seen how we can do this using the Functions dialog box. It's a simple case of
searching for the average command, double-clicking, and then we can go in and select the Cell Range
that we want to find the average of. So, pretty much the same as what we've done in the last two
examples. So just to finish off this lesson, let's jump up to the Formulas tab. And we're going to go to the
AutoSum drop down. Because notice in there, we can also use AutoSum to find the average.
So if we click average, again, notice it's made an incorrect selection. So all I need to do here is select the
cells that I actually want to work with, Ctrl + Enter to stay in the same cell. Now if you have a scenario
like this, where you need to complete the averages for a number of different values like we have here,
we need to complete these average totals, you don't need to go to every single cell and complete an
AVERAGE Formula. And this is going to lead us on nicely to a lesson that we're going to do a bit later
on.
Because, what we have in Excel is the ability to AutoFill all copy Formulas down. And this is such a
useful time saving utility. Now if I hover my mouse over cell G4 where I have my last average
calculation, notice in the bottom right-hand corner, I have that little green square. That is my AutoFill
handle. So if I want to copy this Formula down to fill the rest of these cells, I can simply drag all the
way down like so.

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Or alternatively, I'm just very quickly going to Ctrl + Z to undo that, I can double-click, and it's also
going to copy that Formula down. And notice if we pick any of these, so let's say let's go to this cell just
here, G9, notice that the references C9 to F9 are highlighted in blue in the Formula. And it's also
showing me the cells that that Formula refers to in the table highlighted in blue as well. And I can see
that as this Formula has moved down, Excel has automatically adjusted the Cell References that it needs
to use for this Formula. And that is what we call Relative Referencing.
When we drag a Formula down, Excel will adjust the Cell References accordingly. And again, we're
going to talk more about that a bit later on because there are two other types of referencing aside from
Relative and that is Absolute and Mixed. But for the time being, just be aware of this concept of
Relative Referencing when you copy Formulas down.

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Video: Working with Min and Max
Deb: So far in this course, we've looked at three of Excels Big Five Basic Functions that everybody
needs to know. So, it's now time to finish off this little list with the final two. And the final two
Functions that everybody needs to know are the MIN and the MAX Functions.
Now what the MIN Function does is that it will return the lowest value in a range of cells. And as you
would expect, the MAX Function does the exact opposite, it will return the maximum value in a range of
cells. So these are pretty simple to construct. Let's start with MIN.
I'm going to type in =MIN. I'm going to press the Tab key to select it from the list and put in that first
bracket. And once again, we have some very simple Arguments, we're just required to select the
numbers or the Cell Range that we want to find the minimum value of. So, I'm going to select this Cell
Range just here, C3 to F3. And what this is going to do is tell me which value is the lowest. So when I
hit Enter, it's telling me that 6247 is the lowest value in that range. So I can see at a glance that for
January, we had the lowest sales in 2019.
I can do exactly the same for MAX. Let's type it in, let's select our Cell Range, close the bracket and hit
Enter. And now I have the maximum value, which was in 2021. Now once again, I'm going to want to
copy all of these Formulas down both of these columns. So let me show you another way that you can
very efficiently do this.
I'm going to select the two Formulas that I've already done and all of the other blank cells. And if I press
the Keyboard Shortcut Ctrl + D, that's going to copy that Formula down each column. And if we just
double check one of these, so let's double-click somewhere down here, just to double check that it's
actually calculating correctly. So C9 to F9, the lowest value there is 5538. And I can see that yes, that is
correct. So, Ctrl + D is another really useful little shortcut when it comes to quickly copying a Formula
into other cells.

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Video: Handling Errors in Calculations
Deb: In this lesson, I'd like to start introducing you to some of the basic errors that you might come
across when you're working with Formulas and calculations in Excel. Because, a very important skill to
have is to know how to check your spreadsheets for errors, and also what those errors mean and how
you can resolve them.
The last thing you want, particularly if you're sharing a spreadsheet with other people, is to send it out
with all different types of errors all over the place. So in this lesson, we're going to look at some of the
most basic ones.
Now in a previous lesson, I showed you how to deal with these little green triangles that you can see in
the top left-hand corner. And in most cases, when you get something like this, you can click on that
warning symbol, and the first item in the list will give you some idea as to what that error is there for.
So as we determined for this one, I'm getting these little green triangles, because the Formula has
recognized that I also have numbers in the top row that I'm not including in my Formulas. And because
these are the actual years, I don't actually want to include them in the Formula anyway. So, for these
ones, we can simply select and choose to ignore the error. So what other types of errors might we come
across? We can see that I have three of them listed out in Column I.
Now the first one is a Name Error. And if you see a Name Error in any of your cells, it normally means
that there's some kind of issue with your Formula related to either the name of the Formula, or maybe
something like the Named Range that you've used within your Formula. Now, we haven't covered
Named Ranges yet, we're going to cover those in the next section. So let's take this from the standpoint
that we've got a problem with the name of our Formula.
So, the first thing I would do here is I would double-click, so I can take a look at this Formula. And I can
see here immediately that the name of the Function is wrong. Now this might be a simple typo, maybe I
was typing SUM particularly quickly, and I've accidentally added an X on the end. So, I can
immediately see here that this is what is causing that Name Error. But what about if I wasn't so sure,
maybe I didn't know that SUMX wasn't the name of the Function? How else could I troubleshoot the
Formula in this cell?
Well, let's press Ctrl + Enter. I could jump up to the Formulas tab, and we have a Formula Auditing
section just here. And this is where you can come for all of your tools that will help you find where
errors are located in your spreadsheets. For example, for this particular Formula, if I click on Trace
Precedence, this is going to show me any of the cells that have been used in this Formula. So I can see
here I've got an arrow pointing to these total sales figures highlighted in blue.

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So it's basically telling me that this Cell Range is referenced in the Formula. So, it might be that when I
click on Trace Precedence, this arrow is pointing to a completely different set of cells that I didn't mean
to include in my Formula. So then, it's fairly easy for me to adjust that Cell Range. I'm going to remove
the arrows. What about Trace Dependents?
Well, I don't have any dependents for this Formula. Nothing relies on this particular Formula to
calculate. What about if I click on Show Formulas? Well, take a look at what this does. This is going to
show all of the Formulas that you have on your Worksheet. So, you can see here I can now see actually
on the Worksheet without having to double-click to edit the cell, all of those SUM calculations in that
total row. I can also see the Formulas that I have over in Column I.
So, Show Formulas is a great way if you just want to quickly see all of the Formulas on your Worksheet.
Now what about Error Checking, what happens if I click here? Well, this is basically going to evaluate
my Formula. And it's telling me that there is an error in cell I3. Now I have a few different options here,
I can Ignore the Error, I can Edit the Formula in the Formula bar, I can get some Help, or I can Show the
Calculation Steps. So, I'm going to show the calculation steps and it basically takes me into this Evaluate
Formula window.
Incidentally, I also get this window if I click on the Evaluate Formula button in the Formula Editing
group. Now what this allows you to do is walk step by step through your Formula and evaluate each part
separately so you can pinpoint where the error is occurring. So I can see that the first thing that's going
to be evaluated in this Formula is the actual Formula name, in this case SUMX. So if I click on
Evaluate, I can see there, it's coming up with Name. So this is where my issue is occurring, because that
is where the error is appearing.
So, this Evaluate tool is pretty useful, particularly when you start to get into more complex Formulas,
which may be combined multiple different Functions, being able to step through them and evaluate each
part individually to really determine where the error lies is so helpful. So let's click on Close, and let's
click on Close again. So right now, I'm pretty confident that this is causing the problem. So let's delete
out the X, hit Enter, and like magic, my Formula is now fixed.
What about this next error? We have a Reference Error. Let's double-click and take a look at this. Now
this doesn't really tell me much. It says SUM, and then we have Reference. So what I'm going to do here
is I'm going to go straight to Evaluate Formula, and I can see that the SUM part of this Formula is fine,
it's this part that's causing the problem, the hash reference. Now you normally get things like Reference
Errors when you have maybe referred to a cell in the Formula that no longer exists.
So you can see here, this cell is supposed to be displaying the total sales for December. So, I bet there
was probably a SUM calculation in here that was totaling all of December's sales. And if I take a look at
my table, where's December gone? December has actually been deleted. So, that is why I'm getting this

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Reference Error. The row was there when I first constructed the Formula, but at a later time someone's
gone in and deleted that row out, which means my Formula is now invalid.
So, look out for things like that, when you see Reference Errors, it normally means whatever you're
referring to, or whatever cell has either been pasted over with something else, or deleted entirely. So for
this one, because we no longer have December totals, I maybe will want to change this to the last month,
which is November. So now let's do a SUM calculation of November. And there we go, that looks a
little bit better.
Another type of error that you might see is a DIV Error. And this comes up when you've tried to divide a
number by zero. Now, the Formula that I've got here is just very simply, 1/0, just to show you an
example of what that error looks like. In most cases, when you get a DIV Error, it's not that clean cut,
you might be doing again, a longer complex Formula, and somewhere along the way, in the way that
you've constructed that Formula, you've ended up dividing it by zero. Maybe, you haven't even realized
that you've done that.
So if you see that DIV Error, it's worth taking a look at that Formula, and checking to make sure your
calculation is correct. So for this one, let's just take that out. And we're just going to do the total sales for
Q2. So, that is going to be all of these figures just here, close the bracket, hit Enter, and now I have a
spreadsheet that's completely error free.
Now, there are a number of other different errors that you'll see pop up from time to time in your
spreadsheets. You might see a Value Error, or you might see Unknown Error as well. And we'll come
across more of these as we progress through the course.
But for now, that should give you an introduction as to some of the most common errors and how you
can use the tools available in Excel in that Formula Auditing group to do some troubleshooting.

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Video: Absolute vs Relative Referencing
Deb: One of the most important concepts to understand when you're learning Excel is the difference
between Absolute and Relative Referencing, and I did mention this briefly a couple of lessons ago. And
it's worth noting that by default, Excel uses Relative Referencing. So, let me show you a very quick
example of Relative Referencing, and then we'll dive into Absolute and why it's different from relative.
So just to demonstrate Relative Referencing, I'm going to type in some numbers just down here. And
we're going to type in some numbers next to these, like so. So maybe here, I want to have the totals of
these numbers. So what I could do is type in SUM, I can select the Cell Range, close the bracket, hit
Enter, and then I can drag to copy that Formula down. Now as I drag this Formula down, Excel uses
Relative Referencing to adjust the Cell References.
If we double-click in this first total, you can see the cells that this Formula references, I6 and J6. If I take
a look at the last Formula, you can see that Excel has adjusted those Cell References as I've dragged that
Formula down. So now, it's summing I8 to J8. And it's this Relative Referencing that allows me to copy
this Formula down, and all of my Formulas remain correct. And Relative Referencing is the default in
Excel. But as you'll soon find, it doesn't always work in every situation, it's not always the most
appropriate type of Referencing to use.
So with that in mind, let's take a look at an example of Absolute Referencing. Now, what you can see
here on this Worksheet is that I have in Column A; some employee names, in Column B, I have the
departments that they work in. In Column C, we have the number of years they've been working there.
And then finally, in Column D, we have their salary. Now the first thing I'm going to do here is I'm
actually going to change these to British pounds, because that is what my Excel is currently set to. So
I'm going to keep everything nice and consistent.
Now, what I want to do here is I want to work out the bonus amount for each of these employees. And I
can see over in cell J1, all staff members are getting a bonus of 2%. Lucky old them. So how would I do
this calculation? Well, this is going to be a straightforward SUM calculation. What we want to do here is
we want to take the salary in cell D2, and we're going to multiply it by the bonus amount of 2% in cell
J1. I'm going to close my bracket and hit Enter, and now I can see there that the bonus is 697.56. So that
amount is 2% of their total salary.
Now once again, I'm just going to change the formatting of this column to pounds. So great, everything
is working so far. And what I want to do here is I want to do the exactly the same thing for all of the
other employees. So effectively, I should be able to grab my AutoFill handle and drag this Formula
down, right? Wrong. Take a look at what happens. It's not working, I'm getting zero in all of these other
cells. So why am I getting zero?

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Well, let's double-click and take a look at one of these Formulas a bit further down so we can see which
cells the Formula is referring to. So here we go, it's doing a SUM of D11, which is correct. In this case,
we want to multiply these salaries but take a look at J10. J 10 is over here, and that is a blank cell.
Because, Excel has assumed that if I'm dragging this Formula down, it needs to modify the Cell
References and move those down one each time as well. And for the salary part of this calculation, that
is absolutely fine. But it's not fine for the bonus.
In this example, we always want this Formula to refer to cell J1. We don't want it to adjust and move
down to any blank cells. So with that in mind, we need to make cell J1 Absolute. So let's delete out
everything we have and let's do our Formula again. So we're going to say =SUM. It's still going to be
D2, we're still going to multiply it by J1, but we need to make J1 Absolute. Now the way that we do that
is we press the F4 key once on our keyboard. And what that will do is it's going to place dollar signs in
front of the column and the row number.
So basically what those dollar signs are, are a way of locking to that particular cell. So I'm saying lock
Column J and Column 1. I can close the bracket, hit Enter, and now if I double-click to copy this
Formula down, the Formula is working. If we take a look at one of the Formulas a bit further down, we
can see again, the cells this is referring to. And this time, this is absolutely correct, it's referring to cells
D 17, and it's multiplying by J1. So, knowing when to use Absolute Referencing is a really important
skill in Excel.
Now, there is another type of referencing that you can do called Mixed Referencing. And that is where
we basically either lock just the column or just the row. And those are by far the least common ways of
using cell referencing. Most of the time, you're going to be using Absolute or Relative. So for the time
being, we're just going to stick to those two, so you get some practice. And then later on, we'll take a
look at Mixed Referencing. So now these calculations are correct. The only thing left for me to do here
is complete the new salary for everybody.
And the new salary is basically going to be a SUM calculation again, where we're going to do the salary
plus their bonus. So =SUM, now we want to say salary plus bonus. This time, we're fine with Relative
Cell Referencing, because we want to copy down and it's fine for the Cell References to adjust each
time. So, let's double-click to copy that down. And once again, I'm just going to change this to Currency
Format. And now we have a completed bonus spreadsheet.

Excel 2021
Video: AutoSum and AutoFill
Deb: In previous lessons in this course, we've briefly had a look at how AutoSum and AutoFill work.
So, it's time now to take a deeper dive into these two really powerful utilities. So currently, I'm working
in the AutoSum and AutoFill Workbook. And I'm clicked on the Example 1 tab. And on this tab, we
have a table with some values that we need to complete.
So the first thing I'm going to do is we're going to complete this Totals row at the bottom. And as we've
seen previously, we're just doing a SUM calculation here, we can use the AutoSum button. And if you
recall AutoSum, you'll find that on the Formulas tab in the Function Library Group. Alternatively, you
can use the Keyboard Shortcut of Alt + =.
Now remember, because I have a number in that top row, I need to adjust the selection, and then I can
hit Enter. And because we want to copy this Formula across to the other years, we can simply use the
AutoFill handle in the bottom right-hand corner, and drag that Formula across.
Now we have a little warning triangle. So I'm going to click the warning symbol. And I'm just going to
say Ignore this Error. So now, let's use AutoFill to complete the rest of these empty cells. So the first
thing I'm going to do in this Totals column is we're going to do a very simple SUM calculation. And
we're going to add up all of the sales figures for January C3 to F3, close the bracket, and I'm going to do
Ctrl + Enter so that I stay in the same cell.
Now notice over on the right-hand side, I've just listed out their four different methods for auto-filling
Formulas down. And we've already seen a couple of these, but there are a couple in there as well that we
haven't yet taken a look at. Now the first way to AutoFill down a Formula is to hover your mouse over
the AutoFill handle and double-click to copy that Formula down.
Let's move to Column H, and let's work out the averages. And again, we're using the same Cell Range.
And this time, what I can do is simply drag that Formula down. In the next column, we're going to do a
MIN Formula. And remember, MIN returns us the lowest value in our Cell Range, C3 to F3. Now the
third method that I can use to fill down is I can select all the cells that I want to fill this Formula in, go to
the Home tab, and then over in the Editing group. Notice we have a drop down here next to Fill. And I
can choose Fill Down, and that's going to fill that Formula into those remaining cells.
And similarly, an even quicker way of executing that, let's just put in our MAX Formula at the top here.
Ctrl + Enter, we can pretty much do exactly the same thing by highlighting all of the cells and using the
Keyboard Shortcut instead of Ctrl + D to copy that Formula down. And then of course once these are
done, if I want to complete the totals as well, I can simply drag my totals Formula across. And in a
couple of minutes, we have a completed Worksheet.

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Now staying on this subject of AutoFill, there are still a number of different options that we haven't
looked at yet. And all of these little AutoFill options are so helpful when it comes to being able to input
data into your Worksheets quickly and efficiently. Now I did mention earlier I was going to show you a
quick way of adding in lots of numbers into a Worksheet.
For example, maybe I need to enter into this Worksheet numbers 1 to 200. So instead of going through
and typing in 1, 2, 3, so on and so forth, I can get Excel to do all the hard work for me. Now what I'm
going to do here is a little trick, which involves accessing a hidden menu. So I'm going to type number 1
into this first cell.
And then what I'm going to do is using my right mouse button, not my left, my right, I'm going to hover
my mouse over the corner of that cell so that I get the little AutoFill cross, hold down my right mouse
button, drag down one cell up one cell and release the mouse. And it's going to present me with a little
secret menu. And this allows me to fill my cells in different ways.
So, I'm going to say Fill Series. And what I want to do here is I want to fill the column with numbers.
The Step Value is the value which I want the numbers to increase. So I want them to go 1, 2, 3, 4. So,
my step value is 1, and I want it to stop at 200. And if I click on, Ok, check that out, I now have all of
those numbers input, Ctrl + Down to go to the bottom, the last value there is 200. So that's a really nice
quick way of getting lots of numbers, long lists of numbers into your Worksheet. Now we can do a
similar thing here, if we want to fill down dates.
So quite often, in spreadsheets, you'll have dates. So maybe if you're putting together an invoice
spreadsheet, you're going to have the dates listed out of all of the invoices. So what you could do is type
in the first day, let's say the 01/11/2021. And if I AutoFill down this time, notice that it auto-fills down
consecutive days. So simply by using the AutoFill handle, I'm going to get the first November, second,
third, fourth, fifth, so on and so forth. And that's absolutely fine. If that's what you want.
In some cases, you might want a different kind of date. So maybe I want to fill down the last day of
every month. So how would we do that? Well, let's type in the last day of January. So that is the
31/01/2021. Now, as I said, if I go to copy this down the next date it's going to fill in is going to be
01/02, 02/02, so on and so forth. Now we can change this simply by dragging the AutoFill button down.
And I'm just going to drag down to there.
But notice, when we drag down, we get this little what we call a Smart Tag at the bottom. And if you
click this, it's going to open up some additional AutoFill options. And from here, we get to choose what
dates we're filling down. So if I want the last day of the month, I could say Fill Months. And it's going to
change all of those like magic to now display the last day of the month.

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So don't forget about this little Smart Tag when you drag down. It's always worth having a look in there
and seeing if something else fits more with what it is that you're trying to do. Now, we've already seen
how we can type in the name of a month and then simply use the AutoFill handle to drag down to fill in
the other months. The same works with days. And this works with the long version of the day, or the
short version of the day.
Once again, I can drag down to complete those days. And it will just loop around until you choose to
stop filling cells. So where does this come from in Excel? Well, these are actually what we call Custom
Lists. And you'll find your Custom List underneath Excel options. If we jump into file and go down to
options at the bottom, and then into the Advanced page, if we scroll all the way down to near the
bottom, you'll notice that we have this little button just here Edit Custom Lists.
And when we jump into here, you're going to see all of those patterns that Excel recognizes. And it's
because this exists here that Excel is able to copy down the months of the year, and the days of the
week. And if you wanted to, you can create your own Custom List and use them in the same way. Now I
could choose to import a list that I've got in a Worksheet, so maybe in some cells, or I could choose to
create my own Custom List. So if you click New List at the top, I can then type in my list entries.
So, maybe on a frequent basis, I have to type in the names of all of the people that work in my
department. And instead of doing that manually, I want to be able to just type in the first one and
AutoFill down. So, I'm going to create a brand new list with the names of everybody who works in my
department. So we're just going to have four people. And let's say Add, and you can now see that I have
a new Custom List.
So if I click on Ok, and Ok again to come out of options. Now, if I want to fill in those employees, all I
need to do is type in the name of the first one, and then Excel is going to recognize that Custom List so I
can simply drag down. So, all of these AutoFill options are definitely worth exploring, because they
really do make you more efficient when you're working in Excel.

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Video: Flash Fill
Deb: Flash Fill is possibly one of my favorite utilities in Excel. And Flash Fill hasn't been around
forever, it was introduced in Excel 2013. And if you find yourself having to split up data or even
combine data from different columns fairly frequently, Flash Fill is going to be your best friend. This
takes all of the hard work out of it.
So the best way to demonstrate Flash Fill is to really dive into some examples. And I've got three
different examples to show you here. So in this first example, in this first table, notice that I have a list
of employee names. And what I've been asked to do is break up the full name into a column full of first
names and a column full of last names.
Now, before the introduction of Flash Fill, it was possible to do this, but you would have to use the Text
to Columns utility, or possibly use an Excel Formula. But now we have Flash Fill, so this is a piece of
cake. So let me show how it works. All you need to do is basically tell Excel what you want the pattern
to be. So in the first name cell, I'm going to type in how I want the first one to look.
So I basically just want it to list out my first name. I'm going to press Ctrl + Enter to stay in the same
cell, and then I'm going to invoke the Flash Fill tool. And we find Flash Fill up on the Data Ribbon. In
that Data Tools group in the middle there, we have a Flash Fill button. Let's click, and would you take a
look at that? Like magic, it recognizes the pattern, and it copies it down. And the best thing about this is
that there are no underlying Formulas that you need to get rid of, or are going to cause you any
problems.
Let's do the same. But this time we want to complete the last name. Once again, we just need to type in
what the pattern is going to be Ctrl + Enter to stay in the same cell, and we can invoke Flash Fill in an
entirely different way. So if I press Enter just here, as soon as I start to type, the second name, goes
down the rest of them, and basically says to me, is this what you want to input? I can quickly do a visual
check. Yes, those are all of the last names. So, all I need to do is hit the Enter key to accept that. So nice
and easy.
We could even use Flash Fill to complete email addresses for people as well. Now there is a bit of a
caveat to this. And that is that everybody needs to have the same email address. And more often than
not, if you're filling down a list of people that you work with, you're all going to work at the same
organization, and so you're all going to have the same email address. So what I can do here is again, give
Excel the pattern.
So, I want Excel to pick out that I want the person's initials @ and then we're just gonna say
companyx.com, Ctrl + Enter to stay in the cell. And a third way that I can invoke Flash Fill is to
basically highlight all of the cells that we want to fill and use the Keyboard Shortcut Ctrl + E. And

Excel 2021
again, take a look at that. It's recognize that I want the initials of every single employee, and then it's put
companyx.com. We can also utilize Flash Fill if we want to extract parts of an Order Number, or maybe
an invoice number, or a part number, something like that.
For example, all of these long Order Numbers have ORD at the beginning, I don't really need that part, I
just want to extract the last three characters. So once again, we can use Flash Fill for that. 123 is what I
want to extract, and I can use any of the Flash Fill methods. So, Ctrl + Enter to stay in the same cell, I'm
going to select all the cells I want to fill, and Ctrl + E to fill those down. So quick and simple.
The final example here is another way that we can extract different parts of a product name. So in the
product name column, you can see that I have red shirts, and then I have the item code. And I basically
want to split this up so we have the color of the product, the product name, and then the item code in
three separate columns. So for this, I can say Red Ctrl + enter, I'm going to highlight, and Ctrl + E to
Flash Fill down.
Next, I want the product. So let's tell Excel what the pattern is Ctrl + Enter. And this time I think I'll use
my Flash Fill button to fill those down. And then finally, we need to type the item code 123, let's hit
Enter, and this time if I start to type the next item code, it's going to fill them all down for me, and I can
simply hit Enter to accept.

Excel 2021
Video: Exercise 03
Deb: In this exercise, Exercise 03, we're going to practice some of the skills that we've learned in this
section on working with Formulas. So for this exercise, we're going to be using the data on the Customer
Data tab.
So what I'd like you to do first is to calculate the Total Sales for all customers in Column D. So this is
what we're doing first, just calculate the number of sales based on the quantity and the Price Per Item,
I’d then like you to AutoFill that Formula down.
Next, I'd like you to calculate the Sales Tax for all customers in Column E, using the Sales Tax figure in
cell I2. So we're calculating the Sales Tax in this column using the Sales Tax figure. And one thing to
think about when you're doing this is think about whether you're doing Absolute or Relative
Referencing. I’d then like you to calculate the total, including the tax in Column F, and then AutoFill
that Formula down. Then finally, just to make sure that your Formulas are all updating, I'd like you to
change the Sales Tax amount to 6%. And just ensure that the values in the table update.
Next, we're going to take a look at how you can use Functions in calculations. So this section, we're
performing calculations in this table just here. So the first thing I would like you to do is in cell I4,
calculate the Total Sales. In cell I5, I'd like you to calculate the Average Quantity of items bought by
each customer.
In cell 6, I'd like you to calculate the Minimum Price Per Item in cell 7, I'd like you to calculate the
Maximum Price Per Item. And finally in cell I8, I'd like to calculate the Total No. of Customers. So,
quite a bit to do there, see how you get along. And if you'd like to see my answer, then please keep
watching.
So the first thing I asked you to do here was to calculate the total in Column D. So this is going to be a
very basic some calculation, we want to do the quantity multiplied by the Price Per Item, close the
bracket Ctrl + Enter to stay in the same cell. I then asked you to fill this down, so we simply need to
double-click to copy the Formula down.
Next, I asked you to calculate the Sales Tax. And currently we have the Sales Tax listed over in cell I2.
So again, this is a SUM calculation. We're doing the total multiplied by the Sales Tax. Now when we
copy this down, we don't want that Sales Tax to move. So we need to make cell I4 absolute by pressing
the F4 key. Close the bracket Ctrl + Enter, and then we can double-click to copy that Formula down.
The final calculation we need to perform here is just a very simple SUM calculation where we add
together the total and the Sales Tax, close the bracket Ctrl + Enter and double-click to copy the Formula
down.

Excel 2021
In the second part of this exercise, I asked you to complete the values in this smaller table. So the first
thing I asked you to calculate were the Total Sales. Now I didn't actually specify in the exercise whether
I wanted you to calculate the totals excluding tax or including tax. So whichever one of these you did,
that is absolutely fine. I'm going to do it excluding tax.
So I simply want to do a SUM calculation. And then I'm going to select Ctrl + Shift down all of the
numbers in this column. Close the bracket, hit Enter, and there we have the total. Next, I want you to
work out the Average Quantity. So we're going to use the AVERAGE Function. Go to the quantity
column Ctrl + Shift + Down Arrow, close off the bracket, hit Enter, and there we have the Average
Quantity.
Next we're going to use the MIN Function to work out the minimum Price Per Item. So once again, click
Ctrl + Shift + Down Arrow, close the bracket, hit Enter. Next, we want to do the reverse. So we're going
to use the MAX Function, the same column of data Ctrl + Shift + Down Arrow, close the bracket and hit
Enter.
And then finally we want to work out the number of customers. So for this I'm going to use COUNTA
because I want to count text. So click Ctrl + Shift + Down Arrow, close the bracket, hit Enter and I can
see that we have 50 customers.
The final thing I asked you to do was just to change the Sales Tax from 4.5 to 6% just to make sure that
all of these figures update. So, in I2 I'm just going to type in 6, hit Enter, and yes I can see that
everything has now updated.

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Section 5- What Are Named Ranges?

Video: What Are Named Ranges?
Deb: In this section we're going to explore the wonderful world of Named Ranges. And Named Ranges
are another one of my favorite things in Excel. Not only can you use Named Ranges to help you
navigate across multiple Workbooks, but you can use them in formulas so that your formulas are not
only easier to construct, but also easier to interpret and read.
Now before we get into how we create Named Ranges, and how we use them in calculations, let's start
out by discussing exactly what a Named Range is so that you understand. Now as we've already seen,
we can select different groups of cells using our mouse. And when we select a group of cells, this is
referred to as a range of cells. And we often use Cell Ranges when we're performing calculations.
For example, if I wanted to sum all of the totals, I would select the Cell Range F4 down to F17. And that
would be my range. And what a Named Range is, is basically assigning a meaningful name to a range of
cells. So instead of just identifying a range, as for example, H10 to H14, I might choose to call this range
blank cells, something like that. And I can then use that name in my formulas as opposed to having to go
in and select the Cell Range each time.
Now in this Workbook, I have numerous different Named Ranges already set up, and you can see all of
your Named Ranges by clicking this drop down arrow in the Name box. Notice I have five Named
Ranges in here, one for Customer, Orders, Price_per_Unit, Quantity, and Total. And what you'll also
notice is that each of these Named Ranges corresponds to the column headings in this table. And if I
click on the Price_per_Unit Named Range, it's going to highlight that range of cells.
So effectively, this Cell Range E4 to E17 is called Price per Unit. So, each one of these Cell Ranges has
been assigned a name. This is the Cell Range assigned to Customer, this one Quantity, and you can see it
in the Name box, just here, we have Total just here, and then we have the Orders range. And in the table
on the right hand side, we have some calculations. Now, if you take a look up in the Formula Bar, this
first calculation, this is going to look a little bit different to the formulas that we've constructed
previously.
I'm doing an Average calculation; I'm trying to find the average quantity. But instead of selecting the
Cell Range, which would be D4 down to D 17. Notice, it just says Quantity in there. It's using the
Named Range as opposed to the Cell References. If I go to the next formula down, this one is doing a
count of all of the orders. And again, instead of using a Cell Range, I'm using the Named Range. And
instantly by looking at this formula, it's a lot easier for anybody looking at this Worksheet to kind of
figure out what it is that you're trying to do. Instead of just some random Cell References in there, they
can see okay, it's doing a count of the orders. So, it makes it more meaningful.

Excel 2021
Another thing that you can use Named Ranges for is quick navigation. So, if I was clicked on another
Worksheet, let's just create another one very quickly. If I was working away over here, and I wanted to
quickly jump back to one of those ranges, I can simply select it from the Named Range drop down, and
it's going to jump me back to that Worksheet and highlight that range of cells. So, it's also quite nice if
you want to use it for navigation. I would say that that is kind of its secondary purpose. And most of the
time, the primary use of Named Ranges is to create meaning when you're constructing formulas.
Now in the next lesson, we're going to take a look at how you create Named Ranges because there are a
number of different methods that you can use. But just to give you a heads up, we're going to be
working on the Formulas Tab at the top in the Defined Names group in the middle here. This is where
you'll find all of your options for creating Named Ranges. So, I'm going to head over there now and I
look forward to you joining me

Excel 2021
Video: Creating Named Ranges
Deb: So now we know what a Named Range is, let's look at the different ways that we can create them.
Then what we're going to do here is basically what I showed you in the example in the previous lesson.
We're going to create Named Ranges for all of the columns that we have in this table. And I want the
Named Ranges to be called whatever the column heading for that particular column is.
Now by far, the simplest and quickest way to name a range is by using the Name box. So what I'm going
to do here is I'm going to select the range of cells, click up in the Name box, and then give my range a
name. So this is going to be called Orders. Now, it's really important when you're typing in names for
your ranges that you don't have any spaces in the names.
Now, my range is just one word, Orders. But if I wanted to call it Order Numbers, for example, I
wouldn't be able to put a space in there and type in numbers, that's not going to work. I would either
need to type it in as OrderNumbers, all one word, or I need to separate the words with an underscore
instead. So just remember that when you're naming your ranges. Also really important to remember to
hit the Enter key to set that Named Range. So, that is the first method you can use.
The second method you can use is to select the range of cells that you want to name, including that
column heading. And then on the Formulas tab, in the Defined Names group, use the Create from
Selection button. Now what this will do is it's going to create a Named Range for you, and it's going to
name the range based on the values in whichever row or column you specify.
So because I've highlighted the top row, I wanted to name this range based on the value in the top row.
So that is Customer. Let's click on Ok. And if you want to check to make sure that your Named Ranges
are setting effectively, you can click the drop down, and you can see them listed out here.
The next method you can use to create a Named Range is to click on the Name Manager Button. And
notice this has a keyboard shortcut of Ctrl + F3. So if we jump into the Name Manager, this is basically
where we come to manage all of our different Named Ranges. And you can see in there the two Named
Ranges that I've currently set up.
What I can also do is create a new Named Range from here as well by clicking the New button. I can
give my range a name, so let's call this range Quantity. I want it to be available in this Workbook, I
could add a comment if I wanted to, and then I select the cells that this range refers to. So that's going to
be these cells just here. And click on Ok. So now I have three Named Ranges created.
And then the final method I can use to create a Named Range is the Define Name option in the Defined
Names group. Again, I can just give my range a name. So this one is going to be Price_per_Unit.
Remember, we're separating with underscores. And then I can specify which cells this range refers to.

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So that is my Cell Range E4 to E17. And another thing to know about these Named Ranges is take a
look at the Cell References. They're all absolute by default. And this is a really important point when it
comes to using your Named Ranges in your formulas. So I'll talk more about this at a later stage. Let's
click on OK. And now I have four Named Ranges set up. Let's do the final one.
I'm just going to do this using the Create from Selection Method. And now I have all of my Named
Ranges created. So that is it. Those are the four different methods that you can use to create Named
Ranges.

Excel 2021
Video: Managing Named Ranges
Deb: Before we move on to using Named Ranges in formulas and calculations, I just very briefly want
to show you where you go if you want to edit your Named Ranges, or delete Named Ranges. And we
have actually been into this little area once already in this section. So if you want to manage your
Named Ranges, you need to make sure that you're clicked on the Formulas Tab, and then we're going to
click on Name Manager.
And as we've seen, this opens up a little panel which we can make bigger if we need to. And that's going
to show us all of the Named Ranges that we have in the Workbook. That's a really important distinction.
The scope for these Named Ranges is the Workbook. And you can see that in this column just here. And
what that basically means is that these Named Ranges will be available to use in any Worksheet that I
create in this specific Workbook. If I was to create a brand new Workbook, then I'm not going to have
access to these Named Ranges.
Now the other information that we can see in here is basically the name of the range, the values
contained within that range, the Worksheet name and the cells that this range refers to. So you can see
that all of my ranges are on the Named Ranges Worksheet, and then we have those absolute Cell
References. And then as we just mentioned, the scope is just this Workbook. So if I want to go in and
make any changes to this information, I have an Edit button just above, which will allow me to edit
certain elements of this Named Range.
So, if I wanted to change the name of the range, I can do that from here. I can add some comments if I
want to. And I can also change which Worksheets or which cells this Named Range refers to. So super
simple to make edits to any of these ranges. We've already seen that we can click the New button and
create a brand new range from here. And this is also where we have the Delete button as well. So if you
want to delete out any Named Ranges that you're no longer using, this is where you can come. And then
all the way over on the right-hand side of this window, notice that we have a Filter button.
Now I will say that if you have a fairly short list of Named Ranges, like I do here, I only really have five
of them, then this Filter is a little bit of overkill. However, you might find in some more complex
Workbooks, particularly if you have lots and lots of Worksheets, you could have many, many Named
Ranges. So you're going to need a quick way of filtering out the ones you're not interested in and just
viewing the ones that you are interested in. And that's where this Filter comes in.
This basically allows you to filter your list of Named Ranges. So I can search for ranges, which are just
scoped to this Worksheet, or just to this Workbook. I can filter for ranges with errors or names without
errors. So this is particularly useful for Error Checking. And then I can also filter by Defined Names, so
Named Ranges or Table Names.

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Now we haven't got on to talking about Tables as yet, but we'll come back into here when we do so you
can see what the difference is between these bottom two. And then of course, if you have applied any
filters and you want to restore the entire list, we have a Clear Filter button at the top just there.
So, that Filter button is great if you have a lot of Named Ranges that you need to sort through. So that is
pretty much it. Let's click on Close to come out of here. That is where you go if you need to Edit,
Delete, or Manage Named Ranges.

Excel 2021
Video: Using Named Ranges in Calculations
Deb: So now that we've created our Named Ranges, it's time to take a look at how we can use them in
formulas. So we're going to complete this little table on the right-hand side, and utilize some of those big
five formulas that we've already learned in this course.
So the first formula that we need to construct is an Average formula. And what we want to do here is we
want to find out the average quantity. So, let's start out by typing in average, I'm going to press my Tab
key to select it from that list, and now we need to provide the values that we want to find the average of.
Now it's at this stage, normally, I would go in and select the Cell Range in this Worksheet. But because
we've set this range up as a Named Range, I can simply use the name. And this range is called Quantity.
Now to pull that up, or input it into the formula, if I start typing the word Quantity, notice that
IntelliSense also picks up any Named Ranges that you have in your Worksheet. So it's not just formulas
that you're going to see in that menu underneath, you're also going to see any Named Ranges that you've
created. So once it's found the Named Range, it's highlighted so I can simply press the Tab key. Notice
that the word Quantity is in blue, and the range is highlighted in blue in the table. All that's left for me to
do here is close off my bracket, hit Enter, and there I get the answer.
So that is a really nice, easy way of incorporating those Named Ranges into your formulas. And if you
look at this formula, it's very simple to see exactly what this formula is doing. Let's do this one more
time. This time, we want to do a count of the number of orders. So we're going to type in Count, press
the Tab key. And this time, I want to use the range that I called Orders. Again, we can start to type it in,
it finds it in the list, Tab key, close the bracket, hit Enter, and we are done.
Now, so far, in those two examples, that is very much relied on me remembering what I've called my
Named Range. And it might be that if you're working in a spreadsheet that maybe you last looked at six
months ago, you can't necessarily remember all of the names of the ranges in your spreadsheet. So let's
do this next one, and I'm going to show you a little workaround for that.
So now we need to find out what the minimum sales are. So we're going to use Min, press that Tab key.
And if I can't remember that it's the total range that I want, if I press the F3 key on my keyboard, that's
going to pop open a little window, that's going to list out all of the Named Ranges that I have in this
Workbook. So now I can take a little look through the different names. Yes, that's the one I want, Total.
Select it, and it's going to input it into my formula, close off the bracket, hit Enter. And I can do exactly
the same for Max.
Once again, I can press F3, select Total, click on Ok, close the bracket, and hit Enter. And then the final
one here is just a sum calculation. So we can type in Sum, and this time, I'm just going to start to type
Total, select it from that list, close the bracket, and hit Enter. And I need to just adjust the formatting on

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these to make them British pounds. And there we go. That is how you can use Named Ranges in your
formulas.
Now another important point to note here is if you have used Named Ranges in your formulas, and then
that Named Range gets deleted, that's going to mess up your formula. Let me show you what I mean. If
we jump up to the Formulas Tab, and remember to delete Named Ranges, we need to jump into the
Name Manager. So if I decide that I want to delete this Totals range, let's click on Delete, and okay,
notice what happens to my formulas. I now get this Name Error.
And if you remember in a previous lesson, when we were looking at Errors that you can come across in
Excel, one of them was this Name Error. And I said to you that a Name Error either means that you have
a problem with the name of the formula, maybe you've misspelt it, or you have a problem with the name
of the Named Range. So in this case, the formula name is correct, but the name range no longer exists.
So, what I would need to do to fix this is either go in and replace these with Cell References. So select
the Cell Reference, close the bracket, and hit Enter. Or I could create the Named Range again. So let's
select this, Create from Selection, I'm going to call it Total. And now that has fixed those two formulas.
So just be aware of that. Deleting Named Ranges can affect any formulas where you're using the Named
Range.

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Video: Exercise 04
Deb: In this exercise, we're going to practice the skills that we've learned in this section related to
Named Ranges. So in the first part of this exercise, I'd like you to practice naming different ranges in
your Worksheet. And the Worksheet that we're using is the Customer Data Worksheet.
So the first thing I'd like you to do is go through and name the following data ranges, A2 to A52, I'd like
you to name that range, Customer Name. B2 to B52, I'd like you to name that Range Quantity. And what
you'll notice is that these ranges are basically just the ranges that you see here. And they're all going to
be named according to the column heading. So go through and create all of those Named Ranges.
I'd also like you to create a Named Range for the tax rate. So this Cell Reference just here, H2 to I2, I'd
like you to name Tax Rate. And if possible, try using all of the different methods that I showed you for
creating Named Ranges so that you can practice them. Once you have your Named Ranges set up, let's
use them in some formulas.
So, the first thing I'd like you to do is replace the reference to cell I2 in the Sales Tax formula in column
A, with the Named Range. I'd then like you to recalculate the formulas in Cell Range I4 to I8 using the
Named Ranges instead of Cell References. So that should keep you busy for the next few minutes. And
if you'd like to see my answer, then please keep watching.
So, the first thing I asked you to do was to create Named Ranges for all of the columns in the table. So a
quick way to do this would be to select all of the column headings, Ctrl, Shift, Down Arrow to select
everything. And then on the Formulas Tab, choose Create from Selection. I'm going to use the top row,
so my column headings as the names for each of my ranges, click on Ok, and let's just check that those
have set in that name box, which I can see that they have.
I also asked you to create a Named Range for the sales tax as well. So what we're going to do here is
we're going to select cell I2. And in the Name box, I'm just going to call this Tax_Rate and hit Enter.
And then I asked you to use that Named Range in this formula in column E. So if we double-click to edit
the first formula, instead of I2, I want to use the Named Range instead. So let's delete our I2, and I'm
going to start to type the word Tax_Rate. There it is in my list, Tab to select, hit Enter, and double-click
to copy that down.
And then finally, I asked you to do the same thing for all of these totals in column I. So instead of the
Cell References, we want to use the Named Ranges. So total sales, I use column D for this. So I'm going
to click in the Formula Bar and delete out D3 to D52. And we're going to use the total Named Range, hit
Enter. For the next one, the average quantity, so for this one, we're using the Quantity Named Range,
we're going to replace this with Quantity, Tab, and hit Enter.

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For the next one is the minimum price per item. So I'm going to select the Named Range, delete it, and
this time, I'm going to press the F3 key on my keyboard and select Price_per_Item, and hit Enter. And
we're going to do exactly the same for the next one. Let's delete out F3, Price_per_Item and hit Enter.
And then finally we're doing account A of the customers. So let's delete out this Cell Reference, and this
time we're going to use the customer name Named Range and hit Enter

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Section 6 – Applying Number Formats
Video: Applying Number Formats
Deb: Number Formatting plays a vital role when it comes to the readability of your Worksheets. When
we add a value into a cell in a spreadsheet, we can decide how we want that number to look. For
example, it might be that we want it just to look like a plain old number, or maybe that number is
representing monetary values, and we want it to look more like a currency. Or maybe we wanted to
show as a percentage, this is where Number Formatting comes into play.
So on this Worksheet, I have a few numbers. And I've just repeated these numbers. So we kind of have a
little table going on over here. And notice the column headings. These are the four main types of
formatting that I tend to use for numbers. Now, before we get on to applying this formatting, let's just
take a look at what we mean by Number Formatting.
Now, we're going to be doing a lot of work on the Home ribbon in this lesson, and we're going to be
using this Number Group just here. This is where you're going to find all of the tools that relate to
Number Formatting. Now, notice currently, my Number Formatting is set to General. And General is the
default Number Formatting that's applied to all cells.
So if you don't specify any other kind of formatting, this is the formatting that you're going to get. And
what that basically means is, if I was to type some numbers into these cells, they are simply going to
display with no formatting. So effectively, they're going to display as I've typed them. And in some
scenarios, that's absolutely fine. You don't necessarily have to apply Number Formatting to every single
column or range of cells. If General works for you, that's absolutely fine.
However, we do have other different types of formatting that we can apply to change the look of our
numbers. And that's a really important point. You are literally just changing the way that these numbers
are displaying, you're not actually changing anything related to the underlying number. And this will be
illustrated more once we start applying different number formats. And Number Formatting is effectively
applied to the cell that contains the number as opposed to the actual number.
So, if we take a look at this table, I'm going to select all of the numbers in this first column. And what
we're going to do is we're going to jump up to our Number Formatting group, click the drop down, and
this is going to open up a menu that shows me all the different types of Number Formatting that I can
apply. And you'll see the top one there General, no specific format. The next one down is Number
Formatting.

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Now if I click this, take a look at how that changes my numbers in the Worksheet. I now have two
decimal places after the number. So if you have some long numbers, and it's important that you display
those decimal places, this is a good format option to choose. Now, of course, we can also customize this,
so maybe I want more decimal places, or maybe I want less. Well again, up in this Number Group.
Notice we have these two little arrows for Increase Decimal and Decrease Decimal.
So, I could click once twice to take those decimal places down, or I can increase them simply by
clicking this button. So, you have quite a bit of control there. Now another thing to note here, and this is
very much what I was saying that you're not actually changing the underlying value, you're just applying
formatting over the top. If you take a look at the cell I currently have selected, and then glance up in the
Formula Bar, the Formula Bar is showing me what the actual value underneath that formatting is.
So in the Formula Bar, you can still see that the value of the cell is 24. But because I've applied Number
Formatting, it looks different in the actual cell, okay? So just bear that in mind. Let's apply some
Currency Formatting to this second column, we're going to jump up to our drop down and go to
Currency. Again, this changes the look and feel of my numbers. This time I'm getting the pound
currency symbol in front of all of my numbers. And again, I have two decimal places. If I wanted to take
those down again, I could, or I could increase them.
Now another thing I could do here is I could change the currency symbol that I'm using. So I'm in the
UK so by default, my Excel and my Windows PC is set up to use British pounds. Now if I want to
change the currency symbol that I'm using, what I would need to do here is either click the drop down
and go down to More Number Formats.
Alternatively, I can click the diagonal arrow to take me into the Format Cells dialog box and the
currency section. And from here, I can also adjust those decimal places and also change the currency
symbol that I'm using. And we have pretty much all currency symbols in here. So, it's just a case of
scrolling through and finding the one that you want to use. Let's now take a look at Accounting Format.
I'm going to select all of these cells, click the drop down. And this time we're going to go for
Accounting. Now take a look at this one, because it is slightly different from the Currency Format.
Again, this is just adding a currency symbol. But notice that with this format, the currency symbol is
pushed all the way over to the left-hand side of the cell. And this is the main difference between
Accounting Format and Currency.
Accounting Format was really created for the accounting industry. And in the accounting industry, they
generally tend to have to read down lots of line items of numbers. So to make that a little bit easier,
Accounting Format moves that currency symbol out of the way. But it also makes sure that all of the
decimal places are lined up. So, it's much easier to read down a list of values.

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And then finally, on the end here, we want to apply some Percentage Formatting. Now, this is a little bit
of a strange one. If I highlight all of these numbers, click the drop down, and select Percentage, look at
what I get here. That isn't really what I was hoping for. Even if I decrease the decimal places, I'm still
getting figures that I wasn't expecting. So let's undo a couple of times. Because what I want these to say
is basically 10%, 20%, 30%, so on and so forth.
Now, if you have your numbers written out like this, and you simply try to apply Percentage Format
over the top, you're not going to get what you're expecting. In order for that to work, you would need to
break these percentages down and divide them by 100 effectively. To get 10% when I apply the
Percentage Format, I would need to have this written out as 0.10.
Now, if I apply a Percentage Format to that, and take those decimal places down, it gives me 10%. And
an issue that I find that comes up all the time is that people have numbers written out like this in a
spreadsheet, and then they're not sure how to get all of those numbers quickly converted into
percentages. So, we can fix this using a simple formula trick.
All we need to do is select the cell D5, divided by 100, and that gives us the value that we're looking for.
We can then double-click to copy this down, and then when we apply the Percentage Format, take those
decimal places down, we get exactly what it is that we're looking for, okay? So that's one way that you
can do this.
Another way is that you can simply type the percentage sign in when you're typing the number. So if I
want 10% in the cell, if I type in 10, and then add the percentage sign, it's going to keep it on 10%. And
oddly, it changes the Number Formatting of that cell to Percentage. So, just be aware of that. If you have
numbers already in a spreadsheet, and you try to apply Percentage Formatting, quite often, that's not
going to work. So you either need to type the percentage sign or add a formula that divides it by 100.
Now some of these other buttons that we have up in this Number Group, if we click this drop down, this
is just a quick way for me to switch between three currencies I use most often. We have the percentage
symbol just here that will quickly apply the Percent style. And I also have a Comma style here as well.
And you'd use this if you had a longer number. So let's say I've got 2,500 written in the cell. If I want to
add a comma to that, I can simply click Comma style, it's going to add the comma, give me a couple of
decimal places, I can get rid of those if I want to. But I now have Comma style formatting applied to that
number.
Now, of course, when we click in this drop down, we have a whole host of other formats in here as well.
I’m going to cover the next three; Short Date, Long Date, and Time in the next lesson. But some of these
others you won't use as often. So things like Fractions, Scientific Format, and then we also have Text.

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And as we've seen, if we click More Number Formats, that's going to jump us into our Format Cells
dialog box, which gives us access to yet another menu item, which is Custom. Because what you can do
from here is create your own custom formats. Now this is outside of the scope of this beginners’ course.
But just be aware that that is something you can do when you move up towards your more intermediate
and advanced skills.

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Video: Applying Date and Time Formats
Deb: In the previous lesson, we started to take a look at the different types of Number Formatting that
you can apply to values in cells. And in this lesson, I just want to shift the focus, specifically to applying
Date and Time Formatting. Because, there are a couple of little things that are really useful to know.
Now if you take a look at this little table, you'll see that I've got three columns, Short Date, Long Date,
and Time. And in this Short Date column, take a look at what I have in here, I have some seemingly
random numbers. And this is something you'll come across fairly frequently in Excel. And I know for
sure that when I first started learning Excel, and I was sent a spreadsheet that had all of these weird
numbers where dates should be, I was super confused as to why that was happening.
Now, if you do see numbers where you're expecting dates, all this means is that you have the incorrect
Number Formatting applied to your column, or the range of cells. So what is this number? Well,
basically, all dates in Excel are numbers. And according to Excel, the start of the universe was the first
of January 1900. Excel considers that date to be day number one. And you can see that if I type in
01/01/1900, and hit Enter, if I change this to General Formatting, you can see it showing me the number
1 because that is day one.
And so, the numbers that you see here are basically the number of days past the first of January 1900.
And because I have General Formatting applied to these cells, it's showing the number as opposed to the
date. So the easiest way to fix this is simply to jump up to the drop down, and then either choose Short
Date Format, or Long Date Format.
Now I'm going to choose Short Date. And that immediately converts those to the correct Date Format.
And of course, if I want to display these in the Long Date Format, I can select my cells again. And this
time, I think I'm going to use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + Shift + Down to make that selection, up to the
drop down and this time, Long Date. And there I have that Long Date Format applied.
Again, note the Formula Bar. Even though we've changed the way that this date looks in the cells, the
underlying number is still the original date. Now as most of you can probably tell, I am in the UK. And,
the way that we write our days is a little bit different to other parts of the world. We write the date as the
first of January 2021. Whereas a lot of countries write the date is January the first 2021.
Now for me, I do a lot of work with American clients. So what I'll normally make sure I do is that I
switch my Date Format around so that it's not confusing for the people who are watching the video. And
again, this is something that you need to do in your Windows settings. You need to select the correct
region, and then make sure that Excel is set up to use the region that you have set in your Windows
settings. So if you take a look at the top section here, it says Match Microsoft Windows.

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Another thing to look out for here is if you open up the Number Formatting window, you can also
change your locale for dates as well. So I have mine set to English United Kingdom. But if I wanted to
change that to English United States, I could select that. And notice it flips those dates round the other
way. So now effectively, we have the month first, the day second, and then the year. So, just be aware of
that locale setting as well when you're using things like dates.
Now, the final thing to show you here is the Time Formatting. And again, if you have a bunch of times
written out in your spreadsheet, you may choose to format these in any number of different ways. So if
we click the drop down, I currently just have the regular Time Formatting applied, which uses a 24-hour
clock, and it shows me the hours, minutes, and seconds.
If I want to modify this, once again, I can click the arrow to jump into my Number Format options. And
I can choose any of these that I have in the list. So maybe I want it to display as a 12-hour clock with am
or pm at the end. So, I can select that Number Format and apply it and that's how that's going to look.
And if I really wanted to get granular and customize exactly how these time and dates are looking, that
is again when I would go to Custom and I would either select one of the formats in this custom list, or I
can create my own from scratch. As I said, outside of the scope of this beginner's course. But just be
aware that you do have the ability to do that.
Another thing that's worth noting here is that you don't necessarily always have to apply formatting to
values within cells. You can apply formatting to empty columns, cells, and rows as well. So if I select
these three columns, which currently have no formatting applied, if I select all three of them, and I
switch these to Short Date Format, it means that when I type something into here, it's going to do its best
to convert it into a date.

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Video: Formatting Cells, Rows, and Columns
Deb: Formatting Worksheets not only makes your data come alive and look a lot more interesting, it
also makes your data a lot easier to read. For example, take a look at what I have on this Worksheet, I
have some data. But currently, it's not really in the greatest format, it's going to be very hard for anyone
looking at this, to decipher it and understand it.
So, we could probably do with formatting this a little bit better, so that it's easy to interpret. So let's take
a look at some of the utilities that we have available in Excel, which can help us with this. Now looking
at this data, the first thing I can see here that doesn't look too great is that the column headings where we
have Date, Description, and Amount, are kind of cut off halfway. And I can see here that that is because
row 7 isn't wide enough to accommodate that information. And you'll see this again, very frequently,
when you import data in from other systems.
Sometimes these columns and these rows can end up kind of collapsed up like this, so that you can't see
the values in them. Now this is something that's very easy to fix. All we need to do here to increase this
row height is hover our mouse over the dividing line between rows 7 and 8, and double-click. And that
is effectively going to invoke AutoFit in Excel, and it will adjust the height of that row to accommodate
the height of the values contained within. It's also worth noting that aside from that double-click, you
can also access the AutoFit options from the ribbon.
So, let's just say I had a few rows, which were kind of collapsed up like this, let's just manually make
this look even messier. What I could do here is I could select all of the rows, like so, up to the Home tab
across into the Cells group, and we have this Format drop down. Now notice here at the top here, we
have two options that relate to the row height. I can specify an exact row height, or I can choose to
AutoFit the row heights.
So if I click this option, it's going to basically do the same thing and AutoFit all of those rows. If I
wanted to make each of these rows are very specific size. Again, I could go to Format, row height, and I
could enter in my own row heights. So let's put 25 in there. When I click on Ok, you can see it's going to
widen out those rows. Now I don't really want them that large. So, let's undo to take us back to the
regular row heights.
Now this works the same for columns. So you can see here that column B, currently, that Description is
kind of cut off, I can double-click to widen out that column. Or if I wanted to be very specific about how
wide I wanted each column, I could select all of the columns, go to Format, and this time, I want to
choose the column width. And maybe I want these to be 50 each, click on Ok, and I get three equally
sized columns. Let's undo those changes. So now that we've seen how we can kind of modify the row
and column height and width, let's take a look at the actual data.

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Now in the first column here, I have some dates, I can see that those are showing us numbers. So they
don't have the correct Number Formatting applied. Ctrl + Shift + Down Arrow to select everything. And
then a quick way that I could do this would be to press Ctrl + 1 to jump me into my Format Cells dialog.
And then I can go in and I can apply Date Format. I'm going to choose the top format there, click on Ok,
and that formatting has been applied.
Now the Description, that looks to be okay, I do want to apply some more formatting to these amounts.
So Ctrl + Shift + Down, Ctrl + 1, and now I can choose either Currency or Accounting format. And I
think I'm going to use Currency for these. I'm happy with two decimal places and a pound symbol. So
let's simply click Ok to apply that formatting. Now this isn't looking too bad. But I could make this look
even better by applying more formatting.
In its current state, it's readable, definitely. But there isn't much of a distinction between those column
headings and the actual values the information underneath and it doesn't really look particularly
interesting or engaging. So let's change that. I'm going to select the column headings and then we're
going to go up to the Home tab and into the Font Formatting group. And this is where you're going to
find all of your options to change the look and feel of the font.
So the first thing I'm going to do here is I'm going to choose a different font to use for these headings.
And I want something a little bit Bolder. So let's go with Arial Black. I'm going to increase the size of
that font from 11 to 12. And don't forget, if you want to make minor adjustments to that Font Size, you
have the Increase Font Size button just here, and the Decrease Font Size button as well. Now I could
choose to make this Bold, not going to do that because it's already Bold. What about Italics?
Yeah, that looks pretty good. I could add an Underline. I think in this case, that is a little bit of overkill.
But what I do want to do is I want to make the background of this heading a different color. So for that, I
can click the drop down and choose a color from the palette. Now, the colors that you see in your palette
underneath this Theme Colors heading are dictated by the theme that you're using in Excel. And we
have a whole lesson dedicated to Themes. So, I'm not going to delve too much into this right now. But
I'm using the standard Office Theme. And these are the colors that come with the Theme.
Of course, if I don't like any of those, I can also choose from a small standard color palette, or I could go
to More Colors, and really get very granular about the colors that I'm choosing. Now for this, I'm going
to stick with my Theme Colors, I think I'm going to make this, let's make it a dark green color. And now
I'm going to change the font color as well so that it stands out to white. So, just with a few small
formatting tweaks, we can really see the difference between those column titles and the rest of the data.
But something else I might want to do in here to make this look a little bit neater, is maybe start adding
some Borders. So the first thing I would need to do here is select the cells that I want to put a Border
around, and then I can either jump up to the Borders drop down and choose what type of Border I would

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like. You don't necessarily have to have a Border around every single cell, you can choose if you want it
running across the bottom, across the top, so on and so forth, you can also choose the color of the Border
from here, and also the Border Style. So whether you want a Solid Line, a Double Line, or a Dotted
Line, so on and so forth.
Now I always find when I'm working with borders, it's much easier just to jump into More Borders
option, which is going to take us into Format Cells and that Border tab. From here, I can select what I
want. So I'm going to say I want a Solid Line, in fact, let's make that a bit thinner. I want it to be the
same color as the heading. So I'm going to choose that forest green color. And from here, I can choose
which Borders I want to apply. And we have three presets at the top.
So if I click Outline, you can see in the preview window, it's going to put a solid fill green border around
the outside of where I'm selected. If I decide I don't like that, I can click the None preset, and then
maybe go in and choose some different options. So maybe I want a Border across the top of the cell and
cross the bottom, but I don't want anything around each cell.
Now in my case, I do want a Border around everything. So, I'm going to choose the None preset just to
get rid of all of those. And I'm going to say I want an Outline Border and also an Inside Border. Now if I
click on Ok, you can see how that affects my data. To me, this makes my data not only a lot easier to
read, but also a lot more interesting to look at.

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Video: Using the Format Painter
Deb: Format Painter is one of those great efficiency tools in Excel. What Format Painter enables you to
do is quickly copy formatting from one place and reuse it in another place. So, the very quick example
that we're going to walk through here is using the table that we formatted in the last lesson.
If you remember, we applied numerous pieces of formatting to make this table a lot more readable than
it originally was. And if you take a look on the right-hand side, we basically have the unformatted
version of this table. And what we effectively want to do is make this table on the right, the one that
currently isn't formatted, look like the table on the left. And of course, we could do that by going
through and reapplying the formatting.
So I could select the heading here, I could go up to the Font group, I could change the font style, change
the Font Size, make it Italic, change the background color, change the font color, but that's quite a lot of
clicking around that I'm having to do. And whilst that is only a few seconds worth of clicking, over time,
that is going to add up. And why bother doing that when there is a 1-click option?
If I want to take the formatting that already exists in this Worksheet, for example, the formatting applied
to the column headings and copy it somewhere else, I can simply use the Format Painter. All I need to
do is make sure that I'm clicked on a cell that contains the formatting that I want to copy across. Now, I
want to copy across this formatting to effectively three different cells; Date, Description, and Amount.
And one thing to note here is that you don't necessarily have to select three cells in the first table, you
can just select one as long as that one cell contains the formatting that you want to use. So all I need to
do now is go up to the Home tab. And in the Clipboard group, I have a Format Painter button. Now if
we click this, this effectively toggles on the Format Painter, you can see that it's toggled on in the
Clipboard group.
Also notice that my cursor has changed to a paintbrush, and the cell where I'm copying the formatting
from now has marching ants around the outside. So now, all I need to do is take my cursor and
effectively paint over the cells where I want to apply the formatting. So we're going to click and drag
and then when I let go, like magic, that formatting has been applied, and I haven't had to go through all
of those different steps.
Now, one thing you'll notice is that as soon as I finished painting my formatting, Format Painter
deactivates, and my cursor goes back to a regular cursor. So effectively, when you click the Format
Painter once you can only use it once before it deactivates. Now, what if I have lots of formatting that I
need to apply?

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For example, let's say that we have this item highlighted in Bold. And maybe I want to highlight
numerous items in the table on the right-hand side in Bold. Well, what I would need to do then is select
my Bold formatting, I can select the entire thing, or I can choose just one cell. But instead of clicking
once on the Format Painter, I want to double-click. And that means that I can use it multiple times.
So I can paint and then notice it doesn't deactivate. I can paint again and again, and carry on going until I
choose to deactivate. And to deactivate the Format Painter, you can either click on the Format Painter
button again. Alternatively, a quicker way is to press the Escape key on your keyboard. Now notice as
I've copied those over, it's also copied over the Border Formatting as well. So I want everything to have
a Border.
So let's select a cell that looks like the formatting I want to use, let's click Format Painter, and I'm going
to paint over everything in here. And there we go. Also, remember that even though we've used the same
table of data, you can use Format Painter on pretty much anything. If I have a cell up here and that cell is
an orange color, and I decided that I want to use that somewhere else. I can select the cell, click Format
Painter, and then swipe it wherever I want to use it.

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Video: Exercise 05
Deb: In this exercise, we're going to practice some of the skills that we've learned in this section related
to applying Formatting. And we're going to start out with applying Number Formats.
So for this, we're going to be working on the Formatting Worksheet. And the first thing I'd like you to
do is apply the Short Date Number Formatting to column A. I’d then like you to apply Accounting
Format to Column C, and also Percentage Format to the value in cell I4.
I'd then like you to complete this Worksheet by using a formula to complete the sales tax in column D.
And again, I want you to make sure that you're applying Accounting Formatting there. And then finally,
use a formula to complete the total in column E, and apply Accounting Format. Once you've done that,
I'd like you to make this data look a little bit more interesting, give it some structure by applying some
more formatting.
So I'd like you first apply formatting to the title where it says Client Invoices. And I'd like you to apply
Bold, Light Gray Background Fill, and Font Size 14 points. I'd then like you to format all of the column
headings with Bold, and a light green Background Fill. And then finally, I'd like you to apply Borders
around all of the data. So you're looking for the All Borders option, but I want you to make sure that
Border, the line color, is dark green. See how you get on with that. And if you'd like to see my answer,
then please keep watching.
So the first thing I asked you to do here was to apply the Short Date Format to the dates that we have in
column A. So let's select everything Ctrl + Shift + Down Arrow, up to the Home tab, and we're going to
choose the Short Date Format. Next, I asked you to apply Accounting format to everything in column C.
Ctrl + Shift + Down Arrow, and from the drop down, we're going to choose Accounting Format. And if
yours has come up as dollars as opposed to pounds, then don't worry about that too much.
Next, I asked you to apply Percentage Format to the value in cell I2. So let's select it. This time, I'm
going to do it a slightly different way. Let's press Ctrl + 1 to go into Format Cells, and I'm going to
choose Percentage Format and just take those decimal places down so that it displays as 15%. Next, I
asked you just to complete this table. So, we need to use a formula to work out the sales tax. So this is
going to be a simple sum calculation of the amount multiplied by the sales tax in I2.
F4 to lock that cell, close the bracket Ctrl + Enter. Let's double-click to copy that down. And then our
final sum calculation is a simple addition. So we're going to add the amount to the sales tax, Ctrl +
Enter, and fill down. Next, I asked you to apply some formatting to this Worksheet to give it a little bit
of structure.

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So the first thing I want you to do was to apply formatting to the title. So we're going to select the Client
Invoices row, we're going to change the Font Size to 14, we're going to make it Bold, and we're going to
fill the background with a light gray. Next, I asked you to format the headings of each of the columns.
And for this I asked you to change it to a light green background, and Bold font.
The final thing I asked you to do was apply dark green borders around the outside of this data. So what I
can do here is press Ctrl + A to select everything, jump up to my Borders drop down, and the first thing
I want to do is make sure that I've got the correct line colors selected. So I'm going to choose a dark
green color, and then we're going to go back and apply All Borders.

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Section 7 – Working with Rows and Columns
Video: Working with Rows and Columns
Deb: It's now time to move on to the formatting Worksheets part of the course. And we're going to start
out by exploring a few more options that you have when it comes to working with rows and columns. So
as we've already seen in previous lessons, it is pretty easy to resize rows and columns. We can simply
grab the dividing border, drag in to make the column narrower, drag out to make it wider.
We can also invoke AutoFit by selecting all of the columns and double-clicking to resize all of the
columns to the width of the widest item in the cell. And we can also do the same with our rows. We can
drag them up and drag them down. Alternatively, if we have a few that are the wrong height, we can
select all of the rows, and double-click the row boundary just to invoke that AutoFit feature. So that is
all fairly straightforward. What about if we want to insert new rows or new columns?
Quite often, you might have put a data table together, like we have here, and then maybe I decide that I
want to add an additional column into this table. And if I want to add a column onto the end, that's fairly
straightforward, I can just start typing in column D. What about if I want one in the middle of this table?
Well, when it comes to inserting columns, there are a few different methods that you can use. And I'll
leave it up to you to choose the one that you prefer.
So the first method we can use is to select the column, in this case, Column B, right-click the mouse to
open up the Contextual Menu, and you'll notice halfway down we have an Insert button. If I click on
Insert, it’s going to insert a new blank column to the left of the column that I've selected.
The second way that I can insert a new column is to use the Ribbons. So if we go up to the Home
Ribbon, across to the Cells group, we have this little Insert drop down just here. And one of the options
that we have is to Insert Sheet Columns. And once again, it's going to insert that brand new column to
the left of the column that I had selected.
Now what about if I want to insert multiple columns? Well, what I could do here is select both columns,
right-click, Insert, and it's going to insert another two. I could then select four columns, let's go to Insert
on the Home Ribbon, and Insert Sheet Columns, and I'm going to get another four. Now for me, I don't
find either of these methods, the quickest way to insert columns. I much prefer to use the Keyboard
Shortcut. So let me show you how that works.
I'm going to select Column B, and if I want to insert a brand new column, I can simply press Ctrl + Shift
+, and that's going to insert another column. If I want to insert multiple, it’s very simple, just to keep

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pressing the +. So Ctrl + Shift + + +, to add more and more columns. For me, that is a lot quicker and a
lot more efficient. And we can use exactly the same methods for inserting brand new rows.
So if I right-click, I can say Insert to insert a new blank row, I can use the Home Ribbon, Insert and
Insert Sheet Rows. Or I can use Ctrl + Shift + + + +, to add as many rows as I like. So now that we have
all of these random blank rows and columns, what about if I want to delete them? Again, the methods
that we have access to are very similar to inserting rows and columns. I could select one column, right-
click my mouse, and choose Delete.
Alternatively, I could select multiple columns, on that Home Ribbon, in the Cells group, I have a Delete
drop down as well. So from here, I could choose Delete Sheet Columns to get rid of them. But again, my
preferred method is to use the Keyboard Shortcut. So I'm going to select all of these columns, and this
time, we're going to press Ctrl + - symbol to delete out those columns. Now another little trick I want to
show you when it comes to deleting blank rows or columns is by using a little tool called Go To Special.
Now you can see currently we have a few blank rows in this data set. Now this is fairly easy for me to
delete. I can just select them and use any of the methods to delete rows that I've already shown you. But
what about if I had a much longer data set? Let's say I had 10,000 rows, and there were blank rows
scattered throughout the data set. It's going to be quite time consuming for me to scroll through that data
set, find each blank row and then delete it. So let me show you a very quick way to find all blank rows.
And this applies to columns as well, it's the same process in the table and delete them all in one go.
So what I could do here is select my entire table of data, up to the Home Tab, and then across to the Find
and Select option in that Editing group. And we want to select Go To Special. Now if you're really into
your Keyboard Shortcuts, let me show you how you can get here using a shortcut. Now there isn't a
shortcut key that's going to take you directly to this Go To Special dialog box. But what you can do is
press Ctrl + G to take you to the Go To dialog box, and then simply click Special.
Once we're in here, we can choose to select just the blanks in our selected range. So when I click on Ok,
it's just going to select all of the blank rows in my data set. And then I can delete them all in one go by
clicking the Delete, drop down and Delete Sheet Rows. So, that is a really nice efficiency tip if you need
to remove all blank rows or columns from a data set.
Now the final thing I want to show you here is how you can hide and unhide rows and columns. And the
Hide option is great if you don't want to delete a column of data, but you just don't want it showing in
the Worksheet. So maybe I want to hide the Amount column, I can select the entire column, right-click,
and then I can choose to Hide. Now notice that that column hasn't been deleted, it's still there, but we
just can't see it when we're looking at this Worksheet.

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Notice that the column letters now go from B to D, which tells me that I have a hidden column just here.
I can also do the same thing for rows and I can do multiple if I want to, right-click, and select Hide.
Notice that you also have these options on the Ribbon. So if I select a row again, up to Home, into that
Cells group, underneath that Format drop down, we have Hide and Unhide options. So we can Hide
Rows, Hide Columns, and Hide Sheets. So, I'm going to say Hide Rows.
Now if you want to unhide rows and columns. For example, if I want to unhide column C, I need to
select the columns either side of the hidden column, right-click my mouse, and then I can choose to
Unhide. If I have lots of hidden columns and rows on my Worksheet, I could select the entire
Worksheet, and then unhide everything.
Now a quick way to select the entire Worksheet is to click outside of your data and press Ctrl + A.
Alternatively, if you hover your mouse over this little square in the top left-hand corner and click, that's
also going to select everything. I can then right-click and say Unhide and that's going to unhide all of the
hidden rows and columns.

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Video: Deleting and Clearing Cells
Deb: So far in this course, we've deleted values from cells several different times. And of course, as you
would expect, that is a very simple process. We can simply select the cell that contains the value we
want to delete, and press the Delete key on our keyboard to get rid of the value.
Similarly, if we want to delete from multiple cells, we can select all of them and hit that Delete key.
Now when I do that, it's deleting the value from the cell as opposed to deleting the actual cell. The cell
still remains there, so I can add another value, it's just deleted the contents. But what if I actually want to
delete the entire cell?
Well, let's select this cell in the middle of our table. So, cell B10. If I want to delete just the cell, if I
right-click my mouse, and from the Contextual Menu, choose Delete, it's going to pop open this very
small dialog box. And in here, I have a few different options. I can choose to Shift cells left, up, delete
the entire row or the entire column. Because we're trying to delete a cell, Excel isn't sure what I want to
do with the surrounding data.
Because if I just delete the cell that says Microsoft 365 subscription, it needs to know if the values in the
cell underneath needs to be shifted up, if the value in the cell on the left needs to be shifted across, or if
in fact, I want to delete the entire row or the entire column. So if I was to select Shift cells up, it's going
to delete the cell and move everything up one.
So now, what you'll notice at the bottom is that I have a blank cell because all of the cells have moved
up one. And I would say that, in general, I don't tend to use this option because it kind of makes your
data not accurate anymore.
If I shift the cells up, the Client Lunch would now be showing as having taken place on the 10th of
March 2020. Now, there are some scenarios where that might be useful, but in general, I tend to delete
the entire row. But just be aware that when you do select a cell and you try and delete it, these are the
options that you're going to get.
Now aside from deleting, we also have some Clearing options as well. And you'll find your Clearing
options on the Home Ribbon. Over in the Editing group, on the end, we have this little Clear drop down.
And in here, we have five different things that we can clear. So let's go through each of these so you can
see the difference.
Now, what I'm going to do here is I'm going to select all of the amounts in column D. And if we go to
Clear, and select Clear All, that's basically going to clear everything from that cell range. And when I
say everything, it's going to clear the value out of the cell, but it's also going to clear all of the
formatting. Notice that the borders have also disappeared around this column.

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Now, let's click Undo just to put that column back again. If we take a look at the second option that we
have, we have an option here just to Clear the Formats. Now, if I click Clear Formats, again, notice what
it does. It leaves the value in the cell, but it's cleared out any formatting. So the Borders have
disappeared. And also that Number Formatting, that Currency Formatting that I applied to these cells
has also been cleared. Let's undo again, go back to Clear.
The next option is to Clear the Contents. And this is basically the same as pressing the Delete key.
You'll notice in the ScreenTip in brackets where we have the Keyboard Shortcut that is simply delete.
So this is the same as pressing the delete key, it's not going to clear the format, it's just going to clear the
value from the cell.
The next one that we have is to Clear Comments. Now, we haven't discussed Comments so far in this
course. But Comments are basically annotations that you can add to your Worksheet. Now I've actually
added a couple of Comments into this table. And you can see the cells which contain a Comment
because they have a little red triangle in the top right-hand corner.
If I hover my mouse over this cell, you can see I've added a Comment that says: “Review this item”. I
have another one a bit further down that says: “Check this price on the website”. So if I have comments
in my data, and I just want to clear out or delete all of the comments, I can simply select the cells, go to
Clear and Clear Comments, and that's going to get rid of them.
The final option that we have when it comes to clearing is Clearing Hyperlinks. So again, if you have a
Worksheet that contains hyperlinks to external websites, or maybe Email addresses, anything like that,
this will clear out hyperlinks. Now, I do have some hyperlinks in here, I've added a vendor column,
which basically allows the person looking at this spreadsheet to jump to the website that this expense
item was purchased from. And I can tell that these are hyperlinks because they have a line underneath
them.
And one thing you'll notice with hyperlinks is that when you hover your mouse over them, the cursor
changes to this little hand icon, it's going to show me the website underneath. And if I want to jump to
that website, I can simply click on the link, and it's going to open up that external website.
Now it might be that I don't necessarily want these to be hyperlinks. So, what I can do is I can select
them all, go to Clear and just clear out the hyperlink element. So now, when I hover over these links, I
don't get the option to click them to jump to that website. So, that is the difference between simply
deleting values from cells and using your Clear options.

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Clear can be particularly useful if you've maybe imported a Worksheet and there's a lot of very messy
formatting everywhere. If you want to clear out all of that formatting in one go, you can simply highlight
the entire spreadsheet, and choose to Clear Formats. So Clear options, really useful.

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Video: Aligning Text and Numbers
Deb: Now when it comes to Cell Alignment, or aligning items contained within cells, there are a couple
of important things that is useful to know. Now, by default, when you type a number into a cell, for
example, if I go down here and type in the number 1000, and hit Enter, that value by default is going to
be aligned to the right-hand side of the cell.
If I type in a word into a cell, so let's just type in Hello, that is going to be aligned to the left-hand side of
the cell. If I type in a date, let's do 01/01/2021, and hit Enter, that is also going to align to the right-hand
side of the cell. So, the thing you need to remember here is that values or numbers are always aligned to
the right by default, as are dates. But text is going to align by default to the left of the cell. And of
course, you can change these alignments by using your Alignment tools, which we're going to take a
look at in a moment.
Now all of the tools that we're going to be working with in this lesson, you're going to find on the Home
Ribbon, in the Alignment group. So, let's break this down and just start out with this little group of six
icons just here. Now, these six icons allow you to control the horizontal and the Vertical Alignment of
the value or the text within a cell. And the top three allow you to control the Vertical Alignment. And
the bottom three allow you to control the Horizontal Alignment. So let's start out with these Horizontal
Alignment tools, the bottom three icons.
The first one here allows us to align everything to the left, we can then align to the center, or align to the
right-hand side. So, if I was to select this heading row, just here, currently, these are all aligned to the
left. But what I could do is align them all to the center. Alternatively, I could align them to the right-
hand side of the cell. So, this controls your Horizontal Alignment. But what about Vertical Alignment?
Well, to demonstrate this, let me make this heading row a little bit taller. Because what you'll notice is as
soon as I do that, all of these column headings are basically aligned to the bottom of the cells. And that
is the default in Excel. Now, might be that I'm fine with that. But maybe I want them vertically aligned
to the middle, or to the top of the cell. So again, I can select my cells and use my Vertical Alignment
tools.
Notice currently, that Bottom Align is selected, but I could choose to Middle Align, or Top Align. So if I
want everything dead in the center of the cells, I would need to Middle Align, and then I'm going to
Horizontally Align to the center. So, those are your Alignment utilities. Now what about this next button
across? This controls the Orientation of the text.
So again, by default, anything that you type into a cell is going to be in a Horizontal Orientation. And I
would say that for the most part, that is the one that you're going to use. But if you wanted this to look

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slightly different, I could again select my cell range. And I can choose to Angle Counterclockwise
Clockwise, I can have it vertically going up, I can rotate the text, so on and so forth.
So if I Angle Counterclockwise, that is how my headings are going to look. And for this, I would
probably want to widen that row out just a little bit. Let's take a look at a couple of these other options. I
can change them so they're going the other way. I can make them Vertical like that, which is a little bit
strange. I can Rotate the text up, or I can Rotate the text down. And of course, if I want to see more
options, I could choose to Format Cell Alignments, where I can come in here and really customize the
Orientation or the amount of degrees that I'm rotating these values.
Now I don't want to rotate this, let's just undo a few times just to take that back to how it was originally.
Now the two buttons underneath deal with Indentation within cells. So by default, everything that you
type into a cell isn't going to have any type of Indentation. But what I could do here is select a cell so
let's say cell B9, and then I could indent the contents of that particular cell.
So if I increase the indent, you can see it's going to move across the cell or I can decrease the indent. So,
this is sometimes useful if you have multiple lines of text within a cell and you want to maybe show the
difference between the first item and its sub items underneath.
Now the final two options that we have in this Alignment group are Wrap Text and Merge and Center.
Now what Wrap Text will do is it will wrap extra-long text into multiple lines so that you can see all of
it. And what we mean by that is if I make this column a little bit narrower.
Notice that currently, the way I have these cells set up is that the text is kind of cut off, the column isn't
wide enough, so it's not displaying everything. But what about if I have to have this column at this
width, and I still want to be able to see the full description?
Well, this is where I could choose to wrap the text. So what I can do here is select all of these cells and
click Wrap Text. And that is going to basically widen out the rows to accommodate the entire length of
the description without changing the width of the column. So here, you can see that some of these items
are now wrapped on to two lines. So that is what Wrap Text can do.
Now, I don't actually want these wraps, so let's select all of these again. And I'm just going to toggle off
Wrap Text. And we're going to just double-click to resize that column. Now, another thing that you can
do when you're working in cells is you can add your own Manual Line Breaks. So if I have, for example,
this description just here: Taxi Fare London Paddington to Greenwich.
If I want the words to Greenwich to be on a separate line, I can add a Manual Line Break. So if I double-
click so that my cursor is placed where I want the line to break, and press Alt + Enter, that's going to
push that down onto the row below. And that option there is different to wrapping the text because we've

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added a Manual Line Break. And to get rid of that, I can simply select the cell, and unwrap the text.
That's going to reverse that.
Now the final thing we have in here is the Merge and Center drop down. And we have a few different
options in here. And what Merge and Center does is it allows you to merge cells together. So if we take
a look at the title, just here, I have Expenses Claim Form for Simon Sez IT. Now even though this text
looks like it runs across into column B, it's actually all contained within column A. If I were to double-
click to widen out this column, you can see that it's all contained within Column A, just there all in cell
A1, I should say.
Now what about if I want to center this title across the data below? You might think that you could click
on the cell that contains the text, cell A1 in this case, and use your Alignment tools. So maybe if I select
Center Alignment, that's going to center everything. Let's click it and see what happens. It doesn't center
align the title above my data. What it does is it just centers it in the cell the text is contained within. And
for this or what I'm trying to achieve, that doesn't really work well.
So, in order to get this title to center across the data below, I would need to merge the cells. So what I
can do here is select all of the cells to the same width as the data below, and then I have a few different
options. Now Merge and Center basically does two things in one, it will merge the four cells and make
them one big cell, and it will also center the values.
So Merge and Center is going to leave me with that. This is now one big cell as opposed to four separate
cells, and my text is in the middle. Let's undo. We also have Merge Across. Now what that will do is it
will merge the cells. So it's one big cell but it's not going to move that text to the center. We then have a
Merge Cells option, which in this scenario is pretty much going to do the same as Merge Across. And
then we have an Unmerge Cells option, which is going to make them four separate cells again.
So for me, in this example, I want to select all of the cells, Merge Center, and then I'm going to apply a
little bit of formatting to this title. So let's make it a little bit bigger. I'm going to change the Background
to a light gray color, like so. And then just to finish this up, I don't really need all of these blank rows in
between. So, I'm going to delete out some of these. Let's right-click and Delete.
Now, don't forget that you also have additional Alignment options by clicking this little diagonal arrow,
that's going to jump you into your Alignment Settings. So let's click it and see what we have. So once
again, we can choose our Text Alignment. And we have lots of different options in there, including
some additional options which aren't on the Ribbon. We also have some Text Control options. So we
can wrap our text from here. And we can do things like Shrink text to fit cells.
Now, let me just quickly show you what that is. If I was to type in a sentence, let's do it over here,
“Hello World. Are you enjoying this training?”, and maybe I want this cell to be that wide. If I want to

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fit all of this sentence into that one cell, but I don't want to adjust the width of the column, I could
choose to Shrink to fit, click on Ok, and it's going to minimize that sentence down so that it fits exactly
into the cell.
Now, of course, that makes it extremely hard to read. That isn't an option I use really at all. But in some
cases, it doesn't shrink it down this tiny, and it works quite well. So, just be aware of those additional
Alignment options that you have in that diagonal Alignment Settings drop down.

Excel 2021
Video: Applying Themes and Styles
Deb: Earlier on in the course, I mentioned that the colors that you see when you click the Font Color
drop down, for example, are based on the Theme that you're using in Excel. And you can see here based
on the Theme that I have applied, these are the colors that belong to the Theme.
Now there are a number of different inbuilt Themes in Excel that you can choose. And you'll find your
Themes on the Page Layout Tab in the Themes group. And if we click the drop down, you can see there
it's going to open up a gallery of all of the different Themes we can use in our Worksheets.
Now a Theme is something that you can apply very quickly with one click. And each Theme contains its
own set of colors, its own set of fonts, and its own set of effects. And you can see in the gallery below,
the one that I have currently selected is the Office Theme. And this tends to be the Default Theme when
you first install Excel. Now, what I could do if I wanted to is to change the Theme that I'm using.
And if I hover over any of these other Themes, notice that the colors in the Background will change
depending on which Theme I'm currently hovering my mouse over. And this is what we call Live
Preview. I haven't had to click on the Theme to apply it, I can get a preview of that Theme simply by
moving my mouse around in this gallery. Now one thing you'll notice here is as I move my mouse over
these Themes, only the colors are changing. And as I said at the beginning, each Theme contains its own
fonts as well.
So what I would expect is that when I hover over each of these Themes, not only do the colors change to
match the Theme, but also the fonts that I'm using as well. But notice that mine are not changing. So
why is that? Well, the reason why it's not changing is because I change the fonts that I'm using for this
Theme. So by default, the Office Theme uses Calibri fonts, but I actually prefer to use Arial font for my
Worksheets. So, I change my font to Arial.
Now, because I'm not using the Default Theme fonts, when I hover over the different Themes, it's not
updating to show the fonts in these other Themes. So what I'm going to do here just to show you how
this works, so I'm going to change all of this to Calibri. So let's select the entire spreadsheet, and I'm
going to change this back to Calibri font.
So now, if I go back to Themes and hover over, you can see that it also updates those other elements. So
now when I hover over, I'm getting the font that's used within the Theme. And the same would apply to
the colors.
Now in this case, I am using the Theme colors contained within the Template. For example, in this
heading row, if we go to Home, I'm using this dark green color, which is part of the Office Theme. So
that is why again, when I hover over these different Themes, those are updating because I'm actually

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using the Default Theme colors. So, just be aware of that. If you're wondering why your fonts aren't
changing, or maybe the colors aren't changing, it's probably going to be because you've used a
Background Fill that isn't part of your current Theme, or fonts that aren't part of your current Theme.
Now, if I want to apply a completely different Theme, I can select one of them. So let's just go for this
one here, Ion Boardroom, click to select. And that is quickly going to change the look and feel of my
data. Now if I go back to Home, and maybe I decide that I want to change the color of this heading row,
when I click the Background shading drop down, notice that those Theme colors, the colors you can see
in that palette have now updated, and they're showing me the colors that are part of this Theme. So if I
wanted to choose something different, I could go in here and select a dark red color.
Now we can customize these Themes a little bit further. Again, if we jump back to Page Layout, we can
go in and we can select whatever Theme we like. But then if we decide that actually we want to choose
just a different color palette, I can select this drop down just here and choose an entirely different color
palette. So what this means is that I can still use all of the fonts that are contained within the Theme, but
I can use a different color palette if I wanted.
So maybe let's choose blue green. And now if I was to go back to Home and click the drop down, this is
the color palette that I'm seeing. So I'm still using the Ion Boardroom Theme, but I've just changed the
color palette that I'm using. And if I wanted to change the fonts, I can click the drop down here and
choose different fonts entirely. So maybe I want to change this back to Arial. So again, I'm still using
that Ion Boardroom Theme, but I've customized the color palette that I'm using, and also the fonts that
I'm using.
The final element that's included within every Theme are Effects. And this will allow you just to add
different effects to elements in your Worksheet. And I will say that this is more obvious when you have
something like shapes in your Worksheet, and I can change the different effects that I'm using. So it
might be that I want shading applied to different objects, or I want to make any shapes that I add glossy,
I can choose any of these from the gallery as well. It is also possible to create your own Themes.
For example, even though I selected the Ion Boardroom Theme, I've made some changes to this Theme.
I'm using a different color palette, and I'm using different fonts. So if I want to be able to quickly apply
this new Theme effectively that I've created, I can jump into Themes and say Save Current Theme. This
is going to jump me across to the Default Folder for storing Themes. And I would recommend that you
don't change this Folder path. All I need to do now is give this file a name. So I'm going to call this DA,
so my initials, Custom Theme, and click on Save.
So what this now means is that if I click the Themes drop down, underneath this new group called
Custom, there is my Theme. So if I was to apply a completely different Theme to this, so let's go for

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something like gallery. If I then wanted to switch back to my Theme, I can simply go up to Themes, and
apply the DA Custom Theme. So that is my recommendation.
Select a Theme to start with, make your customizations, choose your colors, your fonts, and the effects
that you want to use, and then just save that Theme into the Default Custom Themes Folder, and it's
always going to be available for you to use. Now what about if I was to create a brand new Workbook?
I'm going to press Ctrl + N. Is my Theme still going to be available? Well, let's jump up to Page Layout
and into Themes. And you can see, yes. So even if I create a new Workbook, my Custom Theme is still
available for me to use.

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Video: Exercise 06
Deb: In this exercise, we're going to practice some of the skills that we've learned in this section relating
to formatting data, and applying Themes. So we're going to be working on the Customer_Data tab. And
what I'd like you to do is format the data on this tab, so that it looks like the data we have on the
Custom_Data_Formatted tab. So let's check out the Customer_Data tab.
Currently, nothing is formatted on here. But I want you to make this look like this. So, make a note of a
few things here. We have Number Formatting applied. We're using Borders and in some cases, different
thickness Borders. Check the Cell Alignment, everything is aligned to the middle. So just a few things
for you to bear in mind there.
Now when it comes to the column width for your columns, I'd like you to set all of the columns to 25.
And when it comes to the width of all of the columns, I'd like you to be very specific and set all of the
columns to 25. Now once you've formatted that Worksheet, we can then move on to the second part of
this exercise.
So on the Worksheet Customer_Data_Theme, or just Theme as I've got it listed out, I want you to
change the Theme to Savon. I’d then like you to change the Theme font to Cambria and the Theme
colors to Violet II. And if you'd like to see my answer, then please keep watching.
So the first thing we're going to do here is we're going to change the width of all of these columns to 25.
So let's right-click and go down to column width, and just type in 25, and click Ok. Next, I'm going to
make sure that I have the correct Number Formatting applied to my columns.
So in column B, I need to apply the Short Date format. Ctrl + Shift + Down Arrow, let's select from our
drop down Short Date. In the next column, I want to apply Currency Format; Ctrl + Shift Down Arrow.
This time, I'm going to press Ctrl + 1, and I'm going to choose Currency Format. And let's take those
decimal places down to zero. And in column D. This is another date, Ctrl + Shift + Down Arrow, Short
Date format.
Now the next thing, let's just take a quick look at our reference. Let's deal with this heading first of all.
So, what do I have here? I have a light yellow Background Fill. My column headings are in Bold and
12-point font, and they're also this dark gold color. So let's jump back to Customer_Data. We're going to
select all of the column headings, Ctrl + Shift + Right Arrow, we're going to Background Fill with a
light yellow color. And we're going to change the font to this gold color. Let's make it Bold, and
increase that font size to 12.
Now what you'll also notice is that we have these aligned to the middle. So once again, we're going to go
out to our Alignment tools, we're going to align to the middle and to the center. And if we jump back to

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our reference, I can see that all of the data in my table is also aligned to the middle. So Ctrl + Shift +
Right Arrow, Ctrl + Shift + Down Arrow to select everything. And we want to align to the middle. The
final thing left to do here is to apply some Borders.
Now notice that the Border that I have surrounding the column headings is a little bit thicker than the
Border I have round everything else. So I'm going to apply a thin border to everything first of all. So
let's go back, and let's select all of our data, Ctrl + A. Up to our Borders drop down, into Line Style. And
I'm going to choose the thinnest solid line. And we're also going to choose the Line Color, which is
going to be this dark gold. And then what I want to do here is apply this to All Borders, and that's going
to give me Borders around everything.
What I can then do is just apply a slightly thicker border around the column headings only. So Ctrl +
Shift + Right Arrow, and we need to just make an adjustment to the Line Style. So, I'm going to choose
this thicker line. And then we want to apply this around the outside only. And there we go. If we take a
look at our reference, everything is looking exactly the same.
So the second part of this exercise was to apply a Theme. So we want to apply the Savon Theme and we
want to change the font to Cambria and the Theme colors to Violet II. So let's go to Theme, up to Page
Layout, and into Themes, and we're just going to search for the one called Savon. There it is. Let's click
to apply. And then we can go up to colors and change this to Violet II. And then fonts, we're going to
change to Cambria.

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Section 8 – How to Structure a List
Video: How to Structure a List
Deb: It's really important that the data in our spreadsheets is structured correctly to make analyzing it
easier. For example, if we have a data set that's made up of rows and columns, we might want to analyze
that data further using a tool like PivotTables. Or maybe we want to create some kind of report.
We might simply want to filter the data, sort it, or group it. All of these things are made a lot easier if we
start out with well-structured data. And that is what I want to focus on in this section on Excel lists.
When you're working with data in Excel, in general, your data sets come in one of three ways. You
might have your data set out like we do in Example 1 as a Spreadsheet Report.
Alternatively, you might have your data set out as a Flat Data File, or your data might be in Tabular
Format. So what is the difference between these three and which one is the best? Well, if we take a look
back at Example 1, this is more of a Spreadsheet Report format. I have data, but it's kind of broken up
into different countries, and also different Regions. And in each little mini table, I guess you could say,
we have the Sales Amount and the unit price, we effectively have the same Column Headings.
And whilst this is fine, and this might be perfectly good for presenting high level metrics to
management, this isn't really the best format if you want to analyze this data. For example, if I was to try
and sort the data in this first table, it's only going to sort the data in this little table here, it's not going to
do anything to these other tables of data. So really, this type of layout makes for a really ineffective data
model. And the data that you see repeated throughout this spreadsheet report is really just there for
aesthetic purposes.
So in general, I wouldn't lay my data out like this, if I wanted to do any type of analysis. So with all that
said, let's look at Example 2. Now on this tab, in example number two, this is what we call a Flat Data
layout. And this is exactly the same data that we had an Example 1, but it's just laid out in a different
way. So instead of having everything split across into effectively, many little tables, we've consolidated
all of that data. So that, we now have each Region in its own column, each Country in its own column,
each Department so on and so forth.
And then we have columns D to H, which show the January sales, February, sales, March, April, so on
and so forth. So, Flat Files are data lists organized by row and columns. And each row corresponds to a
line of data or a record. And each column is a field. And this is a much more effective way to organize
your data if you intend to create an analysis from this data via a PivotTable, or even just a simple sort of
filter. So this layout is good, it's definitely better than the first one, but there is an optimal way to lay out
your data, if you want to analyze it.

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Now again, this is exactly the same data but laid out in what we call Tabular Format. So we have
everything split up into columns again. But the difference here between this example, and the previous
one is that the column labels do not double as fields. So notice here we have the Region, the Country,
the Department, and then we have the sales period, which is effectively the month, and then the
consolidated Sales Amount.
If we take a look at the previous example, instead of sales period, what we had instead were more
columns for January sales, February sales, March sales, April sales, so on and so forth. So, Tabular
Format is a much better way of laying out your data. And this is the optimal structure that you should
think about using because it guarantees that any analysis you do with PivotTables, Sorting and Filtering,
and Grouping work the way that they should.
So, think about this when you're putting together your data sets. These are effectively all what we call
Excel lists. But there are numerous different ways that we can structure those lists, and some have more
advantages when it comes to analysis than others.

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Video: Sorting a List 1
Deb: So now we understand the best way to structure our data for analysis, it's time to take a look at
some of those analysis tools. And we're going to start out with one of the most common and that is
Sorting. And in this lesson, we're going to look at the most basic way that you can sort your data. And
that is called Single Level Sorting. Now, what do we mean by Single Level Sorting?
Well, it means that we're simply sorting on one column only. For example, if we take a look at the data
set that I have just here, it's all nicely laid out in my columns and rows. This is in Tabular Format, so it's
a great data set to analyze. And maybe I want to sort this data by Region. And what I can do here is
because I have text in column A where we have the Regions, I can sort text fields A to Z, or Z to A.
So what I can do is I can click somewhere in this column, and I have a couple of different options when
it comes to sorting. Now I can either use my ribbons, and you'll find your Sort options on two different
ribbons. The first place you can find Sort is on the Home ribbon that we're currently on. All the way
over in the Editing group at the end, notice that we have a Sort and Filter button. If we click this, we
have the top two sorting options. This is as simple sort, Sort A to Z, or Sort Z to A.
The second place we can find our sorting options is on the Data ribbon. In the middle here, we have a
Sort and Filter group. And again, we have our basic sort options, so A to Z, or Z to A. And the third
method we can use is to simply right-click in the column that we want to sort. And then in that
Contextual Menu, three quarters of the way down this list, we have Sort A to Z, and Sort Z to A. And we
also have some additional ways to sort in here as well, which we'll get onto a bit later.
But for now, I'm going to do a very simple sort, A to Z. Let's click and like magic, my data is now sorted
by that Region Column A to Z. So we have Asia first, then Europe, then North America. Now if I then
decide that actually I want to sort on the Country A to Z instead, what I can do is click in Country, right-
click, Sort, Sort A to Z, and it's going to sort by this column. Remember, this simple Single Level Sort
can only solve by one column.
So using this option, I couldn't say to Excel, sort by Region, and then sort by Country. I can only sort by
one or the other using Single Level Sorting. Now both of those sorts that we've done are using text
fields. Now what about if I want to sort by a column that has numerical values in it? So for example, this
Sales Amount column? Now when I right-click here and go to Sort, we have slightly different options.
This time, it's recognized that we have numbers and not text.
So now the options I get are Sort Smallest to Largest, or Largest to Smallest. So if I want to sort by the
highest Sales Amount first, I can do Sort Largest to Smallest, and that's going to place that one right at
the top. Now, if you recall, when we right-clicked and went into Sort, aside from these top two options,

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we also have three others. So this is going to allow you to do a Single Level Sort that is dependent on
the cell color, the font color, or the formatting icon in use. So let me show you exactly what this does.
Now, these really apply if you have data that's formatted within your data set. So maybe I have cells that
are a specific color. So I'm just going to select a few different rows, and let's just apply some
Background Shading. And I'll do that for these rows down here as well. So now, what I can do is make
sure that I'm clicked on a cell that has Background Shading, when I right-click and go to Sort, I can say
Put Selected Cell Color On Top.
So if I select that, it's instantly going to find all of the cells that have Background Shading, and it's going
to move those to the top. So it's going to sort by the background color of the cell. Now I'm just going to
reset these to No Fill, because the same applies to font colors. So again, if I have some rows and they are
a different font color, so let's stick with orange again. And let's choose a few rows down here and put
those as orange. I can do exactly the same thing.
I can right-click, go to Sort, and I can say Put Selected Font Color On Top. And that's going to
reorganize my data so that those are pushed to the top. So, that is how Single Level Sorting works.

Excel 2021
Video: Sorting a List 2
Deb: In the previous lesson, we saw how we can sort our data by one column, a Single Level Sort. And
in this lesson, I just want to show you how you can do a Multi-Level Sort. And what we mean by Multi-
Level Sort is that we can sort on multiple different columns.
So it might be that I want to search by the Region, A to Z, and then by the Country, Z to A, and then by
the Sales Amount, largest to smallest. So effectively, we're sorting using three different columns. So let's
take a look at how this works. Now for this, we don't have to make sure that we’re clicked in any
specific column, we can just click somewhere in our data. And for this, we're gonna jump up to the Data
tab.
Now in the Sort and Filter group in the middle, we have this big old Sort button. Now if I click this, it's
basically going to open up this little dialog box, which is going to allow me to perform multiple
searches. Now the first thing to check here is that you have this little checkbox selected if it applies to
the data that you're using.
So, if your data does have headers, and we're talking about column headers, in this case, make sure that
you have a tick in this box. If I didn't tick that, it just means it's going to sort those Column Headings as
well as the rest of the data. And we don't really want to be doing that.
So now what I can do is I can tell Excel what I want my first sort to be. So let's use the example that I
just spoke about. So the first sort that I want to do is I want to sort by the Region. So this is where we're
going to find all of our Column Headings. So we're going to select Region. What do I want to sort on?
And in here, I can choose to sort by the Cell Value, the Cell Color, the Font Color, or the Conditional
Formatting icon.
Now, we're just doing a simple sort on the value in the cell. And then I can choose the order. So do I
want this to be A to Z, Z to A or a Custom List? And we're going to talk about Custom Lists in the next
lesson. Now I just want to do a sort on the Region, A to Z. So, that is effectively my first sort. So now, I
want to add in my second sort. So all I need to do here is click the Add Level button, and it's going to
give me another row to complete.
So we're going to sort by Region on the cell values in the order A to Z, and then we're going to sort by
the Country. On the cell values, we’ll also sort A to Z. And then I'm going to add another level, because
then I want to sort on the Sales Amount, I want to sort by the value in the cell, and I want to sort largest
to smallest. And I could carry on going adding levels, I could sort by every single column in my data set
if I wanted to.

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Notice that we also have a couple of other buttons here. So just to make this a bit quicker, I could copy
the level, which is just going to copy the sort that I'm currently clicked on. So if I click that, it's going to
give me another one with the exactly the same values. And of course, if I need to delete a level, I have a
Delete button just here as well.
These two little arrows will allow me to reorder the sort items. So if I want to sort by Region, then by
Sales Amount, and then by Country, I could simply move Sales Amount up using the arrow to put that
in the middle. Now I'm going to move that back down again.
And then finally, we have a little Options button. And we can choose if this is a Case sensitive sort. And
we can choose which way we're sorting through our data. So because I have data running vertically in
columns, I want to Sort top to bottom. If my data was running horizontally across the page, I could also
do a Sort from left to right. Once you're happy with everything that you have set in here, click the Ok
button, and it's going to perform that sort. So let's take a look at what exactly it's done here.
So in the Region column, we sorted A to Z. So yes, I have Asia at the top, so that's perfect. We then
sorted by the Country column, A to Z. So we have China, first of all, because that's the one that comes
first in the alphabet. And then we sorted by Sales Amount, largest to smallest. So I should find that when
we get down to the end of China, because the Country changes to Japan, we then go back to the largest
figure going down to the smallest.
And just to note here, if you do like your right-click options, you can right-click and go to Sort, and
you'll find your Custom Sort right at the bottom of this menu. It's going to open that up and you can go
in and add your different levels. But that, is effectively, how you can perform a sort on your data using
multiple columns.

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Video: Sorting with Custom Sort
Deb: So now we've seen how we can perform a Single Level Sort, and also a Multi-Level Sort, there is
one more type of sort that we can perform. And that is to sort using a Custom List. Now, what this
allows you to do is basically customize how you're sorting your data. So if there's a very specific way
that you want to sort the data, you can specify that using a Custom List.
For example, currently, I have my Regions listed in Column A, and nothing here is sorted currently. We
have Europe first, then we have Asia, and then finally North America. Now if I was just to do a basic
sort on this column, I only have the choice of sorting these A to Z, which means Asia would be first, or
Z to A, which means North America would be first. But what I could do using a Custom Sort is tell
Excel how I want to sort.
So maybe I want to sort by North America first, then Asia, and then Europe. Currently, neither the sort
A to Z or Z to A would give me that result. So, I can use my own list. So to set up your Custom Lists,
there are a couple of ways that you can do this. And we did briefly take a look at this a little bit earlier
on in the course. So let's see how we set this up.
Now what I'm going to do is I'm going to click in the column that I want to sort, go up to Data, and we're
going to open that Sort dialog box again. Because what I want to say in here is I want to sort by the
Region, I want to sort on the values in the cells, but when it comes to the order, I want to use a Custom
List. And this is basically going to pop open that load Custom Lists dialog box.
And if you recall, you actually find this in Excel Options. This is where we have things like the days of
the week set up so that we can auto fill them down. And we did set up our own Custom List earlier on in
the course so that I can type in the first name, drag down to fill down the rest of the employees in my
team. So we can use Custom Lists to tell Excel exactly how we want to sort this list. So what I can do
here is choose New List, and then type in how I want this list to be sorted. And each item needs to be
separated with a comma, and then a space.
So the order I want to sort in is North America first, comma, space, then I want Asia, comma, space, and
then I want Europe. Let's click the Add button to add that into our Custom Lists. And now if I click on
Ok, you can see the order is my new Custom List. Click on Ok again, and now I have it sorted in exactly
the way I want it to be sorted. Now there is another way that you can do this. So instead of typing the
Regions in, you could effectively select them from your data set. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to
do the same thing, but we're going to create a Country Custom List.
Now effectively, what I want to do here is I want to extract a unique list of all of the different countries
from the Country column. Because currently, these are all repeated. And all I want is one entry for USA,
one for Canada, one for Mexico, one for China, so on and so forth. Now the way that we can do this is to

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use a brand new function in Excel. This is very exciting. And that is called the Unique Function. And
what this will do is allow you to extract a unique list of values from a list where the values repeat. So,
just somewhere on the spreadsheet in a blank cell, I'm going to type in =UNIQUE. And this is a function
that is a brand new for Excel 2021.
I'm going to press my Tab key to put the bracket in. And all we need to do is select the Cell Range that
we want to extract unique values from. So I'm going to click the first cell, B5, Ctrl + Shift + Down
Arrow to select this entire Cell Range. Let's work in the Formula bar now, close off the bracket and hit
enter. Take a look at what happens, we get a nice long list of unique values from that column. So now I
can use this list to create my Custom List.
Now there is a little bit of a quirk with this. If we go back up to Sort, and we add another level, and we
say this time we want to sort by Country on the cell values. When we select Custom List, we don't get an
option to import this list that we've just created into our Custom Lists. The only thing we can do here is
create a new list and type out those list entries.
So, a way to get around this would be to go into Excel Options and add the list there because we do get
some additional ways of importing data. So, let's just delete out this level for the time being, I'm going to
go to File and down to Options.
Now we find our Custom Lists under the Advanced Section. And if we scroll all the way down towards
the bottom, we can click the Edit Custom Lists button. Now notice when we go into it this way, we get
an additional option to import a list from cells. So, I can click in this little box, and then I can select my
Cell Range, and choose Import. Now notice our next problem, it says, “Cells without simple text were
ignored”.
Now, the reason why it's coming up with that error is because it's recognizing that there is a formula
sitting behind the cells that I've selected, and we can't import cells that contain a formula. So what can I
do here? Well, this is a very, very simple little trick. We can use cut and one of our paste options to
effectively throw away the underline formula and just leave the text in the cells. So I'm going to select
these cells, and I'm going to say Ctrl + C to copy. I'm going to go to the Home tab, into Paste, and I'm
going to choose to paste just the values directly over the top. Escape to deselect that Cell Range.
Now notice that when I click on any of these, if you look in the Formula bar, we no longer have that
unique formula is sitting behind, we just have the text value. So now that we've gotten rid of that
formula, we can finally go back in to Excel Options, go to Advanced, scroll all the way down, Edit
Custom Lists, and now I can import my data. So let's click in Import list from cells, select the data we
want to use, and click the Import button. And like magic, it has now created me a brand new Custom
List. So let's click on Ok, and Ok again.

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Now that I have that created, what I can do is go back to my Data tab and redo my Sort. Let's add a
level, we're going to sort by the Country on the cell values. And when I choose Custom List this time,
it's going to show me that list. Let's click on Ok, and Ok again. And now, it's sorting that list in exactly
the order that I have listed out just here. Now if I was to delete all of this, notice that it doesn't affect the
sort in column B. So, that is a couple of different ways that you can create a Custom List to perform a
Custom Sort.

Excel 2021
Video: Using AutoFilter to Filter a List
Deb: Another way that we can organize and make sense of our data is to use Filters. And what Filters
basically allow us to do is filter out all of the data that we're not particularly interested in, and really
focus on what's most important to us. So let's take a look at how we can apply Filters to our data set. So
I'm going to apply some Filters to this data set.
Now again, there are a couple of different ways that you can do this, the first method we can use is we
can go to the Home ribbon, all the way over in the Editing group, let's click the Sort and Filter drop
down. And the option that we can select here is Filter. Now notice there is a Keyboard Shortcut for this
of Ctrl + Shift + L. And if I click Filter, notice what happens to my data, I now get these little drop down
arrows in each of the Column Headings.
Now, it's also worth noting that we can apply these same Filters from the Data tab in the Sort and Filter
group, this button just here. Now, because I already have my Filters applied, this button is showing as
being toggled on. If I wanted to remove my Filters, I could simply click it again to get rid of them. Now
I'm going to turn mine back on again. So now that we have these little drop down arrows, how do they
work? How are they useful to us?
What we can do is we can filter our information. And we can filter by one column, or we can filter by
many columns. So let's do a basic filter. I'm going to start in the Region column, let's click the drop
down. And in this drop down, you're always going to have your Sorting options at the top. But it's sort of
from here down that we're interested in when we're dealing with Filters. Now the top two options are
grayed out, which means that they're currently not available based on my selection. But I do have some
other things I can do down here.
Now take a look right at the bottom, you can see in this list, it's showing all of the unique items that I
have in this column. So, I have data in Column A that relates to Asia, Europe and North America. Now,
maybe I am the manager for the Europe Region. So, I'm not really interested in the sales figures for Asia
and North America, I only want to see the sales figures for Europe. So what I can do here is I can take a
tick out of Asia and North America, click on Ok, and it's going to filter that list of data and only show
me the data for Europe.
Now notice that as soon as I've done that a number of those row numbers have turned to blue. Also
notice that now the little filter drop down in that Column Heading has changed from a drop down arrow
to a little filter icon. Now both of these things indicate to me that I have Filters applied to this column of
data.
Sometimes, and this is a big mistake that some people make, if you're sent a spreadsheet and you don't
realize that there are Filters applied to that data, it might make you think that you don't have all of your

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data. Or maybe if you're trying to analyze it, you're getting unexpected results. So just be aware of that.
If you've got blue row numbers and a little filter icon, it means that column is filtered.
Now if I want to remove this filter, I can do that. Let's click the drop down again. And we have a Clear
Filter from Region button. Alternatively, I could simply go to the bottom here, and then choose Select
All and Ok to put everything back into that list. Now it's worth noting that we can also apply Filters to
multiple columns.
So maybe this time, I want to apply a filter to the Department column. And I'm only really interested in
clothing and home. Let's click on Ok. And now I'm only interested in sales that occurred in let's say, the
first quarter, so January, February, and March and click on Ok. And now I have two Filters applied to
this data set.
Once again, you can see the columns that I have these Filters applied to because we have the little filter
icon it just there. Now another thing we can do is if we click the drop down in the Region, we can also
use Text Filters. So if I want to filter by something in this column that exactly equals the word, let's say
the word Asia. I can type that in, click on Ok, and it's just going to filter the Asia results. Let's click and
clear the filter from the Region. Now this also works for the Sales Amounts. So when you have
numerical values in your column.
If we click the drop down next to Sales Amount instead of Text Filters, we have Number Filters. So if I
wanted to, I could just filter this list by Sales Amounts that are greater than a specific figure. So maybe I
only want to see the results if it's greater than, let's say £7000, and click on Ok, and it's going to filter
that list right down. So just by applying a few different Filters, I've really managed to hone in on the
results that I'm looking for. And this is where the power of Filters comes from.
Now I want to clear all Filters from my data. So instead of going through each column and selecting
Clear Filter, if we go up to the Data ribbon in the Sort and Filter group, we have a big old Clear button
just here. And that is going to clear all of the Filters from our data set and effectively put it back to how
it was previously. And of course, much like sorting, if we have rows that are a specific color, so let's
change this to this green color. And maybe we have a couple of rows down here, I could also use this
background color to apply a filter.
So now when I click the drop down, notice I have a Filter by Color, it's going to look through my data
set to find all of the colors in use. And it's worth noting that currently I only have green in use. However,
if I had other colors, so if I had some rows that were highlighted in yellow, when I click the drop down
filter by color, it's going to show me both of those colors. So, I can then choose green, and it's just going
to show me all of the rows that are highlighted in green. So, don't forget that you are able to filter by
color, as well as the value contained within the cell.

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Video: Format as a Table
Deb: At this stage of the course, we've been through a few examples. And we've seen how we can do
things with data sets like Sort and Filter the data. And both Sort and Filter are effectively analysis
utilities, we’re extracting out of the data information that we're interested in.
Now, something else that you can do with your data and something I would highly recommend,
particularly, if you're going to start creating things like PivotTables, or even charts from this data set, is I
would always recommend that you put your data into an Excel Table. Now you might be sitting there
thinking to yourself, “Well, isn't this data already in a table? It looks like a table, it has columns, and it
has rows”.
Well, actually, no, Excel by its nature is a grid structure. So anything that we input into it is effectively
organized in columns or rows, which makes it look like it's in a table. But Excel Table is an entirely
different thing. Now, why would you want to put your data into a table when it already looks like it's in
a table? Well, there are a couple of big advantages to doing this.
Now before we get on to talking about the advantages and showing you why it's so useful, let's start out
by putting this data into an Excel Table. And the process for doing this is basically what we call
formatting it as a table. Now, as always, in Excel, there are a couple of different ways that you can do
this. And it really depends if you like to use the ribbons, or if you prefer to use Keyboard Shortcuts. So
let me show you both methods.
Now to put this data set into a table, I just need to make sure that I'm clicked somewhere within my data
set. On the Home tab, in the Styles group, note that we have a Format as Table drop down, and as I
hover over the command, you can see the ScreenTip says that it's quickly going to convert a range of
cells to a table with its own style.
Now if we click this, it's going to open up a gallery of different Table Styles that we can use. And the
colors that you see in here, again, are very much determined by the theme that you're using in Excel. So
I'm using the Office Theme, so I have the Office Themes color palette in use.
Now which one of these you select is all down to personal preference. It doesn't really matter which one
you select, it's not going to affect the data in any adverse way. The only thing it means is it's going to be
formatted slightly differently depending on which one you choose. So, I'm going to do something fairly
basic, I'm going to go for this medium one here, Green Table Style Medium 7. Let's click to apply.
Now, what this is going to do is put marching ants around the outside of my data set, because it's
recognized that I probably want to select all of the data surrounding where I'm clicked. Now, I would
always double check that it's made the correct selection. And if it hasn't, just jump in there and re select

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the data you want to put in your table. If your table does have headers, which mine does, make sure that
you have this checkbox selected as well. And then click on Ok to apply that table.
Now I'm immediately going to change these heading colors because that red against that green is very
harsh on the eyes. So we're just going to select the heading row. And let's just change that font color to
let's just put that to black. And now, effectively, my data is in an Excel Table. Notice what happens
when I put it into an Excel Table. It applies the formatting that I've selected to make my table a bit easier
to read. It also automatically applies Filter drop downs to the top of each of those columns.
So if I quickly want to jump in there and do a Sort or a Filter, I can. And the final thing to note here is
that when I'm clicked inside this table, I now have an additional ribbon showing at the top of the screen.
And this is what we call a Contextual Ribbon. Now notice here that we have Table Design. If I click
this, I have loads more commands that I didn't have previously to help me manage and format this table.
Now the reason why this is called a Contextual Ribbon is that it only appears when it's needed.
So if I'm clicked outside of this table in a blank cell on this worksheet, the Table Design Ribbon
disappears. As soon as I click inside my table, that Table Design Ribbon reappears. Now before we go
any further I mentioned that there are two different ways that you can put your data into a table. One of
them is to use the Format as Table drop down, but the other is to use the Keyboard Shortcut, Ctrl + T. So
let me undo out of here effectively removing everything that we've done, and take this data out of the
table.
What I could do here is use the Keyboard Shortcut instead Ctrl + T. Again, it's going to select my data
range, click on Ok, and it's going to apply the default Table Style. So when I use the Keyboard Shortcut,
I don't actually get a choice at the Table Style it’s going to use, I can go in and change this back to the
one that I want. So in this case, let's go for that Green Table Style Medium 7 again. But if you don't
change it, you're just going to get the default, which is that blue table.
Now, once again, I'm just going to change the font color of that heading row. So now that we have this
data in a table, a couple of other things to point out, let's jump back up to the Table Design Ribbon. Now
there are some Table Style options that I can customize. And notice here we have a Table Style Options
group. And some of the items in here already ticked. So, I have Header Row ticked. If I wanted to, I
could deselect this, and it's going to remove the Header Row from my data.
I could choose to add a Total Row if I want to, which is going to add a nice little Total Row at the
bottom, which is showing me the total amount of sales effectively. If I don't want that to be there, I can
Deselect Total Row. I can choose if I want to have these Banded Rows turned off or turned on. So if I
deselect that, it's going to remove them, or I can put those back on. And the idea behind Banded Rows is
that it does make your data a little bit easier to read.

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I can choose if I want to apply formatting to the first column, the last column, if I want those to stand
out, I can have banded columns as well as banded rows, and I can even have one or the other. And if I
really don't want that Filter button in the Column Headings, I can deselect filter button just to remove it.
So, go through and customize these options and make your table look exactly as you want it to look.
Now another thing I would highly recommend you do is once you've created a table is to give your table
a meaningful name. Now if we look in the Properties group just here, notice that the Table Name is
currently Table2. And this is the default name that Excel has given this table. And any table you create
in Excel will be given a default name along the lines of Table1, Table2, Table3, depending on how
many you have in your workbook.
Now you'll notice later on when we start using tables and things like formulas and different types of
analysis, it's a lot easier to know which table you're using if you give it a more meaningful name. So
what is this table showing me? Well, this is sales data for different Regions. So I'm just going to call this
table Sales_Data. Now one important thing to note here, when you're creating Table Names, much like
Named Ranges, you can't have any spaces in your Table Name. So it either has to be all one word or
separate different words with an underscore, press Enter to set that Table Name.
Now the final point about tables, why are they so useful? Well, the big advantage of Excel Tables is that
they will auto expand to accommodate any new data that you add. So, most of the time, data doesn't
always stay static. For example, these are sales figures for different Regions and different sales periods.
So it's probably going to be the case that at some point, I'm going to add more data to the data that I
currently have. And notice here I have a tab called Extra Data, which contains additional data for a
couple more Regions. So now we have Africa, South America, and also Australasia at the bottom.
So I now want to include this in my original data source. So what I can do here is I can select all of my
data Ctrl + A to select everything, Ctrl + C to copy it. Let's go back to our original data set Ctrl + Down
arrow to jump to that last row, I'm going to position my mouse in cell A60. And then, I'm just going to
paste that additional data in, Ctrl + V.
Now it's brought across with it the Column Headings, so I'm simply going to delete out that row. But
effectively, that table has now expanded, and it's now accommodating that new data. So if you can
imagine if I had a chart that was built using the data in the table that we've called Sales_Data. Now,
because new data has been added to this table, that is effectively also part of the Sales_Data table. It
means that the chart will automatically update with the new data.
And this is brilliant if you're working for things like PivotTables where maybe each month you're adding
new data into your original data set. It means you don't have to recreate the PivotTable or the chart from
scratch. You can simply click a Refresh button and it will pull through that new data. So that is the
biggest reason why Excel Tables are so important. They make updating data in your analysis so much

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simpler. So, my advice is to always get into the habit of putting any data set that you create or import
into an Excel Table prior to analysis.

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Video: Creating Subtotals in a List
Deb: In this lesson, I'm going to show you a couple of different ways that you can add Subtotals to your
data set, I'm going to show you how you can use tools on the Excel ribbons. And I'm also going to show
you how you can do this using a formula. Now, most people are kind of familiar with what a Subtotal is.
But if you're not, let's just briefly explain it.
Now, looking at my data here, it might be that after every single change in the Region, I want to see a
Subtotal of the Sales Amount for that Region. So after Europe, I want a row in here that says Europe
Subtotal. And then I want it to calculate the total Sales Amount for the entire European Region. And I
want it to do exactly the same for Asia, and also for North America, Africa, and the rest of the different
Regions.
Now, as I said, a couple of different ways that we can do this. By far, the easiest and most flexible is to
use the Subtotal option on the data ribbon. So let's make sure that we're clicked in our data. Let's jump
up to the Data ribbon. And all the way over in the Outline group, we have a Subtotal button. And let's
just have a quick read of the ScreenTip, it says it's going to quickly calculate rows of related data by
inserting Subtotals and Totals. So let's click this button.
Now there's a couple of things that we need to tell Excel first, in order for this to work. So the first thing
we need to tell Excel is what we want to Subtotal effectively. So, at each change in what? Well for me, I
want to Subtotal every time the Region changes. Now, I could do this for Country. So every time the
Country changes from Germany to France, I want a Subtotal. But for this one, we're going to use
Region. And then I can tell Excel exactly what I want it to do.
So, I want it to sum all of the Sales Amounts. But if I want it to maybe count the number of sales we've
had per Region, I could use Count. If I want to find the average, I can use Average, so on and so forth.
Now we're going to leave this on Sum. And then finally, we need to select the column that we're
interested in totaling, and for me, that is going to be the Sales Amount. We then have some additional
checkboxes that we can either select or deselect.
Now I'm going to choose to Replace current subtotals. I don't want a page break between groups. But I
do want to show my Subtotals at the bottom of each Region, as opposed to at the top. So let's click on
Ok and see what this does to our data. So there we go, you can see that it's now structured in a slightly
different way. So, once we get to the end of Europe, I now have Europe Total, and I can see the total in
that Sales Amount column.
If I scroll down a bit further, I have exactly the same for Asia. There we go, Asia, total, North America,
so on and so forth. So my Subtotals are looking pretty good. Now also notice, once I apply these, I kind
of get this weird looking vertical bar running down the left-hand side with 1, 2, 3 at the top. So, what is

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this? Well, this enables us to view our Subtotals in our data in general in different ways. So if I click the
number 1, that's just going to take me down to the basic level, it's going to collapse up everything, and
just show me the Grand Total. So this is the Sales Amount for everything.
If I click number 2, it's going to expand it out one level. So now I'm just seeing the Subtotals for each
Region. It's filtered out all of the individual entries, so I can just focus on those Subtotals. And if I click
on 3, it's going to expand it out to the next level. So I can see the detail of those Subtotals and Totals. So,
these basically act like Collapse and Expand buttons. And if we want to do this manually, we also have
you can see a little minus sign here, I can choose to collapse up things and also expand them by clicking
on those.
Now if I want to modify the way this looks, I can simply click on Subtotal again, and I can make some
changes just here. Now I'm going to stick with Region. But maybe this time, I want to count the number
of orders. And because I'm counting I can really use any of these because we're just counting the number
of entries. But this time, let's put a page break between the groups. And I'm going to deselect Summary
below data just so you can see how this looks when we have the Summary above the data. So let's click
on Ok, and there we go. We have a slightly different layout.
So now I have my Grand Total at the top here and remember we're doing a Count. I then have the
Europe Count, the Asia Count, and all of these are showing at the top of the data. Now I find this quite
hard to read, I would probably go back in here and say Summary below data and click on Ok. To me,
that is a lot easier. But that is in general how that Subtotal button works.
If you want to clear all Subtotals, you can go back into Subtotals, and just click the Remove All button,
which will put your data back to how it was initially. So, that is the first method you can use to apply
Subtotals to your data. The second method you can use is to use an Excel formula. And this is a really
straightforward formula so I thought I might as well include this in here.
Now, I don't tend to use this as much, I find the Subtotal button a little bit more flexible. And it means
that it does all of the Subtotals for each Region in one go. But if you do want to use a formula, let's take
a look at what that looks like. Now, this is definitely a bit more of a manual process. What I would need
to do here is insert a blank row. And then I might want to put in here, Europe Subtotal. And let's make
that Bold, Ctrl + B. So now in cell E20, I'm going to use the Subtotal function.
So let's type in equals, if I start typing in SUB, you can see in IntelliSense underneath, there is Subtotal.
I'm going to use my Arrow keys to move down one, Tab key to select. Now my first Argument is
function number. So this is basically where I define what I want this Subtotal to do. So let's do a sum
calculation again. So I'm going to move all the way down to where we have SUM, Tab key to select,
comma.

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The next Argument is the reference and that’s basically just the cells that we want to total. So, I'm going
to select the Sales Amount just above E5 to E19. Close off my bracket, hit Enter, and it's going to give
me my Subtotal. So, that is how I would use a function to effectively do the same thing. But of course,
it's only doing it for Europe, I would then have to go in and do exactly the same formula for the rest of
the different Regions.
So that is, in general, why I prefer to use the Subtotal button because it's just a little bit quicker and a
little bit more efficient. But there will be some instances where maybe using the formula is more
appropriate for the data that you're using. So, it's always a handy little thing to know.

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Video: Exercise 07
Deb: In this exercise, we're going to practice some of the skills that we've learnt in this section with
regards to formatting as a table, sorting and filtering data and also applying Subtotals.
So the first thing I'd like you to do is to select the data on the worksheet called Customer_Invoices, and
format the data as a table. And I don't mind which Table Style you choose. I’d then like you to name the
table Invoices_2020. Once you've done that, I'd like you to sort the invoices in the table by Month,
Invoice Total, and Status. And I'd like you to sort them in the order specified in the screenshot. And it's
worth noting that for the month, we're using a Custom List.
Next, I'd like you to practice filtering data. So, I'd like you to filter the data in the table to show all
invoices over $3,000 that have a status of Past Due. And then finally, on the
Customer_Invoices_Subtotal sheet, I'd like you to apply Subtotals to the data. And each change in
Month, I want you to add the Subtotal to the Invoice Total. Finally, I'd like you to collapse up all of the
Subtotals to show only the totals for each month. So quite a few things to do there. If you'd like to see
my answer, then please keep watching.
So the first things I asked you to do was to put the data on the Customer_Invoices worksheet into a
table. So we're going to click in our data, up to Home, across to Format as Table. And, I don't mind
which one of these Table Styles that you chose. So I'm going to go for this one just here. Yes, my table
has headers, let's click on Ok. And I've now created myself a table. I then asked you to give this table a
name of Invoices_2020. So up to the Table Design Ribbon, into the Properties group, I'm just going to
change this Table Name, Invoices_2020, and hit Enter.
Next, I asked you to apply a Custom Sort to this data. So on the Data Ribbon, we're going to click on the
Sort button. And the first thing that we're going to sort by is the month and for this we're going to use a
Custom List to determine the order. So, I want these to be sorted into Month order. Let's select the
Custom List and click on Ok. We're going to add another level. And we're going to sort by the Invoice
Total. And we're going to do this largest to smallest. And then finally, let's add another level, sort by the
status A to Z, and click on Ok to apply that sort.
Next I asked you to use Filters to filter for invoices that are over $3,000 and have a status of Past Due.
So for this we're going to use our Filters at the top of the table. Let's go to Invoice Total, click the drop
down and go to Number Filters. And we're filtering for totals that are greater than $3,000. Let's click on
Ok. And then we're going to apply a second filter because we want to filter for invoices where the status
is Past Due. So, let's select and click on Ok, and there are our filtered results.
For the final part of this exercise I asked you to apply Subtotals to the data on the
Customer_Invoices_Subtotal worksheet, and at each change in Month we want to add a Subtotal for the

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Invoice Total. So, let's click in our data, up to the Data tab, and over to the Outline group where we have
a Subtotal button. So, at each change in month we want to do a sum of the Invoice Total and click on
Ok.
And then finally I asked you to collapse up the Subtotals to only show the Subtotals for each month. So
for this we can use our little 1, 2, 3 buttons in the top left-hand corner. So if I click on number 2, it's just
going to collapse everything up so I can just see those monthly totals.

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Section 9 – Using Cut and Copy
Video: Using Cut and Copy
Deb: One of the first things that most people learn when they start using Microsoft applications is how
to use Cut, Copy, and Paste. And this might already be very familiar to you. But if all of this is
completely brand new, I want to make sure that you understand exactly what you're doing when you're
cutting and copying values from one area to another.
So in this lesson, we're briefly going to take a look at carbon copy. And then in the next lesson, I'm
going to show you how you can paste and all the different Paste options that you have. Now let's start
out with the basics of cuts and copy. I've been using these fairly frequently throughout this course. So
let's make sure we understand exactly what we're doing.
Now what I have here on this Worksheet is I have some column headings. Currently, I have nothing
underneath these. But I do have the data that I want to move over here in columns F to H. Now the first
thing I want to do here is I want to move all of these regions across to this table on the left-hand side. So
for this, I'm going to use Cut. Now the distinction between Cut and Copy is that cut effectively will
move your data.
So, if I select all of these cells, and click on Cut on the Home ribbon, and remember, the Keyboard
Shortcut for cut is Ctrl + X, it's going to immediately put marching ants around the outside of my
selection, which basically means that that data is being held on the Clipboard, and I'm going to speak a
little bit more about the Clipboard in a couple of lessons time. All I need to do now is jump across to
region, select the first cell where I want to paste this data, and then I can either click the top half of the
Paste button, or I can press the Keyboard Shortcut, Ctrl + V.
Now it's important to click the top half of the Paste button because if you click the lower half, you're
going to get some different Paste options. Now we're going to go through all of those in the next lesson.
So for now, let's just do a basic paste, let's click the top half, and it moves that data from column F to
column A. Now, I'm going to do exactly the same for the countries.
I'm going to select this little list over here Ctrl + Shift + Down to select everything. And this time, I'm
going to use the Keyboard Shortcut of Ctrl + X. Once again, I get my marching ants around the outside,
I select where I want to paste, and I'm going to use my Keyboard Shortcut Ctrl + V to paste that in. And
once again, the cut has moved the data.
The final thing I'm going to do here is I'm going to copy these departments from column H to Column C.
And this works in exactly the same way. So Ctrl + Shift + Down to select everything. And I can either

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use the Copy button on the Home ribbon, or use the Keyboard Shortcut Ctrl + C. So let's say Ctrl + C,
again, marching ants around the outside, select the cell, Ctrl + V to paste in. But notice the difference
here, this one will copy the data so it's going to leave it in its original location, and simply copy it across.
So Copy will copy, and Cut will move your data, a really important distinction to make.
And of course, when you're cutting and copying, you can cut and copy things across multiple
applications. So if you have something in Word, for example, you can cut it from Word and move it into
Excel. Or if you have something in PowerPoint, maybe a drawing, you could copy it and paste it into
Excel. So, let's take a look at how that works. I'm going to quickly jump across to PowerPoint. So maybe
I have something that I want to copy from PowerPoint and paste it into Excel. And for this example, I'm
just going to use my picture just here.
So, I can do exactly the same thing in PowerPoint. I can go to the Home ribbon, and I have the same
options Cut, Copy, and Paste. Alternatively, I can use the same Keyboard Shortcut. Ctrl + C to copy.
Let's go back to Excel. So now, what I can do is select basically anywhere on this Worksheet, and I
could choose to CTRL + V to copy that in. And this acts like a movable object. And I can then use
exactly the same tools to do things like resize this image.
So, the point I'm trying to make there is that Cut, Copy, and Paste are three of the options that are very
universal when it comes to Microsoft applications. And this makes everything really nice and
compatible because quite often we might have data in words that we want to bring into Excel, and we
can definitely do that using Cut and Copy.

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Video: Paste options
Deb: We ended the previous lesson by having a brief introduction to Paste options. And I said that in the
next lesson, we are going to fully explore these. So, that is exactly what we're going to do now. Now, as
we've seen, the process for cutting and copying is very straightforward.
But when it comes to pasting, we don't just have a simple paste Ctrl + V, we have all different ways that
we can paste our data. Now there are a lot of these. So, I'm really just going to highlight in this lesson,
the ones that I find to be most useful. So let's take a look at what we have on this Worksheet. Now we
have a little table here, which I've called Original. So this is how it looks originally.
And what we have here is month, we then have some sales figures, we have the tax amount. And then in
the Totals column, if you take a look in the Formula bar, we have a calculation. So this is basically
working out how much the sales figure is if we add 20% tax, so this is just the sales figure B6,
multiplied by the tax rate. And then we're adding the sales figure again to get that total. Now if I wanted
to copy this table and paste it elsewhere, there are lots of different ways that I can paste this data.
Now I've just put these little gray boxes on here, just so I know where to paste this data. But just so there
isn't any confusion when it comes to formatting, let's clear all from these cells. So, let's click in our table
Ctrl + A to select the entire table, Ctrl + C to copy that table. Now I need to click where I want to paste
this table. And instead of just simply doing Ctrl + V, which is going to paste in as you see it here, I
could choose any one of a number of Paste options.
Now we find our Paste options on the Home tab. And we want to click the lower half of this Paste
button. And when I click here, take a look at all the different ways that we can paste data. I mean, who
knew there were so many different methods you could use? And you'll see as I hover over that's
basically going to show you what's going to happen to that data if I were to select that particular option.
Now the first one is basically just a CTRL + V. The second one here is Paste Formulas. So if we click
this, that is what my data is going to look like.
Now, what has it done here exactly? Well, it's removed all of the formatting from the table, and then
includes the Number Formatting that is applied to these three columns. But what it has done is that it's
copied across the formulas. So if we take a look in the Formula bar, I can still see I have that SUM
formula sitting in the background. So this would be a good method to use if you have data in a table and
you don't particularly like the formatting, you can simply copy it, choose the Paste Formulas option, it
will remove that formatting, but it will still keep those formulas in and you can then go in and apply
your own formatting. So, that is the first option.
Now the next one that we have is to Paste the Formatting. So once again, let's Ctrl + A to select, Ctrl + C
to copy. This time, let's choose our Paste option. And this is going to paste the formulas and the Number

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Formatting. So if you didn't particularly like the fact that the previous option removed all of that
formatting, this is going to be a good one.
Now notice this option just keeps the Number Formatting. So the actual formatting that I've applied to
the table such as the yellow header and the Borders, it doesn't paste that but it does paste that Number
Formatting, and also the formulas. The next one is Paste Column Widths. So once again, Ctrl + A, Ctrl +
C, let's click Paste options. And this icon here will keep the Source Column Widths.
So this is basically going to paste it exactly as we have it in the original, but it's also going to maintain
the exact width of the columns in the original. A lot of the time, when you use some of these Paste
options, it's going to resize the columns depending on where you're clicked. But if you really want to
maintain those column widths, that's a good one to use.
The next one that we can do is Paste with No Borders. CTRL + A, Ctrl + C, up to Paste options. And
this one here is basically just going to remove any Borders that you have applied to your little table of
data. So, I have my other formatting in here I have that Heading Formatting, I have my Number
Formatting, but it's just removed those Borders.
And then probably the one that I use most often is Paste Values. So let's just remove this gray formatting
in the background CTRL + A, Ctrl + C to copy. This time, we're going to say Paste the Values Only.
Now, this will remove all formatting, including formulas from your data. So if you take a look at what
we have here, I can see that it's removed the formatting from these three columns, but it's also removed
the underlying formulas.
So, if we take a look in the Formula bar, notice that we no longer have that SUM calculation. These
totals are still correct, because it's literally just showing me the value in the cell, but there is no formula
calculation going on here. So what that means is that if the tax rate change, so if this went to 0.3, it's not
going to update because we don't have a formula in this cell. But sometimes this can be super useful.
And you're going to see quite a few instances of me using Paste Values a bit later on in the course.
And then the final one that I think is really useful is the Transpose Paste option. And what Transpose
does is it basically switches your data the other way round. So, most of the time, when you're creating
datasets, you're going to have your column headings at the top, so your data is effectively running
vertically down the page. But what if I want these column headings in the rows and I want my data
running horizontally across the page? Well, that is where transpose comes in. So Ctrl + A, Ctrl + C. Let's
go down to here, select a cell. Let's click the lower half of the Paste button.
Now Transpose, you're not going to find as an icon in here. For this, you need to click on Paste Special,
which will open up all of the Paste Special options that you have. And notice at the bottom here, we
have a little Transpose checkbox. If I select that, and click on Ok, check out what happens. It switched

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the layout of my data. So now I basically have my column headings in the rows and my data runs
horizontally across the page.
Now there are a number of other different Paste options that you have in here. And I would advise
jumping into Paste Special and having a little experiment with some of these to see what they do. But
here, I've simply tried to highlight the ones that I use most often and the ones that I find most useful.

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Video: Pasting from the Clipboard
Deb: We've been talking a lot in this section about using Cut, Copy, and Paste. And just to really round
out this topic, I want to show you one final thing. And that is the Clipboard. Now the Clipboard is
effectively an area in Excel that isn't immediately visible, that stores all of the items that you cut or copy
in your Worksheet.
Now if you're wondering where the Clipboard is, you're going to find it on the Home tab, in the
Clipboard group, notice the diagonal arrow in the corner of that group. Now if we click this, it's going to
open up a pane on the left-hand side and this is effectively your Clipboard. And what you'll see is that as
we start cutting and copying items in our Worksheets, those items are going to populate in this
Clipboard area. And the idea of the Clipboard is that you can store up to 24 items in here, and then
choose when and where you want to paste them.
So for example, if I click in cell B5, and press Ctrl + C to copy, notice that that piece of text, that value
is now showing in the Clipboard. It's also showing with an icon next to it a little Excel icon. And this is
what you'll see because you can copy things from lots of different locations, lots of different
applications, you're going to see the little application icon that you've copied that value from, in this
case, Excel. I'm also going to go down and copy Sales, Ctrl + C, that's now in the Clipboard. Let's do the
Finance, Ctrl + C to copy that across.
So now I have three items collected on this Clipboard, I can go in and I can choose where and when I
want to paste them. So let's click in cell D5. And now I want to paste the IT team. So I can simply click
on the item in my Clipboard to paste it. And I can do the same for the others. So if we go to the cell
below and click Sales, go to the cell below and click Finance. So the Clipboard just means that you can
go through and cut and copy lots of different things, and you don't necessarily have to paste them
immediately.
Now notice in this Clipboard pane, we do have a Paste All button if you want to paste everything that
you currently have collect on the Clipboard, and we also have a Clear All button. So if you want to
remove everything from this pane, you can select Clear All. If we hover over each of these items, we get
a little drop down arrow. We can choose to paste from here, but it's probably easier just simply to click
on the item in the Clipboard, it does exactly the same thing. Or alternatively we can delete specific
items.
Now if we go all the way down to the bottom of the Clipboard, notice that we have a little options pop
up menu. Now what I could select in here is to Show the Office Clipboard Automatically. So what that
means is that as soon as I copy something or cut something, it’s going to automatically pop open that
Clipboard pane without me having to click that diagonal arrow.

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I can also invoke the Clipboard by pressing the Ctrl + C key quickly twice, and I can choose to Collect
Without Showing the Office Clipboard. Now, I don't have any of these options selected, but I do have
the last two selected. So I've got Show Office Clipboard Icon on Taskbar and Show Status Near Taskbar
When Copying. So what you'll notice is that when I copy something, Ctrl + C, if you look down in my
Taskbar on the right-hand side you'll notice the little yellow message in the corner. And you'll also
notice on the left-hand side, it says Select Destination and press Enter or choose Paste.
So, that's another important point. If I want to paste this, I can simply select a cell and press Enter and
it's going to paste that in. So, that is all there really is to the Clipboard pane. It's simply there to allow
you to select multiple items from different applications and then pick and choose when and where you
paste them. I'm just going to finish off by clearing all of my Clipboard and closing down the Clipboard
pane.

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Video: Linking to other Worksheets and Workbooks
Deb: It's time now for us to take a look at how we can link to data that we have on other Worksheets and
in other Workbooks. So what you'll see on this Worksheet here is I have four very small tables, each one
representing a different city. And this is just showing basically revenue for that city.
So maybe these are four different offices that a company has. And what I'm aiming to do here is I want
to take the total revenue for each of these cities, and I just want to put those values onto a Summary
sheet, just showing the revenue. Now this is a very small data set, I could effectively just jump across
here and copy and paste these items across, or even just type them in. But if I do that, what that's gonna
mean is that if any of these revenue figures change, the totals on the Summary page are not going to
update.
So a much better way of doing this is to link to the cells. And linking cells is a really simple process. So
let me show you how you would do it if you're linking to something on the same Worksheet. So if I was
just clicked in a cell here, and I wanted to link to the total revenue for New York, all I need to do is type
in equals, as if we're typing a formula, and then click on the cell that I want to link to, hit Enter, and it's
going to pull that value across.
So now if anything was to change in this table, so let's just change one of these figures, you'll notice that
the total updates because I'm just linking to this cell. So, really nice and straightforward. Now, the
process isn't much different if you want to link on a different Worksheet. So if we jump across to these
Summary Worksheet, all I would need to do here is type in equals, go back to the linking Worksheets.
And as I'm doing this, take a look at what's happening in the Formula bar. So now it's put in the
Worksheet name, and then an exclamation point. And all I need to do is select the cell I want to link to.
So again, let's review in the Formula bar. I'm saying go across to the linking Worksheet, and select cell
B 11, or link to Cell B11. Now, that exclamation point in the middle is purely there, so you have a little
bit of separation between the Worksheet name and the Cell Reference. So, all we need to do now is hit
Enter, and you can see it's pulled through that revenue value.
Again, if I was to update these figures for London, so let's change this to 8000. The totals change to
16,500. And this has also updated. So I'm going to do the same for these other ones equals jump across,
select New York, hit Enter. Equals, jump across, select the total for Paris and hit Enter. And then finally,
we type in equals and selecting the total for Frankfurt and hit Enter. And of course, I need to apply some
Number Formatting here. So let's just apply pounds and take those decimal places down.
So now we have a completely dynamic way of working. And this cuts down a lot of the work that I have
to do, because if any of these values change, I'm not having to go to the Summary page and start
updating any formulas because these will update automatically because I've created a link. So now,

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we've seen how simple it is to link two cells on the same Worksheet and other Worksheets within the
same Workbook. Let's take a look at how this works if we're linking to data in a completely different
Workbook.
So, I have another Workbook just here, which is basically similar data, but it's just for 4 other cities.
Now what I'm going to do to make this easier is I'm just going to split my screen. So I'm going to grab
this Excel window and drag it over to the right-hand side, and I'm just going to utilize Windows
Snapping feature to get these to display side by side so we can see both of them. Now what I want to do
is jump across to the Summary page and I'm just going to create another little table.
Now the easiest way to do this or the quickest way is just do Ctrl + C, Ctrl + V to copy this table. And
then I'm going to remove the revenue figures and just change the cities. So we're gonna type in
Melbourne, and let's do Cape Town, Hong Kong, and then finally, Bangkok. So now, I want to grab the
revenue figures from an entirely different Workbook. This works in exactly the same way, we're just
going to type in equals, we're going to go to our other Workbook and select the cell. But take a look at
the difference in the Formula bar.
Notice the first thing we have in square brackets is the name of the Workbook that we're linking to. And
the name of this Workbook is quite long. So this looks a little bit messy. But we can see here we're
going to be linking to other Worksheets and Workbooks to Workbook, we're using the linking to
Worksheets and the cell B11. And notice that these Cell References are absolute by default. Let's hit
Enter, and it's going to pull that through. Let's do the same for the rest of these.
So we're going to say Cape Town and hit Enter. Then we've got Hong Kong, and hit Enter. And then
finally, we have Bangkok and hit Enter. So now, do these update when the values change in the other
Workbook? Well, let's try making an update to these Melbourne figures. And I'm going to make this
quite large just so it's fairly obvious. I'm going to type in at 10,000, let's hit Enter. And yes, you can see
that not only does the total update in the Workbook, it also updates in the linked Workbook as well.

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Video: 3D Referencing
Deb: One of Excels great features is its ability to 3D Reference or Dimensional Reference across
Worksheets. A 3D Reference in Excel refers to the same cell or a range of cells across multiple
Worksheets. And it's a very convenient and fast way to calculate data across several Worksheets that
have the same structure. And that's really the important point there, they must have the same structure.
So let's look at an example.
Now in this Workbook, I have a number of different tabs. And each tab represents a different country.
And again, we have some sales figures from January to December. And then at the bottom we just have
totals for those sales. And the total is basically just a SUM calculation. Now, these are these sales
figures for the UK. But I also have sales figures for the USA, for Japan, and for China. And then I
finally have a total sales Worksheet that currently is blank.
Now notice that for each of these countries, the structure of the data is the same. For each one, we have
the months listed out, and then we have the sales figures with a total at the bottom. Now, because my
data is structured in exactly the same way, I can use 3D Referencing to perform calculations. So if we
jump across to the total sales Worksheet, the first thing I want to work out here is the total sales for
January, across all of these different countries.
So basically, I need Excel to look at the UK Worksheets, pick up this value just here in cell B4, then add
it to the total for January for the USA, then go to the Japan page and add this total, and then go to the
China page and add this total. So, this is where we can use 3D Referencing. So if we go to total sales,
let's click in cell B4. And what we're doing here is effectively a SUM calculation, I want to add up all of
the totals for January for each of those countries.
So we're going to type in equals, and then SUM, I'm going to press my Tab key to select, and now we
need to provide the values that we want to add together. So what I'm going to do here is I'm going to
jump across to the first Worksheet, which is the UK Worksheet. As soon as I click on UK, if you take a
look in the Formula bar, you can see it's telling me that I've selected the UK Worksheets. And then I just
need to select the first cell. So this is going to be cell B4.
Now I could go across to the next Worksheet and select the cell, the next one and select the cell, so on
and so forth. But a much quicker way of doing this is to just simply select all of the Worksheets that I
want to include in this calculation, because it's basically going to reference the same cell on each of the
Worksheets. So, all I need to do here is hold down my Shift key and select China, the last one. And
basically it's going to select all of the Worksheet tabs in between the UK and China.
So now if you look in the Formula bar, you can see it's summing the Worksheets UK to China cell B4
on every single Worksheet. Now if I simply hit Enter, there is my SUM calculation. How easy is that?

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Let's do it one more time equals SUM, Tab key to select, we're going to go to the UK Worksheets. And
this time we're selecting the sales values for February. I'm going to select all of my Worksheets by
holding down Shift and selecting the last one, which in this case is China, hit Enter and I get my results.
Now I could carry on going doing it that way. But because I'm just moving down this range of cells, I
can use my AutoFill handle to copy that formula down. And, I can even copy it down one more to get
that grand total. Now notice when I do that is going to mess up my formatting. Don't worry too much
about that, we'll sort that out in a moment. Let's do this again. But let's do this using a different
calculation. So maybe I want to find the average sales this time. So this is the same process we're just
using a different Excel formula.
I'm going to jump across to the UK Worksheets, select the cell for January, hold down Shift and select
the last Worksheet, hit Enter, and now I'm getting those averages, and I can copy these down. So nice
and simple. What I'm going to do here is just change the Number Formatting to pounds. And then I'm
also going to reapply these Borders.
Now if I was to use my Format Painter here and select the total cell, because that has Borders on it, if I
click Format Painter, and copy this across, you can see it's going to add the Border, but it's going to
remove the Number Formatting. So, you might just simply want to go in there and add the Borders using
your Borders drop down, you can do it this way.
All it means is you need to go back and just very quickly apply whatever formatting you had. But that is
how you do 3D Referencing in Excel. The most important point here is that the structure of the data
needs to be the same on every single Worksheet.

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Video: Inserting Hyperlinks to Worksheets
Deb: In the final lesson of this section, I just want to show you how you can use hyperlinks to link to
other Worksheets and Workbooks. So currently, on the screen, I have a Workbook that has numerous
different Worksheets. And you can see here at the bottom, I'm clicked on the one called T-O-C, TOC,
which is table of contents. And then I have similar Worksheets to what we were looking at before. So
we have some sales data for the UK, the USA, Japan, China, and then we have total sales.
Now what I effectively want to do here is I want to make it simple for anybody looking at this
Workbook to navigate quickly between these different data sets. So effectively, I'm creating something
similar to a table of contents. So if you've ever created a table of contents in Word, which basically lists
out your headings or your chapters or your sections, you can click on the section and it will jump you to
that page in the document. It works very similar in Excel.
What I can do here is insert a hyperlink, which when clicked, will jump the user to the UK Worksheet.
And I want to insert a hyperlink to jump to each of these different pages. Now, if you've never heard the
term hyperlink before, the simplest way to think about it is in your everyday usage of the internet. When
you're clicking around on different web pages, anything that you click on the jumps you to a different
web page, that is considered to be a hyperlink. So, this works the same in Excel. So let's take a look at
how we can set up our first hyperlink.
Now again, there are a couple of different ways you can do this, you can right-click in the cell, and go to
Link right at the bottom. Or alternatively, you can go up to the Insert Ribbon, and then all the way over
towards the end, we have a little group here called Links, we can click the Link button. And there is a
Keyboard Shortcut for this, will just show you that as well, of Ctrl + K.
Now when it comes to inserting hyperlinks, you can insert hyperlinks to all manner of different things. I
could insert hyperlinks to other items in this Workbook, I can insert hyperlinks that will link me to
different Workbooks, I can insert hyperlinks that will link me through to email addresses, or even to
external web pages.
Now in this example, we want to link to Worksheets that are part of this Workbook. So I need to select
Place in this document in this link to area. Because what this will do is it's going to take a look at my
Workbook, and it's going to show me all of the Worksheets that I have in this Workbook. So this is a
very simple case of just selecting the Worksheet that you want to link to.
So the first one I'm doing here is the UK. So I'm going to select UK in this list. Now there's a couple of
things that I want to change here. Take a look in the first field, Text to display. So this is where I can
define what I want that link to look like, what do I want the link to say?

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Now currently, it's just showing me the Worksheet and the Cell Reference. Now, that's not going to be
very meaningful to anyone looking at this Worksheet. So I might want to say something like Sales Data-
UK. And then underneath, it's telling me to type the Cell Reference. So what exactly is this? Well, what
this defines is when the user clicks on the link, and it jumps them to the UK Sales Data Worksheet,
which cell do you want their cursor to jump to? So, I have mine set to A1, and I'm going to leave it like
that for the time being. Let's click on Ok, and take a look at what we have.
We now have a little hyperlink. If I hover over it, it's going to show me the very long path for this
Worksheets. But right at the bottom of that ScreenTip, it says: “Click once to follow”. So if I click this,
it's going to jump me to the UK Worksheet and take a look at where my cursor is, it's in cell A1. So
everything is working perfectly for that first hyperlink. Now one thing I don't like here is when I hover
over this, this link looks really messy.
So in the next example, we're going to make a couple of changes to make this look a little bit neater. So
let's click in cell B7. We're going to go back to hyperlinks, so Ctrl + K, this time I want to link to the
USA Worksheets. The Text to display is going to be Sales Data - USA. And this time, let's link to a
different cell. So I'm going to say, let's say C2. Now what I'm going to do just to tidy up their little
ScreenTip, when we hover over the hyperlink is click the ScreenTip button in the top right-hand corner.
So now, I can refine this to reflect what I want it to say. So I'm going to say: “Click to go to the USA
Sales Data Worksheet”, click on Ok, click on Ok again. So now when I hover over this link, that's a
much neater ScreenTip. It's also providing the user with information. So if you send this to somebody
who's never used hyperlinks before, when they hover their mouse over, they can kind of see what they
need to do. Let's click to make sure it's working. Yes, it is. I am now on that USA Worksheet.
Take a look at where my cursor is. It's in cell C2, because that's what I defined when I set up this
hyperlink. Let's go back to the TOC, and just finish off this final three. Ctrl + K to insert the hyperlink.
We're linking to Japan, we're changing the text, Sales Data - Japan, I'm going to leave it in cell A1. Click
to go to Japan Sales Data. Now, I'm actually going to copy this piece of text so they don't have to keep
typing it each time. Click on Ok. Let's make sure that is working. Yes, it is. Ctrl + K, we're going to
select China this time. Text to display Sales Data – China. The ScreenTip, I'm going to paste in that text
and just change this to China, Ok, Ok.
And then we have the final one where we're linking to the totals. Ctrl + K to insert a hyperlink. We're
linking to Total Sales this time. Text to display, Sales Data- Totals, we're going to add a ScreenTip.
Gonna say Totals, Ok, Ok again. Let's just make sure these final two are working. Yes, I am on the
China Worksheets. And then finally, the Totals Worksheet.
Now, just before we finish up this lesson, I want to show you one final thing because it's not just text
that we can use when we're creating hyperlinks. So it might be that if I'm on this Total Sales Worksheet,

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I want to add maybe a picture, or a shape or a text box, or maybe even an icon. And when that icon is
clicked, it's going to jump me back to the main table of contents. So again, things like this really help
users navigate around Workbooks, particularly if those Workbooks contain a lot of Worksheets. So let's
take a quick look at what we could do here. So on Total Sales, maybe I want a little icon which jumps
them back to the Home page, which is effectively the Table of Contents page. So I'm going to insert an
icon.
Now this is going to open up Excel’s gallery of icons, I'm going to search for the Home icon. Let's
choose this one, just here and click Insert. And this just gives me a little icon which I can resize, I can
also change the color of this icon if I want to. Now, notice something here. When I'm clicked on this
icon, I get a Contextual Ribbon called Graphics Format.
So again, this is one of those ribbons that disappears when you're not clicked on the graphic, and
reappears when you are. Now, I'm going to change the color of this graphic just to a dark blue. And let's
move it down here. And now I want to set this up as a hyperlink. So, let's make sure we have the little
Home icon selected, Ctrl + K, and I want to link it to the table of contents page. Let's add a ScreenTip
and this one's just gonna say: “Click to go to Home. Ok, Ok again.
And now when I hover over this icon, check it out, my cursor changes to a little finger. I get my
ScreenTip, and when I click, it jumps me back to the table of contents. So, just be aware. You can set up
hyperlinks for text, but also things like shapes, images, icons, and text boxes.

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Video: Exercise 08
Deb: In this exercise, we're going to practice using Paste options and also linking data. So the first thing
I'd like you to do is go on to the Fruit_Sales_Data Worksheet and select the data in the table. I'd then
like you to copy that data and paste it into the empty table so that the original column widths are
preserved.
I’d then like you to copy the data again and paste the values only into the empty table. And finally, I'd
like you to copy the data one final time, and paste it so it runs horizontally across the page with the
headings in column A. In the next part of the exercise, I'd like you to practice linking data. So I'd like
you to add subtotals to the Client List: Revenue vs Profit data on the Linking_Data Worksheets. So
we're talking about this data just here.
Once you've added subtotals, I’d then like you to link to those subtotals on the Summary Worksheet. So
what we're aiming for here is to have the total profit for each of the companies linked through from this
Worksheet. And then finally, I'd like to practice 3D Referencing. So, I'd like you to use 3D Referencing
to complete the Summary table on the Total Sales Worksheet. So if we scroll across to the end here is
the Total Sales Worksheet.
And basically, I want to find out the totals for all of these regions for these months across each of these
different companies. So we need to use 3D Referencing to get those totals into the table. So, quite a few
things to practice there. And if you'd like to see my answer, then please keep watching.
So the first thing I asked you to do was to practice using Paste options by copying the data in the
Fruit_Sales_Data table and pasting it in three different ways. So let's select our little table, Ctrl + C to
copy. And then we want to paste it over here, but we want to paste it with the Column Widths Preserved.
So we're going to jump up to the Home ribbon, click the lower half of the Paste button, and then we
need to select our correct Paste option. So this one here is the one that you want, Keep Source Column
Widths, and click to select.
Let's do this again, we're going to select the table this time, I'm going to do CTRL + A Ctrl + C to copy.
And this time, we want to paste the values only. So let's click the lower half of the Paste button, and this
is the one that we want. So this option removes all of the formatting. And then finally, I asked you to
paste this data so that it runs horizontally across the Worksheet instead of vertically. So let's select Ctrl +
A, Ctrl + C to copy. And this time, we're going to go up to Paste, into Paste Special, and we want to
select the Transpose option, which is going to flip that data around.
The next part of the exercise was related to linking data. So the first thing I asked you to do here was to
create subtotals. And the aim is that we are going to link to the total profit for each of the clients on the
Summary page. So when we're thinking about doing our subtotals, basically how I want this to display is

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that at each change in client, I want it to use the SUM Function to add the profit together. So all I need
to do is click on Ok, and now I have those subtotals for each of the companies. So now, I can link the
subtotals through on my Summary Worksheet.
So let's click on equals linking data, select the first one, Company A and hit Enter. And we're just going
to go through and do this for all of these different companies. Now the final part of this exercise, I
wanted you to complete the total sales table on the final Worksheet. And what we want to do here is we
basically want to aggregate all of the totals for each of these different companies. So what we're going to
do here is a little bit of 3D Referencing.
So in this first one, we're going to type in equals SUM open bracket, we're going to go to the first
Worksheet, which is TECHWORLDSALES, and select this cell just here. And what we can then do to
make this easier is hold down Shift and select all of the Worksheets, and hit Enter. And that's going to
give us our total. Now I can very simply copy this down and copy this across to complete that table.

Excel 2021
Section 10 – Looking up Information with VLOOKUP
Video: Looking up Information with VLOOKUP
Deb: In this section of the course, we're going to start taking a look at some of the most useful
intermediate level functions and formulas in Excel. And the idea behind this section is really to give you
a taster of the types of things that you can do with more advanced formulas to move your knowledge on
a little bit from those basic formulas that we looked at earlier in the course, and really set you up for
success if you plan to do the Excel intermediate course. And we're going to start out this section by
taking a look at one of the most popular functions. And that, is the VLOOKUP Function.
Now VLOOKUP is classified as a Lookup and Reference formula in Excel. And if we jump across to
the Formulas Ribbon, you're going to find it underneath the Lookup and Reference section all the way
down at the bottom. There it is, VLOOKUP. Now if we take a look at this ScreenTip, because this is
going to tell us exactly what VLOOKUP does. So it's going to look for a value in the leftmost column of
a table, and then it returns a value in the same row from a column that you specify. So what exactly does
that mean in terms of data?
Well, let's take a look at the example that we're going to use. Now in this Worksheet, I have a reasonably
large data set. And this is related to movies. So in column A, we have the title of the movie, in column
B, we have the year that it was released. In column C, we have the certificate it's been assigned. In
column D, the date that it was released. In column E, we have the runtime or the duration of the movie.
In column F, we have the genre that that movie belongs to. And then finally, in column G, we have the
user rating.
And what we want to be able to do here is we want to be able to type in the name of a film, and have it
return the year, the certificate, the genre, and the rating from the table. And it's this kind of situation
where we would use the VLOOKUP Function. Now the thing that a VLOOKUP relies on is a Lookup
Value. So whatever it is that you're using to look up this information, in this case, the film name that we
have in J2, that must exist in the table. So, let's pull back the year using the VLOOKUP Function.
Now I'm going to type equals into the cell. And then we're going to start to type VLOOKUP. Notice it's
come up in IntelliSense. So I can just press the Tab key. Now let's take a look at the different
Arguments. Remember, the Arguments are what we need to complete in order for this formula to work.
Now, the first thing that this formula requires is the Lookup Value. So this is the piece of information
that you're using to look up other pieces of information in the table.
So for us, the Lookup Value is going to be the film, so whatever we have in cell J2. Now remember, this
can change, I can type in all different kinds of movie names in here. But regardless of what I type in,

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because we're using a Cell Reference, it’s always going to look up based on the value in cell J2, comma
two move on to the next Argument.
We then need to provide the Table Array. So effectively, this Argument is asking us, where is our data?
What are we looking up this information in? Well, for us, our Table Array is this data over here. So I'm
going to select the entire table. Now let's jump up to the Formula bar to carry on editing, comma. Now
it's asking us for the Column Index Number. And this is a really important part of VLOOKUP.
The Column Index Number is where you specify the column of information that you want to return. So
what are we looking up here? What is the result that we're expecting? Well, we're trying to return the
year of the film, Moonlight, so we want to return the year. Now VLOOKUP numbers columns from left
to right. So the title column is column 1, the year column, column 2, certificate column, column 3, so on
and so forth. So our third Argument here is going to be 2, because the year is column 2 in our Table
Array, comma.
Now our final Argument here is an Optional Argument. How do I know it's an Optional Argument?
Well, if I take a look at the Argument, you can see there has square brackets around it. Now any
Argument that you see in square brackets means that it's optional, so you don't have to input anything for
this. But it if I do press comma, you can see the Arguments that we have, True or False? So what am I
doing here? Am I doing an Exact Match or an Approximate Match? And this is related to the Lookup
Value, the film that we're using to look up the data.
Well, I want to exactly match the name Moonlight in the table. So, this Argument is going to be False.
And I would say that the False Argument on the end of a VLOOKUP is the most common Argument.
Now, if you don't put anything on the end here, remember, this is optional, it's going to do the default,
which is to do a False. So, I'm just going to type False on the end, and close off my bracket. That is my
VLOOKUP formula. Let's hit Enter, and see if this works. There we go. So it's pulled back the year
2016.
So if we look for Moonlight in the table, and it's this one just here, you can see that yes, the year that
movie was released was 2016. So we've used the film name as the Lookup Value in this table, and we've
returned column 2, which is the year. Let's do this, again, equals VLOOKUP, Tab key, Lookup Value,
again, is what we have in J2. The Table Array is the same thing. So I'm going to Ctrl + Shift + Down to
select everything. Let's click back up in the Formula bar, comma.
The next thing we need here is the Column Index Number. So, what piece of information do we want to
return this time? We want to return the certificate. So counting from left to right, the certificate column
is column number 3. And we want to do an Exact Match of the movie name in the table so our final
Argument here is going to be False. But also remember, in Excel, you can type a 0 to represent False,

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and a 1 to represent True. So I could put a 0 on the end here, or leave it blank. Close the bracket, hit
Enter, certificate is R, let's double check that. Yes, it is.
Now one way I could make this a little bit easier on myself so that I'm not having to go in and select this
cell range each time for the Table Array is to turn this data into a table or a Named Range. So I'm going
to create a table, Ctrl + T, click on Ok. Now, my data is in a table. And on the Table Design Ribbon, I'm
going to give my table a name. So let's just call this Movies, and hit Enter. Now that I have this Table
Array named, I can use it in my VLOOKUP calculation.
So this time, we're going to pull back the genre. And I can see that the genre is column number 1, 2, 3, 4,
5, column number 6, so equals VLOOKUP. The Lookup Value is the movie, the Table Array, this time,
I can use the table name. So if I start to type it in, notice it comes up underneath in IntelliSense, Tab to
select, comma, the Column Index Number I'm looking for the genre, which we've established is column
number 6. And I want to do an Exact Match.
So I'm just going to accept the default here, I'm not even going to add that final Argument, hit Enter.
And yes, that movie is in the genre of drama. And just to show you another way that you can do this,
you could also utilize the Functions dialog box. So if we go up to the Formulas tab, and click on Insert
function, I'm going to search for VLOOKUP. Let's click on Go, double-click to select, and now I can
complete my Arguments in this way.
So, the Lookup Value is J2 the Table Array is Movies, the Column Index Number, well, this time we
want to return the rating, which is column number 7. And we want to do an Exact Match. So we need a
False Argument on the end there. Let's click on Ok, and there we go, 7.5. So now, what this means is
that every time I change the film, or type a new film into here, all of these results are going to update.
So if I type in Jackie and hit enter, you can see that those results have changed to reflect this movie in
the table. What about if I type in let's go for La La Land, hit Enter. Again at the top, those results have
now changed. So, that is how you do a basic VLOOKUP using Exact Matching.

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Video: VLOOKUP Approx Match
Deb: In the previous lesson, I showed you how you can use the VLOOKUP formula in Excel to return
information from a table using a Lookup Value. And the example that we looked at previously was
using the Argument of False on the end every single time. And False means that we're exactly matching
the Lookup Value in the table.
Now the True Argument on the end there, is what we call Approximate Matching. So I just wanted to
show you an example of this, although the False Argument is by far the most used. Now you would use
the Approximate Match or the True Argument on the end if your Lookup Value doesn't exactly match
information in the table. So what do I mean by that?
Well, here I have a small table that shows age ranges, a list of social media apps that are most popular
with these age ranges, and then the average hours per day each age group spends using those apps. I can
see here that I've actually renamed this column incorrectly, let's just change that to app. And what I want
to do down here in the table below is I have a list of users, I have their ages. And based on their age, I
want to find out what their app preference is, and how many hours per day they're likely to spend using
it.
So effectively, for this first one, David Clark, he is 56 years old. And if I take a look up in my table,
notice here, I don't have exactly the number 56. My result is going to fall somewhere in this group here
because he's in the 51 to 68 range. So effectively, his preferred app for his age range should be
Facebook, and six hours per day usage. So, this is where I would use the Approximate Match.
I'm going to use the age as the Lookup Value. But because 56 doesn't exactly match anything in this
table, we need to do an Approximate Match. And pretty much everything else related to the way that we
do this VLOOKUP is the same. So let's type in equals VLOOKUP. And Lookup Value is going to be the
age. So B16. Comma, where is our table? Well, this is our table range a four to D 12. And I'm actually
going to fill this formula down. So I want to lock this table in place, so it doesn't move. So let's just press
F4 to make those Cell References absolute.
Next, I need to provide the Column Index Number. So what information do I want returned? Well, I
want the app name returned. And that is column number 3 from the left, comma, this is the important
part. This time, we're going to have True on the end because we're doing an Approximate Match. Let's
hit Enter. And there we go. It's pulled back the app Facebook, let's double-check. He's 56. So yes, his
preferred app is Facebook. So now what I should be able to do here is copy this formula down to get the
results for everybody else in this list. And let's just do a quick spot check.

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We'll go for Lucy Bell. She is 15. So she is going to fall in this range. And yes, her app preference is
probably going to be TikTok. Brian Baker, he's 78. So, here's our preference is going to be Facebook.
Now again, instead of selecting the Cell References for this table, I could turn this into an Excel table
and give it a name. Or I could use a Named Range. So let's use a Named Range this time. We're going to
select this entire table, up to the Name Box, and let's call this Social Media, and hit Enter.
So now, I can use that Named Range in my formula. Let's go for VLOOKUP. The Lookup Value is the
age comma, the Table Array. Now because I'm using a Named Range, I can press the F3 key, which is
going to pull up all the Named Ranges in my Workbook, select Social Media, and click on Ok. The
column that I want to pull back this time is the hours per day. So this is column number 4. And then
we're doing an Approximate Match so we want the True Argument on the end.
Remember, we can replace True just with a 1. Close off the bracket, hit Enter. And now I can copy this
down. Let's do a quick check. So Jane March, she's 22, so she's gonna fall in this bracket. Her preferred
app is Instagram and the average hours per day is two 3.5. So, that is the difference between the True
Argument and the False Argument when you're using VLOOKUP.

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Video: Error Handling Functions
Deb: When you start working with formulas in Excel, it's important to know a couple of functions that
you can use to handle any errors that occur. And there are two main error handling functions available in
Excel. We have one called IFERROR, and I'm just going to type these into the cell so you can see them,
and one called IFNA.
And IFNA will deal with any NAERRORS that you have in your cells. Whereas IFERROR is a bit more
flexible, it will deal with everything else. So let me show you an example of how you can use these and
where they might occur. Now, what we're going to do here is we're going to construct another
VLOOKUP formula. So what I have on this page is a list of part numbers. And I need to complete the
part description and the unit price. And then on the parts catalog Worksheet, I have the full parts catalog
that again, shows the part number, the part description, and the unit price.
So effectively, I'm going to use a VLOOKUP formula to look up the part number in the parts catalog
and then return either the part description or the unit price. And just to make this a little bit quicker, I've
already named this range Parts Catalog. So let's construct the VLOOKUP. And then I'll show you how
you can deal with errors. So if I type in equals VLOOKUP, and Lookup Value is the part number, the
table that we're looking this up in, I can press F3 because it's a Named Range, comma.
We want to pull back the description, which is column number 2 in the parts catalog. And we want to
exactly match the part number, so I'm going to put a 0 or a False on the end there. Close the bracket, hit
Enter. Now I can double-click to copy this down. What I might also want to do here is just widen out
these rows because some of these items are getting cut off. And let's widen this out as well. Now notice
that we have a couple of NAERRORS in here. Now I'm going to make a logical guess that this is
because the part number doesn't exist in the parts catalog.
So if we take a look at this first part number 1, 2, 3, 4. If I go to the parts catalog and do a quick find Ctrl
+ F, I'm going to search for the part number 1, 2, 3, 4, and it can't find it. So that is why I'm getting this
NAERROR in this table. Now I could just leave this as NA. But in general, it's best practice to add in
some error handling into your formula to make this a little bit more meaningful for anyone looking at
this Workbook.
So instead of having NAERRORS all over your Worksheet, which might cause people to think that there
is a major problem with your Worksheet, you might want to change this so that instead of NA it says Part
Not Found, that is a lot more meaningful. So how do we do that? Well, it's fairly straightforward. Let's go
up to cell B2 where we have our first VLOOKUP formula.
Now I'm going to click my mouse just after the equal sign, because what we're going to do is we're
going to wrap our VLOOKUP in an error handling formula. Now if you remember I said we have two;

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we have IFERROR, and IFNA. IFNA will only deal with NAERRORS in cells. Now as we have
NAERRORS, I'm going to use IFNA. Now notice that I'm in the IFNA formula, and now I can see my
Arguments underneath. And this formula has two Arguments value and value IFNA.
Now the value of the first Argument here is basically going to be generated by this VLOOKUP
command that is what is going to generate the result. So this deals with the value. Let's click on the end
and press comma to move on to the next IFNA Argument. Now we need to specify what we want the
cell to display if it comes across NA. And I want it to say Part Not Found.
Now when you're using text in a formula, you need to enclose it in quote marks. So let's type Part Not
Found. Close the quote close the bracket. That is my entire formula. IFNA we then have the value which
is generated by the VLOOKUP Function, and then we have what it's going to say if it can't find the part
number. Hit Enter, and we need to double-click to recopy this formula down. And now you can see that
looks a lot more meaningful Part Not Found. Let's do it again for the unit price. So I'm going to widen
out this column.
Let's do equals VLOOKUP Lookup Value is the part number, the Table Array, we can press F3 and
choose the parts catalog. This time, we want to return the unit price, which is column number three in
the parts catalog. And we're doing an Exact Match of the part number, so, a False Argument on the end.
Hit Enter, and there are our results. Double-click to copy this formula down. And again, we have these
NAERRORS.
So this time, I want it to say Price Not Found, we're going to go to the first VLOOKUP formula up into
the Formula bar. And this time, I'm just going to use the other error handling formula, which is
IFERROR, you can use either of these for this particular error. An IFERROR is basically a catch all,
IFNA will only handle NA errors, IFERROR will handle everything. We have the same Arguments here
as well. So the value is going to be generated by the VLOOKUP command.
So we simply need to click on the end, put in a comma, and then define what we want it to say in quote
marks, so Price Not Found, close quotes, close brackets, hit Enter and then double-click to send that
formula down. Now I have a few little alignment issues going on here. Nothing is very well aligned. So
let's deal with that as well whilst we are here. I am going to say that I want this all aligned to the top and
to the left. There we go.
That looks a little bit neater. But that is how your error handling works, nice and straightforward. And
you can wrap these around any formula.

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Video: Basic Logical Functions
Deb: Another group of intermediate functions that are extremely popular in Excel are Logical
Functions. And there are quite a few different Logical Functions. And in this lesson, we're going to take
a look at the basics of Logical Functions, so you understand exactly what they do. And over the next
couple of lessons, we'll progress on to looking at things like IF statements. Now before we get too far
ahead of ourselves, what is a Logical Function?
When a Logical Function basically performs a test, and depending on the outcome of that test, you're
going to get a result of True or False. So let's look at this in its most basic form, I'm just going to type a
couple of random numbers into some cells. So let's say 10, and 20. Now I can perform a logical test on
these numbers.
So what I could ask here is, is 20 greater than 10? And notice there the greater than symbol that I've
used. This is what we call a Logical Operator. And I've got a little screenshot of a table on the right-hand
side, which shows you the different operators that you can use when you're working with Logical
Functions.
So if I hit enter here, it's coming back with True because yes, 20 is greater than 10. What about if I edit
this and switch this symbol for less than symbol? What is my answer going to be? It's going to be False,
because no, D16 is not less than D15. What about if I replace this with an equal sign? It's going to be
False, because 20 isn't equal to 10. So that is a very basic version of how you can use Logical Operators
to create a quick formula to test some values.
Now, notice here that the result is always True or False. So let's now take a look at using this in a more
meaningful example. So just above, we have a little table of expenses. So I have some employee names
here, the total of their expenses. And what we're saying is that any expenses over the following amount
must be approved. So if the expense is greater than 1000, then it must be approved.
So what I could do here is I could say, =B5>=, so I'm going to say if it's 1000 dead on, it's also going to
need to be approved. If it's greater than 1000, and because I'm going to copy this formula down, I don't
want that cell G5 moving, so I need to make it absolute by pressing F4. Let's hit Enter, the result I get is
False. So if I double-click to copy this down, I can see here that 800, that doesn't need to be approved.
But anything that's 1000 or over, is going to have a True result, because that's going to need to be
approved.
Now, what we've done here is all well and good. But these answers aren't particularly meaningful, True
or False. Now, we can add meaning to these, by using an IF statement. And an IF statement basically
does the same thing. It's going to perform the same test, but it allows us to assign a value that we want to

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display if the result is True, and a value if the result is False. So instead of False, I might want it to say
no approval. If it's True, I might want it to say approval. So how would we set this up?
Well, this is where we can use our IF. Equals IF, Tab key to select. The first Argument is the logical test
we want to perform. So that is basically what we've just typed in. Our logical test is if this value is
greater than or equal to this value, F4 to lock it, comma, if the result of that test is True, so if the value in
cell B5 is greater than or equal to the value in cell G5, then it needs to be approved. So I'm going to type
again in quotes because it's text approval, comma, if it's False, it's going to say no approval, close the
bracket. =IF(B5>=G5,“Approval”, “No Approval”)
So effectively, the only thing that we've done different there is we've attributed meaning to the True or
False result. Let's hit Enter. Now I can double-click to copy down and that immediately has more
meaning than simply having True or False in those cells. So, the IF function is really powerful. And this
is the most basic usage of IF, you can get a lot more complex. And in the next lesson, we are going to
look at IF in a little bit more detail.
Now aside from if there are other Logical Functions that are useful to know. So if we jump across to this
Logical Worksheet, I just want to showcase a few of them to you. Now these first two tables are just
more examples of using IF. So this is a good opportunity for us to practice. Now, what I want to do here
is I have some student names, and I have the scores that they've achieved in a test. And the pass mark for
the test is 85. So I want to work out if the student has passed or failed, depending on their score.
So for this, we're gonna use IF. Our logical test is IF B4 is greater than or equal to what we have in F3.
And again, we need to lock this because we're going to copy it down. If that is True, so if it is greater
than or equal to, they're going to have passed the exam. So we're going to say pass, comma. If it's False,
then unfortunately, they're going to have failed that exam. Hit Enter. And then I can double-click to copy
that down. Nice and simple.
Now in this second example, we're going to do a similar thing. But we're going to add in another layer of
complexity, because we want the IF to do a calculation. So here we have a list of products, we have the
weight in kilos and the price. And what we're going to say here is that if the weight of the product is
over 30 kilos, we want to add a 20% shipping fee, and it's going to be 20% of the price of the product.
So let's jump in here with our IF. Our logical test, IF the weight B14, is greater than or equal to 30,
which is cell H13, F4 to lock that cell.
Now, if that is True, if it is greater than or equal to 30 kilograms, we need to work out what the shipping
fee is going to be. So we then want it to do a calculation, which is going to be cell C 14, multiplied by
the shipping fee. And we also need to lock this cell because we're going to copy this formula down and
we don't want it to move, comma. If it's False, well, there's going to be no shipping fee if it's under 30
kilos. So, we're just going to put a 0 on the end there. Close the bracket, hit Enter. So now if I copy this

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down, we should find that the only place where we have shipping fees assigned are when the product
weighs 30 kilos or greater. And the result is going to be 20% of the price of that item.
So, that is how you can incorporate a calculation into your IF formula. Let's move down and take a look
at the final two examples. And here, I want to introduce you to two other Logical Functions called AND
and OR. Now with AND, notice that we have a little table again with some student names. And these
students have sat two tests and have achieved two different scores. So maybe this first one is an English
test, those are the scores that they've achieved. The second one, maybe that's a math test, those are the
results.
Now we use the AND Logical Function when we effectively want to perform two logical tests. So what
I'm saying here is, in order for the student to obtain the result of pass, they have to have achieved more
than 75 in Test 1, and more than 65 in Test 2. So, they have to have scored above the threshold mark in
both tests in order to get a result of pass.
So for this we can use AND, equals AND logical test number one. So this score be 23 greater than or
equal to 75, which is cell H22, F4 key to lock that in place, comma, second logical test, the score in C 23
must be greater than or equal to the threshold in H23 in order to pass. So there, we're running two
logical tests. And both of these have to return a result of True in order for the student to pass. So let's hit
Enter, the result is True. Let's double-click to copy down. And if we take a look at some of these Falses
you can see his Score 1 is 50, which is under 75. Even those Score 2 is effectively a pass because both of
these have to be above, we're getting the result of False.
Now again, with AND and also with OR, which we're going to look at in a moment, both of these are
going to return by default a result of True or False. So if you want to add meaning to them, you would
need to incorporate IF. And how would we do that? Well, let's go to the first formula, and up to the
Formula bar. All we need to do is wrap this in an IF statement. So we're going to edit it to say, IF open
bracket, the logical tests are being performed by the AND formula, so we just need to click on the AND,
and then specify what we want it to say, if the value is True, and if the value is False.
So if both of these conditions are True, then the student is going to have passed. If one or both of them
are False, then they're going to have failed. Close the bracket, hit Enter, and now we've used that AND,
and made these results meaningful.
And as you might expect, OR another Logical Function, is the opposite of AND. So for this one, Score
1, or Score 2 can be True in order to get a result of passed. So effectively, the student only really needs
to score above the threshold in one of these tests. And remember, if we want to make it meaningful, we
need to wrap it in an IF statement.

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So I'm going to type in IF straightaway, and then we're going into our OR. Logical test number one, if
B32 is greater than or equal to H31, F4 to lock, comma, logical test number two, C32, is greater than or
equal to H32, lock, close off the OR, and then we can go in and assign value to the True and False. So
they're going to get a pass if either one of these is above the threshold. But if both are below the
threshold, they're going to fail. Hit Enter, and then we can double-click to copy that down.
So, those are some of the basic uses of IF, AND, and OR. And in the next lesson we're going to explore
if in much more detail.

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Video: Making Decisions with IF Statements
Deb: In the previous lesson, we started to take a look at some of the most common Logical Functions
such as IF, AND, and OR. And in this lesson, I just want to explore IF in a little bit more detail, because
IF is a formula that you use all the time. So it's good to see a used as many different examples as
possible.
So in this example, we have a table that contains some furniture sales for 2018, and 2019. We have the
product, the customer, the date, item cost, the number of items, the total cost, and we need to work out
the shipping and the total. And notice over the side, it says For orders over 1500, there's going to be a
shipping charge. And that shipping charge is going to be 2% of the total cost. So we need to use an IF to
perform a logical test. So the logical test is going to be IF the total cost is greater than or equal to 1500,
if that is True, is going to be a 2% shipping charge. If that's False, there's going to be no shipping charge.
So how do we construct this?
Well, once again, we're going to type equals if the first thing we need to type in here is our logical test.
So we're saying if the value in cell F4, and its order is over, it doesn't say equal to so we're just going to
say if it's greater than 1500, which is in cell K3, and again, this is a formula that we're going to fill
down, we don't want K3 to move, so we need to lock it by pressing the F4 key. Now, if that is True, so if
the total cost is greater than 1500, there's going to be a 2% shipping charge, and it's going to be 2% of
the total cost.
So if it's True, we need the IF formula to perform a calculation. And that calculation is the total cost
multiplied by 2%. And we need to lock that so it doesn't move. If it's False, so if the total cost is under
1500, there's going to be no shipping charge. So we can just put a 0 on the end there. Let's close the
bracket, hit Enter, and we can double-click to copy that down.
Now I'm very quickly going to change the formatting to pounds. And we can do a quick visual check
here, because what we should be seeing is that there is only a shipping charge when the total cost is
above 1500. So yes, that looks correct. Yep. Yes, all of these look correct. So this formula appears to be
working well.
The final thing we need to do here, just to simply complete this table is do a simple calculation where
we add the total cost to the shipping to get the grand total just here. And just to make sure, I'm going to
make sure that I have the correct formatting applied to this Worksheet. So, this is a very straightforward
sum calculation, total cost plus shipping. Close the bracket, I'm going to do Ctrl + Enter. And now I can
double-click to copy that formula down. So that is another example of how to use IF.
Now, IFs can get a lot more complex, we can progress on to doing things like Nested IFs, where we
have multiple IFs in one formula. There's even a new IF S formula, which makes Nested IFs a little bit

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easier. And then we have some really great formulas called COUNTIFS and SOMEIF which will count
and some respectively, based on certain conditions. Now all of these are classed as intermediate
formulas. And because this is a beginners’ course, those are outside of the scope of this course.
But I would recommend that you check out our intermediate course if you'd like to learn more about this
type of formula. But for the time being that should give you enough to get started with. With these, it's
all about practice. So, try and practice on as many different data sets as possible.

Excel 2021
Video: Tidying Data using Text Functions
Deb: Another set of formulas that are essential for you to know when you're learning Excel are Text
Formulas. And this type of formula really helps you tidy up messy text, it helps you extract certain
pieces of text from cells, and also join text strings together. And I tend to use Text Formulas a lot when
I'm trying to tidy up a data set.
So maybe I have received a data set from a client, or maybe I've downloaded a data set from an external
system. Quite often, when I import it into Excel, it tends to look a little bit messy, there might be weird
spacing going on, maybe some things are in uppercase, other things are not, and maybe I want to split
things up across different columns. Now, all of these types of things I can do using Text Functions.
Now again, if we jump up to the Formulas tab, you're going to find all of your Text Functions under the
Text group. And there are loads of them in here. And we're definitely not going to go through all of
them in this course. But I am going to show you a few of the ones that I find most useful. So what you
can see in the Worksheet behind is I have a data set, it’s reasonably large, there's a fair amount of data in
here. But this data set contains some errors that I'm going to tidy up with Text Formulas.
And the first three that we're going to look at are Left, Mid, and Right. And what these allow us to do is
extract characters from the left, the middle, or the right of a value in a cell. So effectively, this is going
to help us break up data. Let me show you what I mean. In this first column here, column A, I have a list
of ordered numbers.
Now maybe each one of these numbers which is separated by a dash represent something. I basically
want to have the first three characters in one column, the secondary characters in another column, and
the last three characters in another column. So, I want to break up what I have in cell A2. So how could I
do this?
Well, the first thing I'm going to do here is I'm going to add three more columns. And if you remember,
the Keyboard Shortcut to quickly add columns is Ctrl + Shift + Plus. So, let's press plus a few times to
get three blank columns. So the first thing I want to do here is extract the first three characters from this
cell. And because we want the first three, we're working from the left-hand side of the cell, I'm going to
use a Text Formula called Left. Notice that it says; “Returns the specified number of characters from the
start of a text string”. That sounds like exactly what I want.
Now, we have two Arguments in here. The first one is Text. So here, we just need to tell Excel where
the text exists. So cell, A2 comma. We then need to tell Excel the number of characters from the left that
we want to extract. So I want to extract the first three, close my bracket, hit Enter, and there we go, I can
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Now Mid works in a similar way. So this time, I want to extract the middle three characters. So we're
going to use Mid, we have three Arguments this time, the first one is the same. Where is the text that
we're extracting from? Well, it's in cell A2. This time, we need to specify a start number. So we need to
count across the number of characters to the first character that we want to extract.
So I'm going to count across 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. That's where we want to start the extraction. And then we want
to extract the middle three characters, close the bracket, hit Enter, and I can double-click to copy that
down. And you can probably imagine what's coming, we now want to extract the final three characters.
And we're going to extract from the right-hand side because they're on the end. So we use the Text
Function, Right, select the text, select the number of characters, close the bracket, I'm going to do Ctrl
+ Enter this time to stay in the cell and double-click to copy down. So, really nice and simple.
Now I'm just going to give these a name, let's just say Left, Mid, Right, so three really important Text
Functions that you should know. Now let's move on to looking at Text Functions, which will change the
case of text in a cell. Now notice here in column F, I have a few discrepancies. You can see that some of
the text is in normal case or proper case as we refer to it with a capital letter. At the beginning, but some
of this is in uppercase, and some is in lowercase.
Now I want to make this entire column consistent. I want everything to be in proper case where just the
first character is capitalized. So we can change this very quickly using a Text Function. So once again,
I'm going to add in a column Ctrl + Shift + Plus. And I like to call these Helper columns. Now, if we
want to change everything to proper case, where just the first character is capitalized, we use the
command PROPER. Press the Tab key. And we have one Argument and that is the text that we want to
convert to proper case.
So that is cell F2, close the bracket Ctrl + Enter. And like magic, if I copy this down, everything is now
in proper case. It's also worth noting with this that if you wanted to change everything to uppercase, you
could use UPPER. If you wanted to change everything to lowercase, you can use LOWER. So, three
different functions in there to help you modify the case that you're using.
Now a function that I tend to use all the time when I'm using PROPER is the Trim Function. And what
the Trim Function does is it removes any erroneous spaces from the cell. And what I mean by erroneous
spaces are blank spaces, either before the value or after the value. And sometimes if they're after you
can't even see them, or maybe double spaces that we accidentally have in between words, things like
that.
Now, it's important to remove these blank spaces, particularly if you're going to analyze this data.
Because sometimes if you do have spaces, say at the beginning of a word, Excel is going to recognize
that as a completely different word. So it's always good to remove them. Now in order to remove blank
spaces, I'm just gonna add another column Ctrl + Shift + Plus, we can use TRIM. And again, this has

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one Argument. We just select the text, close the bracket, and hit Enter. And I don't know if you can see
that very small change there, the word Kensington is a little bit closer to the boundary of the cell,
because we've removed the leading space that snuck in there.
Now another cool thing I can do here is I can combine PROPER and TRIM together and effectively
execute both Text Functions in one formula. So what I'm going to do is click at the beginning of this
formula. And in fact, let's do this in the Formula bar, it's easier to see, I'm just going to add TRIM on the
front, open the bracket, the text is going to be generated by the PROPER command. So the only thing I
need to do on the end here is close off the Trim Function.
Remember, you must always close off as many brackets as you open. So now if I hit Enter, double-click
to copy down, I'm effectively trimming the data and converting everything to proper case. I can even go
a stage further and add in another function. Because another function that's used in conjunction with this
type of function fairly often is the Clean Function. And what clean does is it will remove any manual
line breaks that you have in cells.
So for example, if I have a cell, let's say this one, just here, if I double-click in the middle here, I can add
a manual line break by pressing Alt + Enter. So if we have this looking like that, the Clean Function will
get rid of the manual line break, and it will also clean up any non-printing characters that you have in
your cells.
So what I could do here is double-click, and again, let's do this in the Formula bar, I could add CLEAN
onto the front, open bracket, the text, the Argument is going to be generated by these two. And all I need
to do is add a closing bracket on the end, and hit Enter. And now when I copy this down, you can see the
Royal Oak is now back on one line.
So now effectively what I have are two columns, which are virtually the same, just one is a lot neater
than the other. So I want to get rid of this column, Column F. So you might think that you can just go in
here, right-click and delete the column. But take a look what happens we get a whole bunch of
Reference Errors. Now why are we getting this Reference Error?
Well, it's because we have formulas in this column, which refer to the column that we've just deleted. So
I'm going to need to undo, Ctrl + Z, and go about this in a slightly different way. Now this is where we
can use the Paste Values option that I was talking to you about earlier. And I said we were going to use
this throughout this course. Now that I've cleaned this column, I don't really need all of these formulas
underneath.
So what I can do is select the column Ctrl + C to copy, I'm going to go to Home and into my Paste
options. And I'm going to choose to paste just the values. And that essentially throws away all of those

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underlying formulas, which means now I can delete Column F, and everything is working perfectly. Just
going to add that title back in and we have a nice clean column.
The final thing I want to show you in here is the CONCAT Text Function. And CONCAT basically does
the opposite of what we did over here, instead of breaking up values, it combines values together. So
let's go in and let's add another column just here. Ctrl + Shift + Plus. Now maybe, I want to have a
column which combines both the country and the product. So maybe I wanted to say Japan dash
Kensington in one column.
So I effectively need to combine cell E2, and cell F2 with a space dash space in the middle. So for this,
we can use CONCAT. The first Argument is to select the first piece of text. So that is going to be E2
comma. Now we need to make sure that we incorporate the space dash space in between. And because
this is effectively text, it needs to go in quote marks, “ – ”, comma, then we want the next piece of text
which is going to be Kensington. Close the bracket, hit Enter. And we have exactly what we want.
Double-click to copy that down, and everything is looking good. So, those are a selection of some of the
Text Functions that I find most useful when I'm trying to tidy up messy data sets in Excel.

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Video: Working with Time and Date Functions
Deb: In the final lesson of this section on intermediate Excel formulas, I just want to blast through some
useful Time and Date Functions. And you'll find all of these on the Formulas tab in the Date and Time
category. And again, we have so many in here, so I'm just going to cherry pick a few of the most useful.
Now on this first Worksheet that I have called Dates, at the top here, I simply want to input today's date
into a cell. Now I could, of course, type that, but I do have a formula that will input it for me. And that
formula is called TODAY. Now, this formula doesn't have any Arguments. What it basically does is it
looks at your system time and date to return the result. Now, we still do need to put brackets on the end.
But because there are no Arguments, we just need to do an open and a close bracket, hit Enter, and it's
going to give us today's date. And the cool thing about this is that it is dynamic. So, it will automatically
update depending on the current system date and time. Similarly, if we want to input both the date and
the current time, there's a formula to do that called NOW.
Again, it has no Arguments, so we can just do an open and close bracket. And that's going to give us
both the date and the current time. And this will also dynamically update depending on your system
clock. Now there are some cases where you may want to input the date, but you don't want it to update
you want that date to be historic.
So if you want it to be a date that doesn't automatically update, you can use the Keyboard Shortcut Ctrl
+ ; to input today's date. And that is hard coded in, it's not going to change. I can do Ctrl + ; space Ctrl +
Shift + ; to get the time. So, two different methods there for inputting today's date and time, one will
dynamically update and the other is hard coded. Now another really important or really useful, I should
say, Time and Date Function is WORKDAY.
Now here I have a table below which has some tasks. So maybe this is a project that I'm currently doing.
And this is the date that all of these tasks start. And I've put into a column the number of working days
to complete this task. And this is working days, so Monday to Friday. And what I want to do here is
work out the finish date of each of these tasks based on the start date and the number of working days,
excluding the weekends.
So for this, we can use the WORKDAY formula. And if we take a look at the Arguments underneath,
the first Argument is the start date. So we need to provide that which is in cell B6, comma, how many
days is this task going to take? Well, it's going to take five. And then on the end here, we have an
optional Argument to include holidays. So if you want to exclude public holidays, then you might
choose to use this Optional Argument.

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I've got on the right-hand side a list of all of the UK holidays for 2020. So I don't want to count those as
working days when I'm trying to work out the finish date. So I can include these holidays in my formula.
So I'm going to select these dates, G5 to G14. I don't want these to move when I copy this formula
down. So we need to make those absolute. Close the bracket, hit Enter, and there we go. I can double-
click that down. And now I have an accurate start date that doesn't include the weekends or any public
holidays.
Now we can also effectively do the reverse of this. So if we have maybe some task names, and the start
date of that task and the end date, if we want to work out the number of working days, we can use the
NETWORKDAYS function. Again, the Arguments here are start date, end date, and holidays, which is
an Optional Argument. So the start date is B 20, the end date, C20, and I'm going to include these
holidays again. F4 to lock because we don't want those to move. Close the bracket, hit Enter, and that's
going to give me the number of working days between these two dates. So, two really useful formulas.
Let's move on now to taking a look at a few other Date Formulas. And these are useful on their own, but
they're even more useful when combined with other formulas. But before you get onto that stage, you
really need to understand the different formulas that you have access to, and the results that they're going
to produce. So let's just blast through a whole bunch of Date Formulas.
Now, in this spreadsheet, you can see that I just have a list of dates, and I have some invoice totals. And
what I want to do is I want to work out the day number, the day name, the month number, the month
name, the year, and the weekday, simply from the date that we have in the cell. And then I want to know
if that particular date is a weekend date, or if it's not.
Now, the first one that we're going to do here is we want to extract the day number from this date. So for
this, we can use the DAY Function. All it requires is what it calls here, a serial number. That is basically
just the date that we want to extract the day number from, close the bracket, hit Enter, and I can double-
click to copy that down. So it's looking at the date, it's finding the day part, and it's just outputting that
into the column. What about if I want the day name, so which day of the week is the 10th of December
2020?
Well, anytime you want to return a text result, so I want the day name. So it's going to be Monday,
Tuesday, Wednesday, you need to use the Text Function. The value is going to be the cell that contains
the date, and then I need to tell Excel the format of the date. Now my return result here is going to be for
example, Monday. Now do I want it to say Monday, or do I wanted to say Mon, M-O-N?
Well, I just want the first three characters, M-O-N. So my date format, which I need to put in quote
marks is going to be ddd, close the quotes, close the bracket and hit Enter. And there we have the day
name. I can copy this down, and that is all looking good.

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Next, I want to extract the month number from the date. So for this, and our only Argument here is serial
number, which is just the date, close the bracket, hit Enter. And it's just going to extract the month
number. So this first one is in December. Now I want the month name. So December, January,
December, July, so on and so forth.
Now remember, because the result is going to be text, I need to use TEXT. The value is the date A4, and
now I need to specify the format of this month. So do I want it to say Jan, Feb, Mar, or January,
February, March? Now this needs to go in quote marks again. And this time I'm going to have the long
version. And because it's the month, I need 1, 2, 3, 4 M's in there. If I wanted the short version, so Jan, I
would simply need to have three M's. Close the quotes, close the bracket, hit Enter to get that full month
name.
We can then extract the year this is very simple just the YEAR Function. We select the date, close the
bracket, it extracts the year, we can then fill that down. And then I want the week day number. So for
this I'm going to use that WEEKDAY Function. Now we need to provide the serial number which is the
date. And then our second Argument is basically we need to tell Excel how we number our days of the
week.
So I know for me, I always think of Monday as being day number one and Sunday being day number
seven, but some people might think that Sunday is day number one and Saturday is day number seven.
So, however you prefer to number your weekdays, choose that option from the drop down. Now I'm
going to use the second one just here Monday through Sunday, Tab, close the bracket, hit Enter, and it's
going to tell me what day of the week this date falls on.
Now finally, in this column I want to work out if this date is a weekend day or not. So how am I
possibly do this? Well, because I have my weekdays numbered one through seven, what I could do here
is I could add an IF formula that says if the weekday is greater than 5, then yes, that is a weekend. If it's
not, then no, it isn't. So let's type in IF, our logical test, IF the weekday number is greater than 5, so if it's
greater than 5, it's going to be 6 or 7, and 6 is Saturday, 7 is Sunday.
So if it is greater than 5, yes, that is a weekend. If it's not, then no, it isn't. And close the bracket, hit
Enter, let's double-click to copy this down. And what we should find is that we have a whole bunch of
No’s until we get to 6s and 7s.
So, that there, was a very quick blast through some of the most popular Time and Date Functions. These
are useful on their own but as I said, even more powerful when you combine them together, or with
other formulas.

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Video: Exercise 09
Deb: In Exercise 09, we have quite a lot of work to do. Because we're going to be practicing looking up
information using LOOKUP Functions, and also making decisions using Logical Functions.
So the first part of this exercise, we're going to practice using VLOOKUP. So on the Test_Scores
Worksheet, I want you to format the data as a table, and I'd like you to give that table a name of
Test_Scores. I'd then like you to create a VLOOKUP formula to look up the Physics, Biology, and
Chemistry test scores for the students selected in cell M4. And I'd like you to test that that formula is
working by selecting different students from the data validation drop down list in cell M4.
So let's have a quick look at that. If we jump across to the Test Scores Worksheet, this is our table of
data that we need to put into a table and name. And then over here, this is where we want to construct
our VLOOKUP formula using the information in cell M3. And in the second part of this exercise, on the
Student_Grades Worksheet, again, I'd like to use VLOOKUP to find the grade for each student's average
score for Science.
Once you've done that, I'd like to copy the formula down for all students. And notice if you get any
errors in the cells. If you do, I'd like you to modify the formula so that instead of an error, the formula
returns the text Fail. So let's jump across to Student_Grades. Here we have a table that shows the low
end and the high end, and the grade that's assigned to this range. In the table below, we can see our
students the marks they scored for each of these subjects, and then their average score. And based on
their average score, I want to work out what grade they should receive. And for that we're using
VLOOKUP again.
Once we've done that, it's time to move on to logical decisions. So on the Christmas_Party Worksheet,
I'd like you to use a formula to calculate which venue meets all required conditions. So the first thing I'd
like you to do here is in Column G, I'd like you to work out which of these venues can accommodate
400 or more people. And I'd like a result of Yes, if they can, and No if they can't. And then in Column
H, I'd like you to work out which venues can accommodate more than 400 people and have a price of
less than $4,000. And again, we want a Yes for a True result and No for a False result.
And what you should find is that once you've performed both of these calculations, there is one venue
that matches all of the criteria. And I'd like you to enter the venue name into cell G22. And then finally,
on the Order_Number Worksheet, I'd like you to practice using Text Functions to tidy up the customer
data table.
So in the Helper column in column D, I'd like you to output all of the names of the customers. But I
want you to tidy them up so that they have no erroneous spaces and are also all improper case. And then
once you've tidied them up in this helper column, I'd like you to use PASTE SPECIAL to paste the

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values over the top and throw away the underlying formulas. Next, I'd like you to use Flash Fill to
separate the first name and the last name of each customer. And then finally, in Column G, I'd like you
to use Text Functions to return the last four digits of the order number. So a lot of different things to do
in this exercise. If you'd like to see my answer, then please keep watching.
So, the first thing we need to do here is we need to create ourselves a table. Now I'm going to use the
shortcut key Ctrl + T. And I'm going to give this table a name of Test_Scores and hit Enter. Now what
we need to do is construct a VLOOKUP formula and return the results for whatever student we have
selected in cell M3. So, let's type equals VLOOKUP. Press the Tab key, our Lookup Value is whatever
we have in cell M3. Our Table Array is this table of data over here. Now because we've named it, we
can just type in the name of the table.
Next, we need to specify which column we want to return. So I want to return the Physics test score
which is column number 2. And I want to do an Exact Match of the student name in the table. Close the
bracket, hit Enter. So the score for Alice for Physics is 23. And that is correct. Let's do the same for
Biology. Lookup Value M3, Table Array is Test_Scores, Column Index Number, this time, we want
Biology, which is column number 3. And we want to do an Exact Match, which is False or 0 on the end,
close the bracket. And the final one here is just VLOOKUP, Lookup Value M3, we're searching for it in
the Test Scores Table.
And this time, we want to return column number 4, and we want to do an Exact Match, and hit Enter.
Let's just check to make sure this is working by selecting other students from this drop down. So
Anthony Hawkins, here he is, Physics is 94. Biology is 21, and Chemistry is 100. So, that looks to be
working perfectly.
Now the next part of this exercise is that we want to return the grade based on the students’ average test
score. So once again, we're going to use VLOOKUP to do this. Our Lookup Value is going to be the
average score A13. Our Table Array is going to be this table of data. Now I'm going to copy this
formula down, I don't want this table range to move. So I'm going to lock by pressing F4 comma,
Column Index Number, well, I'm looking for the grade, which is column number 3. And this time I'm
doing an Approximate Match, because the average is going to fall somewhere within that range between
low end and high end. So we want a True Argument on the end here, hit Enter. And then I can drag this
formula down.
Now the next part of the exercise was to check to see if we have any errors when we do this. And if so
we want to correct them. Now I can see that I have an NAERROR in here. So basically, what I want to
replace this with is the word Fail, which basically means if their average score is lower than 46, they're
basically going to have failed, which is very, very sad. So let's go up and edit our formula and simply
wrap this in IFNA.

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And, our value is going to be generated by the VLOOKUP Function. So if it finds an NA, we want it to
say Fail, let's just add that on the end, hit Enter. And then when we recopy this down, that NA is
replaced with the word Fail. Next, we want to use Logical Functions to work out which venue is going
to suit all of our requirements.
So the first thing we need to work out here in Column G is which of the venues in the table have the
ability to hold more than 400 people. So, what we're going to say here is =IF, so IF B4 is greater than or
equal to 400. If that's True, then yes, it suits our needs. If it's False, then no, it doesn't. Hit Enter. And we
can then double-click to copy this formula down. Now in Column H, we have two pieces of criteria.
So for this, we need to do an IF, but we also need to do an AND. Now our first logical test is pretty
much the same as what we just did, IF B4 is greater than or equal to 400. But we also have a second
piece of criteria. And that is if the price is less than 4000. So a second logical test is if the price is less
than 4000. Let's close off that AND. So if both of those are True, we want to output a result of yes, if
they're not, we want the result of No. Let's close of our formula, hit Enter, and then we can copy down.
And what this should leave us with is just one result, and I can see it here. That's the only one which has
Yes, it's the only one which meets both of these pieces of criteria. So I chose a venue and I'm just going
to link to the cell is Summertime House.
Now the final part of this exercise was just practicing using Text Functions to clean data. So in the
Helper column, I asked you to clean up the customer names by removing erroneous spaces and changing
it to uppercase. So we're going to combine both of these functions, we're going to do TRIM and
PROPER. And we're going to trim this text just here. And we need to close off both the TRIM and the
PROPER function, hit Enter, and then we can drag that down.
I then asked you to use Flash Fill to separate the first name and the last name of all of these customers.
So all you need to do here is type in the first one, Ctrl + Enter, up to the data tab, and click Flash Fill.
Alternatively, you can type in the first one so McCoy in this case, Ctrl + Enter. I'm going to select all the
cells and Ctrl + E to Flash Fill Down.
And then finally, I asked you to separate off the last four characters of this order number. So for this,
we're working from the right-hand side, so we're going to use the Right command. We want to use the
text in cell B3, and the number of characters we want to extract from the right-hand side is four, close
the bracket, hit Enter, and then we can double-click to copy down.

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Section 11 – Choosing the Correct Chart Type
Video: Choosing the Correct Chart Type
Deb: In this section, we're going to explore how to create Charts in Excel. And Charts are a great way to
visually represent data. As they say a picture speaks thousand words. And for many, many people,
visualizing data in the form of a Chart makes the data a lot easier to interpret and understand. And in
Excel, there are many, many different types of Charts that you can create. But not all Charts are created
equally.
Before you even begin to think about putting your data into a Chart, you really need to look at your data
and determine which type of Chart is best going to suit the type of data that you want to analyze. So in
this first lesson, I just want to show you some examples of Charts, and the type of data you might use for
specific Chart types.
So on this first Worksheet, I have two examples of Charts. The one on the left is a Pie Chart, and the one
on the right is a Doughnut Chart. And both of these Charts have been built using this very, very small
data set you can see just here. We simply have a count of employees by gender. So we have 450 female
employees, and 250 male employees. And I'm representing that in a Pie Chart and a Doughnut Charts.
And both the pie and the Doughnut Chart work best if you have a small data set. So both of these Charts
work really well with the very small data set that I'm trying to represent there.
If I had a much larger data set, the problem that you start to come across when we're dealing with pie
and Doughnut Charts is that the segments start to get very small as you have more data included in the
Chart. And that makes the Pie and the Doughnut Chart a lot harder to read. It's not as obvious which
segment is larger than the other. And with very small segments, it's also hard to add these Data Labels,
which show the actual value that's represented by each segment.
So my advice here is that if you have a small data set, Pie Charts and Doughnut Charts can work really
well. If you have a larger data set, you might want to consider a different Chart type. So let's move on to
taking a look at another popular type of Chart. And that is the Line Chart. Now this Line Chart is
representing the data in the table on the left-hand side. And what we have here are the months January to
December, and just some very basic sales data.
Now, Line Charts work best with what we call time series data. They're great for showing changes in
values and trends over time. So that's why I've used a Line Chart here. Because I have time based data.
My data is running January to December, and I want to see how the sales fluctuate over the months. So
for this type of data, the Line Chart is perfect.

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Now probably the most common type of Chart that you'll see people use is the Column or the Bar
Charts. And these are basically very similar, it just depends if you want the columns running
horizontally or vertically. Now Bar and Column Charts are pretty much suitable for most types of data. I
always say if in doubt, try a Column Charts. Now the data that I'm representing in both of these is again,
a very small data set. But these do actually work well if you have a larger data set. I'm showing the
different regions and the sales for each region.
And in this Column Chart, notice that I have what we call Data Labels, so you can see the actual value
on the bar. And I've also added a Trendline so you can see if sales are going up or down as we move
through the different regions. And as I said, the Bar Chart is basically very similar, except the bars are
just switched the other way round. This time, we have our regions listed in the Legend as opposed to
running in the axes. So Bar and Column Charts are really your default option. They suit most types of
data.
Now another way that we can represent data is by using a Stacked Column Charts. Now this is part of
the Column Chart family, we're just displaying our data in a slightly different way. So once again, here,
I have the regions, some sales figures, and I'm breaking those sales figures down by different quarters.
And so to get a real true comparison between each quarter, I've selected the Stacked Column Charts.
Each color is represented by a region and you can see that in the Legend at the bottom, and then we can
see a direct comparison of the sales values. So, this is another really great way of displaying data that
has two dimensions, in this case, the region and the quarter.
Now the final Chart I want to show you and this is by no means all of the Charts available in Excel, I've
really just tried to cherry pick some of the ones which I think are most useful. The final one is the Map
Chart and more specifically the Filled Map Chart. Now, this is a really effective looking Chart, I think
these look so awesome when you're displaying data. You can see here; this is a representation of the data
that we have in the table on the left.
I have all of the states of the USA listed out, I have the state code, and then I have some sales for each of
the states. And those are being represented on a map of the US. And each state is shaded depending on
the value of the sales. So the darker the shading, the higher the sales, the lighter the shading, the lower
the sales. So this gives a really nice overview, and it's a really effective way of displaying geographical
data.
Now, if you want to see a full list of all of the Charts you have available in Excel, if you go up to the
Insert tab, you can see in the Charts group just here, we have all of these different drop downs and you'll
see that there are so many different Charts. We can also click the diagonal arrow in the bottom right-
hand corner to see all of the Charts organized by category.

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So if I click the All Charts tab at the top, you can see all of the different types of Charts available. It's
really worth having a little browse through all of these when you're looking at your data and trying to
determine which Chart is going to best represent your information.

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Video: Presenting Data with Charts
Deb: So now that we've seen how to choose the best Chart type for the data that we have, let's go
through and take a look at how we insert these Charts into our Worksheets. What we're basically going
to do is recreate the Charts I showed you in the previous lesson.
We're going to create them in this lesson. And then in the next lesson, I'm going to show you how you
can make them a little bit fancy by formatting your Charts. So, we're going to start out on this first
Worksheet, if you remember, we just have this very small table of data, which is showing me the
breakdown of employees by gender at an organization. And I want to represent this using a Pie Chart.
So the first thing I want to do here is I'm just going to select my data set, up to the Insert tab, and then
right in the middle here, we have a big old Charts group. Now all of the Charts are divided down into
different categories. So we have Column and Bar Charts, Line Charts just here, Pie Charts, just here, so
on and so forth. And notice that each of these have a little drop down, which will open up a gallery
where you have more options when it comes to in this case Line Charts.
Now if you're not sure which one is going to be best for your data, you can utilize Recommended
Charts. Now what this is, is basically Excel will look at the data that you've selected, and it will
recommend a Chart type for you to use based on your data. And the one that it thinks is most appropriate
will appear at the top of the list. It's telling me that a Column Chart is going to be the best way to
represent this data.
As I said, Column Charts are the default choice for most types of data. But second in that list is a Pie
Chart. Because this is a small data set, it's going to suit a Pie Chart well. Now I'm going to choose Pie
Chart, and click on Ok. And that is just instantly going to insert that Pie Chart and I can then go in and
start to format it and make changes. Now one thing that you'll notice is when you insert a Chart, you get
two Contextual Ribbons.
Remember Contextual Ribbons only appear as and when they're needed. So now that I'm clicked on the
Charts, I can see that I have a Chart Design Ribbon, and also a Format Ribbon. So Chart Design is going
to allow me to do things like add different Chart Elements. So things like a Chart Title, Data Labels,
Legends, so on and so forth. I can choose a Quick Layouts.
If I quickly want to add a whole bunch of elements in one go, I could choose a Chart Layout, I can
change the color scheme that I'm using. And remember, this palette that you're seeing is very much
defined by the theme that you're using in Excel. We then have some Charts styles, preset, inbuilt Chart
Styles that we can use, which again will just apply lots of formatting with the click of one button.

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You could choose one of those, we can switch our own column data around, we can reselect our data,
we can change the Chart type that we're using. So if I was to select this Pie Chart, and then decide
actually, you know what, I want to use a Column Chart, I can simply select Column Chart from here, I
don't have to go in and re-insert the Chart. And then of course, I can move the Charts as well.
On the Format tab, you're going to find all the different tools for making granular changes to your
Charts. So maybe I don't want to select one of the color schemes from the color palette, I want to
customize the colors in this Chart.
I can do that from here simply by using my Shape Fill tools. I could change this to a green if I wanted to.
So, Format contains all of your formatting tools outside of these preset styles. Now also, with every
Chart that you insert, you're going to see three icons on the right-hand side.
The first one is Chart Elements, which gives us a quick way to toggle off and on different Chart
Elements. So you can see that I have Chart Title and Legend selected. If I was to deselect Chart Title,
that Chart Title is going to disappear. Select Chart Title again, to put it back. The next icon down is
Chart Styles. So this is a quick way for me to access all of those different Chart Styles. And then finally,
we have a little Chart Filter button.
So if I wanted to filter this Chart and just show all the males, I could do that. Obviously with this type of
Chart, that's not going to be particularly useful, but you can filter the data on your Chart from here as
well.
And finally, when it comes to formatting, you have your right-click options. So if you right-click on
your Chart, in this contextual menu, you have a Format Chart Area dialog box with more options for
formatting different elements of your Chart.
Now, it's worth noting that where you're clicked on this Chart really determines the menu that you get
over here. So because I right-clicked on the Chart Background, or the Chart Area as we call it in Excel,
when I go into the right-click menu, I'm formatting the Chart Area. If I was clicked on one of the
segments in the Pie Chart, and then I right-click, I get a different menu, Format Data Series, with
different options in it. And we're going to explore all of these when we get on to the next lesson of
formatting Charts.
Just be aware that when it comes to Charts, there are lots of different areas you can go in order to
completely customize the look and feel of your Charts. You've got your Ribbons, you have your little
icons just here, and you have the right-click menu to format different elements. Now, we're not going to
make any formatting changes here. As I said, we're going to leave that for the next lesson.

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In this lesson, I just want to get all of the blank Charts the basic Charts into my spreadsheets. So let's
move on to the next one. For this one, we want to represent this time series data using a Line Chart. Now
in the previous lesson, I selected the entire data set, you don't actually have to do that, you can just click
in your data, go to Insert, and once again, I could go for Recommended Charts. You can see Line Chart
is the top one. But if I didn't want to use Recommended, I could simply select the Line Chart that I want
to use from this drop down.
Now I'm just going to add a basic 2-D Line Chart. Let's move this over. And I'm going to make this a
little bit bigger, there we go. We'll format this in the next lesson. Let's move on to the next one. Now
here I want to add two different Charts, I want to show you the Column Chart and also the Bar Chart.
Once again, click in the data, up to Insert, and this time, I'm going to click the drop down next to
Column or Bar Chart. And we're going to insert a plain old 2-D Column Chart. Let's drag this over, I'm
going to move that out a little bit. And then I want to insert another Chart but this time a Bar Chart.
Now instead of going to insert, I could if I wanted to simply duplicate this Chart and change the Chart
Type. So let's do that just to switch it up a little bit. With the Chart selected, Ctrl + D to duplicate the
Chart. Let's put that underneath. Now with this second Chart selected from the Chart Design Ribbon, I
can select Change Chart Type. And I can choose Bar and choose the Bar Chart that I want to use. So I
think in the example, I used this one just here, let's select it and click on Ok, perfect. Let's move on to
the next tab.
In this one, we have two dimensional data, we have quarters, and we also have regions. So I'm going to
display this data using a Stacked Column Chart. So up to Insert, let's go to our Column Chart drop
down, and then the second one across here is a Stacked Column Chart. So let's click this. And we're
going to move that over and just make it a tiny bit bigger.
And then the final Chart that we want to insert is that really visual Filled Map Chart. Let's click in our
data, up to insert into Chart, and we want to click the drop down underneath, Maps. And this is the one
we want the Filled Map Chart.
Now with these Map Chart, I will say that they don't always display exactly as you hope they're going
to. You really do need to make sure that you have the states or the towns or whatever country you're
using; you really have to make sure that you have those written out correctly. If they're not, then Excel
doesn't recognize the state name or the town name or the country name, and your Chart might not work.
So, just make sure that you have that data inputted correctly.
This doesn't just work for America; you can do this for other countries that you have listed out or even a
world map if you wanted to. So, if I had countries here instead of states, when I create the Filled Map
Chart, it’s going to show me a map of the world as opposed to just the US. So, let's make this a bit
larger, and there we go.

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So, extremely simple to insert Charts into your Excel spreadsheets. Now that we have all of these here,
we're going to continue on in the next lesson and I'm going to show you how you can add formatting to
really customize your Charts.

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Video: Formatting Charts
Deb: In the last lesson, we created a bunch of Charts. And in this lesson, I want to run through some of
the options that you have when it comes to formatting and customizing them. So, let's start out with our
Pie Chart.
Now the first thing I'm going to do here is we're going to use our Chart Design Ribbon. And I'm going to
change the colors of this Chart. And I'm going to change it to Colorful Palette 2 just so I get that gray
and blue coloring.
The next thing I want to do is modify this Chart Title. I don't want it to say count of employees, I want it
to be a little bit more meaningful than that. Now to edit Chart Titles, you can simply double-click.
Because effectively what you have here is simply a text box. So I want this to say, Count of Employees
by Gender. And if I want to apply some formatting to this, I can, I'm just going to make this Bold, Ctrl +
B.
Now the next thing I might want to do here is I can see that I have my Legend at the bottom. So this is
showing me the breakdown of male versus female. Now I don't particularly like that at the bottom, I
want to move that over to the right-hand side. So what I can do here is I can click the Plus. And this is
going to show my different Chart Elements. So the only Chart Elements I have here are Chart Title, Data
Labels, and Legend.
Now I have my Legend turned on, which is why we have a tick. But if I hover over notice I get a little
pop out arrow. And I can then specify where I want that Legend to be. So currently, it's at the bottom,
I'm going to move this to the right-hand side. And if I really still don't like where it is, again, it's just a
text box. I can click it and I can move that further in towards the Chart. I could even go to the Home tab
and make this a little bit bigger if I wanted to stand out a bit more. So, I think that looks a lot better.
Then the final thing I'm going to do to this Chart is it looks a bit plain, I'm actually going to add the
count of employees, the value that these segments represent on to the Chart. And this is called Data
Labels. Now we could turn them on from here and click Data Labels, that's going to add them. They
look a little bit strange just there. Let's see, what do we have as our options? Well, we can move them I
can say in the Center, Inside End, Outside End, Best Fit, I can even have them as a Data Callout.
Now I want them on the Inside End, but I think I'm still going to move these. So I can click on them.
And once again, they are simply text boxes, and I can position those wherever I want them to be. So I'm
going to move them a bit more towards the middle. Now I also think I want these to stand out a bit more.
So let's select the first one. And I'm going to make that font a little bit bigger. So let's take this up to 14
points and make it Bold. And I'm also going to change the font color to white.

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Now I want to do the same for the other one. So I'm going to grab my Format Painter tool, and just click
to make it exactly the same. So now, that looks a lot better. So let's jump across to our Line Charts. Now
the first thing I'm going to do here, again, is modify this title. So, what is this representing? Well, this is
total sales, January to December 2020. And I'm going to make this heading Bold, Ctrl + B.9
Now, something else I might want to do here if there's lots of formatting that I want to apply, I could
take a look at the Chart Design tab and go through some of these Chart Styles. Now because we have
Live Preview turned on, I can just hover over to see what these different Chart Styles look like. And if
you see one that takes your fancy, you can simply click and it's going to apply all of that formatting in
one go.
Now I think I'm going to use this one just here. I quite like the look of that. And now something else I
might want to add here are Markers to represent the different months just to make those really stand out.
So to add Markers to this line, I need to make sure that I'm clicked on the line. And then I can right-click
my mouse and go to Format Data Series. Remember, this panel is directly related to the element that
you've right-clicked on.
So now if we go to our Fill options, I have Line and Marker. So I'm going to go to Marker, expand
Marker options, and I'm going to say yes, I want a Marker. I can then go in and I can customize how I
want those Markers to look. So, I'm gonna say I want a Solid Fill, and I want these to stand out, I'm
going to make them orange. And now when I click away, you can see I have those little Markers on
there. So, all of these elements are completely customizable. Something else that I might want to add
here are some Axes Titles.
Now we've seen how we can add different elements simply by clicking on the Plus. But we can also add
different Chart Elements from the Chart Design Ribbon. In this first group, just here, we can also add
Chart Elements. So if I want to add some Axes Titles, I can choose if I want to add a Primary
Horizontal. Look, as I hover over it, I now get a text box, which is going to let me type in an Axes Title.
Or, I can add a Primary Vertical. Now I want to add both.
So in this case, my best option is to use the Plus and then just click Axes Titles, and it will add both at
the same time. So now I can modify this text. So this is going to Say sales. And this title is just going to
say, Months, like so. And if I wanted to make this Chart really stand out from the background at the
spreadsheet, I could select it, jump up to Format, and maybe add something like a Shape Outline. So
maybe if I add a black outline, that's just going to make it stand out a little bit more. Let's move on to our
next Chart.
So here we have a Column Chart and a Bar Chart. Once again, the first thing I'm going to do here is I'm
going to modify that Chart Title simply by double-clicking in the box. Now this is going to be Sales by
Region. Let's keep things consistent by making this Bold, Ctrl + B. And this time, I want to change the

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color of these bars. And I want to choose the color, I don't want to have a color from my Theme palette.
So up to Format, into Shape Fill, and I can choose any color I like. So let's go for a green color just here.
Now these bars on this Chart, I feel they are slightly too far apart. So, what I want to do is I want to
decrease the Gap Width in between each of these bars.
So for this, we need to make sure that we're clicked on the bars, right-click, Format Data Series. And
you'll notice on this little pane, we have a Gap Width. So, I can drag this Slider up or down to increase
or decrease the gap in between each of those bars. So, I'm going to make that a little bit wider, I think
that will do. And I'm also going to add some Data Labels. Let's click on the Plus, and we're going to
select Data Labels.
Now I can see that it's added those on the outside edge of my bars. And I actually want them to be on the
Inside End. I'm going to format these. So when I click on one, it's going to select all of them, which
means I can format them all in one go. So let's make these a little bit bigger by increasing the font size,
I'm going to make the font white, and I'm going to make them Bold, so they really stand out. And
something else I could add on to my Chart here is a Trendline.
So I'm going to select Trendline, and I'm just going to get this line which shows the trend of the data by
the sales value. And again, if you want to format this Trendline, remember, you're able to format
everything in a Chart. Just make sure you have it selected, right-click your mouse, and Format
Trendline. You can then change the type of Trendline that you're using, you can change the color, all
different kinds of things.
Now one thing to point out here is that if you're having trouble selecting different elements, so
sometimes it's quite hard to select things that are quite small, so things like the Trendline or maybe even
the Gridlines, you might want to format those. If you are struggling to use your mouse to click on these
and select them, there is an easier way.
If we go up to the Format tab, in this first group, we have a little drop down arrow. And this will allow
you to select the different parts of the Chart from this menu as opposed to actually clicking on them in
the Chart. So, if I want to select or format the Chart Title, I can select it from here and it will select it in
the Chart.
If I want to format the Gridlines, I can select Major Gridlines from here, and it's going to select them all.
I can then go in and I can choose the color of my Gridlines. So, I'm going to make these a light green. So
nice and straightforward.
Let's take a look at the Bar Chart, a couple of things I want to do here straight away, I'm going to add a
Chart Title. Let's call this this is representing the same thing effectively, so Sales by Region. And we're
going to make this Bold. Currently, I don't have a Legend. So I want to make sure I turn on my Legend

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so I can see what each region represents. And I think I'm going to move that Legend to the top so it's
underneath that title. And I also think I'm going to add some Data Labels. And I'm going to leave those
ones on the Outside End. Now one thing I can see that I don't really need is this axis title here that just
says, Sales. That is kind of superfluous to requirements in this particular Chart. So all I'm going to do
here is I'm just going to select the text box, press Delete, and it's going to get rid of it.
Let's move on to our Stacked Column Charts. Now for this one, we're going to add a Chart Title. So let's
double-click, and this one is Sales by Region and Quarter. And you guessed it, I'm going to make this
bold, Ctrl + B. Let's add us some Data Labels. And I'm happy with where those are. I'm going to select
each one, just make those Bold, Ctrl + B so that they stand out a little bit. I think I might possibly move
the Legend to the right-hand side. And maybe I want to format the background of this Chart.
So if I select the plot area, I can then go up to Format and I can choose a color from my palette. So I
think I want to make this light gray. And I think I'm also going to turn off Gridlines. Once again, we can
click the Plus and deselect Gridlines. And there we have a really nice looking Chart. Let's take a look at
the final one, which is our Map Chart.
Now not a great deal that we need to do here, we're going to add a title once again. So this is Sales by
State. Let's make this Bold. I might want to choose a different Chart Style, so maybe I want something
like that or like that. Let's see what we have here. You know what, I think I'm going to stick with what I
had originally. What I am going to do is I'm going to add some Data Labels so that I can see those
values actually on the Chart.
And maybe just to finish things off, I decide that I want to change the colors. Let's go for Colorful
Palette 3. So, that is how you can apply some basic formatting to your different Chart types. There are
all kinds of things that we can do with formatting, but that should be enough now to get you started. I
recommend that you have a little play around and have a little experiment on your own Charts.

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Video: Exercise 10
Deb: In this exercise, we're going to practice creating and formatting Charts. So on the Charts
Worksheet, I'd like you to format the data as a table. I'd like you to name the table Top_5_Physics. And
then I'd like you to apply a filter to the Physics column to show the Top 5 students. I'd then like you to
create a 2-D Clustered Column Chart.
Once you've done that, we're going to apply some formatting to the Chart. So I'd like you to add the
Chart Title Top 5 Students [Physics]. I'd like you to move the Legend to the top and add Axis Labels to
the horizontal and vertical axis. I'd then like you to add Data Labels and make sure they are positioned
on the outside edge, and then change the color of the data bars. And finally, I'd like you to add a
Trendline to show the trend of the physics mark. See how you get on with that. And if you'd like to see
my answer, then please keep watching.
So the first thing that we need to do here is we need to create a table. So Ctrl + T, let's click on Ok, and
now I can give my table a name. So this is going to be Top_5_Physics and hit Enter. Now I need to
apply a Filter to the physics column to show the top five students based on their physics mark. So let's
click our Filter drop down, go to Number Filters, and we're going to use Add Top 10 Filter.
Now we only want five students. So, let's modify this so that we're only getting five results and click on
Ok. And now that we have this smaller data set, we want to create ourselves a 2-D Clustered Column
Chart. So up to Insert, we're going to click the drop down next to Column Charts, and we want this one
here, a 2-D Clustered Column. So now that we have our basic Chart, it's time to format it.
So the first thing I’m going to do is change the Chart Title. And I’m going to change this to say Top 5
Students. And then in brackets, we're just going to put Physics. Next, we're going to move the Legend to
the top. So let's click the Plus, let's find the Legend, and we want this to be at the top underneath the
title.
Next, I asked you to add Axes Labels to the horizontal and vertical axes. So let's click the Plus again,
we're going to say Axis Titles. Let's turn those on. And now I can give these a name. So this is going to
be Mark, and this one is just going to be Student. Next, I asked you to add Data Labels on the outside
edge. So we're going to click our Plus again, let's go to Data Labels. And I think yeah, by default, they're
going to be on the outside end. So, we don't need to make any changes there. I then asked you to change
the color of these data bars.
Now, I don't really care how you did this, it might be that you went to Chart design. And maybe you just
changed it to a different color palette, that is absolutely fine. Or maybe you selected each bar
individually and formatted them so that they were different colors. Now, I don't really mind which
method you used, both are valid. So, I'm just going to change this to look something like that.

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And then the final part of this exercise was to add a Trendline to show the trend of the Physics mark. So
let's click Plus, let's add a Trendline, and this one is going to be based on Physics. Let's click on Ok, and
there is that Trendline.

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Section 12 – Highlighting Cell Values
Video: Highlighting Cell Values
Deb: In this section, we're going to move on to talking about Conditional Formatting. And Conditional
Formatting in Excel is an amazing tool to help you analyze your data and make better business
decisions.
Now, if you're not sure what Conditional Formatting is, don't worry or will become clear. But let's take a
look at this example. I have some states listed in column A, and then I have some months of the year.
And once again, let's just say that these values are sales figures generated for each of these states. So
maybe, I want to quickly highlight in this wall of numbers, the top five values. Because by highlighting
the top five values, this is going to help me ascertain which months and which states are performing the
best.
Or maybe I want to highlight the lowest five sales values, so I can see which months and which states
are performing the worst. Or maybe I want to highlight figures, which are between two amounts, all of
this type of analysis, you can do using a piece of Conditional Formatting called Highlight Cell Values.
So let's take a look at how this works. Now the first thing we need to do here is we need to highlight all
of the values that we want to apply Conditional Formatting to.
Then on the Home ribbon, in the Styles group, we have a Conditional Formatting button. And if we
hover over, it says: “Easily spot trends and patterns in your data, using bars, colors and icons to visually
highlight important values”. Now we're going to get on to bars, colors, and icons in the next three
lessons. In this lesson, we're simply going to take a look at these top two just here, the Highlight Cell
Rules and the Top/Bottom rules.
So if we hover over this first one, again, we get a little offshoot menu. And this is where we can specify
what type of value we want to highlight in our range of selected data. So maybe I want to highlight all
values that are greater than a specific number. So I'm going to say highlight all values that are greater
than and then I'm going to add in 2000. And we can choose what type of fill we want to fill with.
So light red fill with dark red text is the default, I do have some other choices just here. Or I can choose
my own custom formatting and really get very specific about the colors that I'm using. For the time
being, let's just go with that.
Now maybe I want to refine this a bit more, I've got quite a lot of things highlighted there. Let's go for
3000 instead. Well, we don't have anything there. So let's go for 2500. Okay, that's not bad. Let's click
on Ok. So now I can see all of the states and which months, they achieved greater than $2,500 in sales.

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Now, once you apply a piece of Conditional Formatting, what you've effectively done there in Excel
terms is you've set up a rule. So if we click in our data, again, go back to Conditional Formatting.
If we want to change that piece of Conditional Formatting, we need to go down to Manage Rules. And
we'll see our rule sitting there. So if I want to delete this, I can. If I want to edit the role, I can jump into
there and maybe change the color. Let's jump into here and change the background color. So I'm going
to go to Fill, and let's do light green. And I think we're going to change the font as well to a dark green,
and click on Ok, and Ok again, and Ok again, and it's going to update.
Once again, let's select all of our data, up to Conditional Formatting, and maybe I want to highlight all
of the values that are less than a specific number. So I'm going to say highlight everything that's less
than 800. And this time, I want to fill it with a yellow fill with dark yellow text, and click on Ok. So, it's
really helping me analyze and make sense of my data.
Now we do have some other options in here we can choose, between. So we can specify to highlight
cells that are between two numbers, we also have equal to if you want to highlight values that are equal
to 1000, for example, and I even have some options for text and date. So what I could do here is let's just
show an example of text.
If I highlight cells that contain text, I could go to Conditional Formatting. And I could say text that
contains and let's say highlight anything that has “ware” in it. And there we go. It's just highlighted
Delaware so you can Use these Conditional Formatting on text as well as values and also dates. So you
can highlight dates that occurred yesterday, today, tomorrow, so on and so forth. So a really great way of
analyzing your data.
So now, I have three different rules set up on this data. So I'm going to select everything just here, into
Conditional Formatting, and into Manage Rules. And there are all of my pieces of Conditional
Formatting that I can edit if I want to, or delete from here as well. Now, I'm actually going to delete all
of these pieces of Conditional Formatting, and click on Ok.
Now the other thing that I want to show you in here are the Top and Bottom rules. So once again, I'm
going to select all of my data up to Conditional Formatting, and you can use this if you want to
specifically highlight the top 10 items in your data, or the top 10%, or the bottom 10 items or the bottom
10%. Or you can highlight things that are above average or below average. So if I want to find out the
top 10 items, it's basically going to highlight the highest 10 values in my data set.
Now I don't have to have 10, I could modify this and take this down to the top five items, and choose a
specific fill, like so. And I could do exactly the same if I wanted to apply this to the bottom. So maybe I
want to see the bottom 10%. I could take that down to the bottom 5%, and this time, I'm going to choose
a Custom Format, and I can choose my own fill from here.

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So I'm going to say let's just do a light orange background with a dark orange font, click on Ok, click on
Ok again, and there we go. So hopefully you get the idea as to how these can work. And another thing
you can do if you just quickly want to clear all of the rules that you've set up on your data set,
Conditional Formatting, clear rules, and you can either clear rules from selected cells or clear rules from
entire sheet.

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Video: Data Bars
Deb: Aside from being able to highlight cells based on the value in the cell, we also have access to three
types of visual Conditional Formatting. And if we click the Conditional Formatting drop down, this is
what I'm talking about. We have Data Bars, Color Scales, and Icon Sets.
So over the next few lessons, we're going to explore each of these, and I'm going to show you how you
can use them to help improve the readability of your data. And we're going to start out in this lesson
with Data Bars. Now, once again, we need to select all of the data that we want to apply the Data Bars
to. Now if we jump back up to Conditional Formatting, and go to Data Bars, notice that our Data Bars
are organized into two separate groups, we have Gradient Fill and Solid Fill.
Now the only real difference between these two is how the bar is filled. So if I hover over the first one,
you can see we kind of have a gradient filled Data Bar, whereas the solid fill ones are a solid fill color as
opposed to a gradient. That's really the only difference between these two groups. So I think for this one,
I'm going to choose the green solid fill Data Bar. Let's take a look at the ScreenTip. It says: “Add a color
Data Bar to represent the value in a cell, the higher the value, the longer the bar”.
So these bars are effectively a visual representation of the value in the cell. So the higher the value, the
longer the bar, the lower the value, the shorter the bar. And this is a great way of just giving people an
idea as to where values fall within a range compared to other values in the selected cell range. Now,
once again, as soon as we apply a Data Bar, that is effectively a rule. So if you want to change anything
about these Data Bars, we need to go into Conditional Formatting, and down to Manage Rules. And
there is our Data Bar. Let's quickly edit this rule.
Now there are different ways that we can display this Data Bar. Now you'll notice the default here is to
display based on the minimum value and the maximum value. And this determines the length of the bar.
Now it might be that we want to display this as a number, so we might want to manually enter in a
number which represents the minimum value and a number which represents the maximum value. Or we
might want to represent it as a percentage or something else.
Now in general, if you just want to use the lowest value and the highest value, set both of these to
automatic, which is the default. And of course down here, we can customize our bar appearance. So I
can switch between Solid Fill and Gradient Fill, I can change the Fill Color, I can even choose exactly
the color that I want to use.
So maybe I want a pink colored bar. Let's click on Ok. And I could add a border around the outside. So
I'm going to say Solid Border. And let's make this border a dark purple color, like so. And click on Ok,
and Ok again. So now we've completely changed the look and feel of those Data Bars.

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Now another thing you can do with these is you can choose to display only the bar and not the value. So
you might be thinking to yourself, well why might that be useful? Well, there might be some data sets
which are particularly sensitive. And the example that comes to mind would be maybe you work in HR,
and you're giving a presentation. And you want to show the salary range of employees in different
departments. And instead of showing the actual employees salary up on a PowerPoint presentation in
front of lots of people, maybe you just want to give the audience an idea of the salary without actually
showing the value.
So if you want to just show the bar only again, we need to go in and manage the rule. Let's edit this rule.
And we're going to say Show Bar Only, and click on Ok, and Ok again, and then we just get that bar.
Now, you don't necessarily have to have Data Bars representing every single value that you have. In
some cases, it's quite nice. If you have a Totals column on the end, you might just want to display that as
a Data Bar and the rest of the cells might contain the values or you can set it up exactly as I have done
here.
Now I'm going to display the values again. So let's manage the rule, Edit Rule and deselect Show Bar
Only. Now all of these Data Bars are dynamic. So, they will update if the number in the cell changes.
So, let's say let's take this number just here where we have 502. If I was to change this to 2000, and hit
Enter, you can see that that Data Bar updates all by itself. So everything here is dynamic. And that is
basically what Data Bars are; very simple, very straightforward, a visual representation of the value in
the cell.
Once again, if you want to clear these Data Bars, you can either go in and delete the rule or alternatively,
you can simply clear the rules from selected cells or from the entire sheet.

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Video: Color Scales
Deb: Similar to Data Bars, Color Scales are a way to represent values in a cell. And Color Scales are
kind of like a heat map if you are used to looking at those. What a Color Scale will do is shade the
background of the cell, depending on the value contained within the cell. So let me show you what I
mean. Let's select our data, once again, up to Conditional Formatting. And this time, we're going to go
down to Color Scales.
Now we have a few different options just here, and you'll see what happens as I hover over them. Now
we have what we call 3-Color-Color Scales. So this is an example of one of those; green, yellow red.
And we also have 2-Color-Color Scales. In this example, green and white. Now, which one you choose
is entirely up to you.
Now if we take this first one as our example, let's look at the ScreenTip, it says: “Apply a color gradient
to a range of cells. And the color indicates where each cell value falls within that range”. Now the
highest value for this particular Color Scale is going to show in green, and the lowest value is going to
show in red. And everything in between the highest and lowest values is shaded on a gradient from
green into yellow down to red, depending on value.
So if I select this one, we can see that all the highest values are shaded in green, with the highest value
being a very, very dark green, all the way down to our lowest value in red. Now, if you decide that you
don't like the 3-Color-Color Scale, it's a bit overwhelming, we can simply go in and edit this rule, and
change it to a different type of Color Scale. So this time, I want a 2-Color-Color Scale, and then I can
choose the colors that I want to use. So maybe I want a blue going all the way down to white. Let's click
on Ok, and Ok again, and now I have a different Color Scale.
Now in this example, I'm applying this to all of the data. And personally, I don't think this is particularly
easy to read and pinpoint specific values. I can't see instantly what the highest and lowest values are
here, because a lot of the shading is fairly similar. So, I find this more useful when I'm applying it to just
one column of data. So, what I'm going to do here is I'm going to clear the rules from the selected cells,
and I'm simply going to use a Color Scale on the January data.
So let's go down to Color Scales, I'm going to choose the blue, white, red 3-Color-Color Scale. And
there we go, that's a little bit easier to read. Everything that's blue is the highest value. And then as we
move down to red, that is the lowest value. So, that's a little bit easier to visualize that particular set of
information.
Now once again, we're going to go up to Conditional Formatting, Manage Rules, I'm going to edit the
rule, because there are some other things that we can change in here. So for example, we can change the
lowest value, the midpoint, and the maximum. So if I leave all of these on the default, it's going to pick

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the lowest value to assign to the darkest red, it's going to pick the midpoint in the range that I've selected
to assign to this kind of pinky white color. And then the maximum value in the range I’ve selected will
be blue. And we can adjust these if we want to.
So maybe I want to choose my own number. So maybe I want my minimum value to be 1,000, my
midpoint value to be 1,500, and then my highest value, I'm going to leave as the default. Let's click on
Ok, and Ok again, and now my Conditional Formatting has updated.
Now if I was to sort this column, let's right-click, and go to Sort, and I'm going to say largest to smallest.
So this is really going to show me a Color Scale going down. So I can see here at the top, the highest
sales in January were for Arizona, all the way down to Delaware at the bottom. And you can see that
because I set the lowest point to the threshold of 2000, everything above 2000 is kind of in that blue,
then the midpoint is between 2000 and 1,500.
So we're going to light blue through white, and then everything under 1500 is going towards red. So we
have a pink moving towards the darker red. So that's kind of how it works. Now I'm going to undo out of
there just to put our Conditional Formatting back, and I'm going to clear the rules from selected cells.

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Video: Icon Sets
Deb: In the final lesson of this section, we're going to take a look at Icon Sets. And once again, Icon
Sets are visual pieces of Conditional Formatting, where you use an icon or a symbol to represent the
value in the cell. So, we're going to walk through a couple of examples.
Now in this data set, there's a slightly smaller data set than we've been using previously, I have some
states and I have the sales figures, but only for January and February. So, what I'm going to do first is
I'm going to apply Conditional Formatting to all of the January figures, so these values are represented
by an icon. So once again, up to Conditional Formatting, into Icon Sets, and then we can choose the type
of Conditional Formatting that we want to apply. Then we're going to edit this Conditional Formatting.
So instead of selecting icons from here, which is simply going to apply them straight away, we're going
to go all the way down to More Rules at the bottom. And this is going to allow us to customize our Icon
Sets before we apply them to the cells. So the first thing I need to do here is select the icon style I want
to use. And again, this is very much personal preference.
Now for this first example, I think I'm going to choose the three arrows. Now what we can do
underneath, is that we can specify what value or what range each of these icons represents. So because
we've selected a 3-Icon-Icon Set, and it's worth pointing out here, that we don't just have 3-Icon-Icon
Sets, we also have 4-Icons, and even 5-Icons, and which one of these you select really determines how
your data is broken up.
So, because I've selected a 3-Icon-Icon Set, what Excel is effectively doing here is it's looking at the data
that we've selected, it's dividing it into thirds, and then it's assigning an icon to each third. Now, the first
thing we need to do here is we need to take a look at the type of data we have selected. And I have
Numbers. Now if we look here in the Type field, you can see by default, it says Percentages.
So, the first thing you want to do is change this so that it matches the type of numbers that you have
selected. And then we can go in and customize. So what I can say here is that the green arrow is going to
display when a value is greater than or equal to, and we do have just the greater than sign in there as
well. And then I can specify a value.
So maybe I want a green icon, when the value in the sale is greater than or equal to 2,000. Maybe I want
an orange icon. When the value is less than zero and greater than or equal to, I'm going to save 1,500.
And then the red icon is going to represent anything that's under 1,500. So now when I click on Ok, it's
going to assign those icons based on the criteria that I've specified.
So anything over 2,000 is going to have a green icon. Anything between 1,500 and 2,000 is going to
have a yellow icon. And anything below 1,500 is going to have a red icon. So you can really customize

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how you set these up. If I hadn't customized these, so for example, if I just select the February figures,
go into Conditional Formatting and Icon Sets and choose these, Excel is going to divide up the data for
you into thirds. So it's going to find the lowest value, it's going to find the highest value. And it's going
to assign each icon based on 33% brackets effectively.
Now, if we were to change this, so let's go into Manage Rules, and let's edit this rule. If I was to select a
4-Icon-Icon Set, so let's go for these circles just here. Now if I don't change anything here, it's going to
divide my data up into quarters because I have 4-icons. So this time, I want to make sure I have
everything set to number. Now I can go in and I can define my values. So I could say when the value is
greater than or equal to let's do 2,800 this time.
The next one, we're going to say 2,500, the next one will be 2,000, and the final one will be anything
below 2,000. Let's click on Ok, and Ok again, and it's going to assign those icons accordingly. So you
can really go in and customize how these work. I want to show you one final example which I think is a
really nice way of using Icon Sets to show if sales have increased or decreased in February compared to
January.
So the first thing I'm going to do here is let's just delete out all of this Conditional Formatting, I'm going
to clear the rules from selected cells. Now, what I'm going to do here is let's just give this little heading,
we're going to say, Up/Down. And just keep things consistent. Let's use our format painter to apply
some formatting, like so. And I'm also going to apply some borders around the outside. So now,
effectively, what I want to do is I want to have an up arrow if the February sales have increased since
January, and a down arrow if they've gone down.
So before we apply our Conditional Formatting, we need to do a little bit of a formula here. And this is a
very simple formula, we're just going to say the February figure, minus the January figure, hit Enter.
And we're going to copy this down, double-click. Now notice here we have some cells that contain
minus values, and some cells which have plus values. So based on this, we can set up a piece of
Conditional Formatting that says, if the value in the cell is greater than zero, i.e. it's a positive value, we
want to assign an up arrow.
If it's less than zero, it's going to be a negative value, and we want to assign a down arrow. So let's
highlight our data up to Conditional Formatting into Icon Sets and straight into More Rules, so we can
customize this role. Now here, I'm going to use a different Icon Set, let's use these little three triangles. I
have numbers, so we want to make sure we change the type to Number. Now when the value is greater
than or equal to zero, so it's effectively a positive value, I want it to show a green arrow.
Now I don't actually want this middle value just here because I only want an up arrow or a down arrow.
So I'm going to change this to No Cell Icon. And then the bottom one here, when it's less than zero,

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effectively, when it's a negative value in the cell, when it has a minus sign, it's going to show the down
pointing arrow. Let's click on Ok. And would you take a look at that?
So we can see here very clearly, in February, sales went down. And of course, if we don't want to
display these values, and this is a good case where you probably wouldn't display them, we would go
into Conditional Formatting, Manage Rules. Let's edit the rule and say Show Icon Only. And I might
even want to put these in the middle by clicking on the middle or center alignment tool. So, that's a
really nice way to use those Icon Sets to show if values have increased or decreased.

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Video: Exercise 11
Deb: In Exercise 11, we're going to practice using Conditional Formatting. So on the Highlight Cells
Worksheet, I'd like you to highlight with a red fill all cells with values between 25,000, and 30,000.
Also, on the Highlight Cells Worksheet, I'd like you to highlight with a yellow fill all cells with values
below 15,000.
Once you've applied both of those, I'd like you to delete the first rule, so the Worksheet only shows the
values below 15,000. The second part of the exercise is working with Visual Conditional Formatting. So
on the Visual Conditional Formatting worksheet, I'd like you to apply formatting to highlight data. So in
table 1, I'd like you to apply yellow, solid filled Data Bars to all cells. And I'd like you to edit the rule to
Show the bar only. In table 2, I'd like you to apply the Green-Yellow-Red Color Scale to all cells.
And then, once you've done that, I'd like you to enter the name of the salesperson and the quarter where
the highest number of sales were achieved. In table 4, I'd like you to apply the four arrows colored Icon
Set to All cells. And in Table 4, I'd like you to apply the three symbols circled Icon Set to all cells. And
I'd like you to edit the rule so the green symbol represents values greater than 25,000. And the yellow
symbol represents values greater than 15,000. See how you go with that. And if you'd like to see my
answer, then please keep watching.
So, the first thing we're required to do here is highlight cells with a red fill, that contain values that are
between 25,000 and 30,000. So we're going to select our data set, go to Conditional Formatting,
Highlight Cells Rules, and we're going to choose, between. So we want to highlight cells that are
between 25,000 and 30,000. And we want to highlight those with a light red fill. Let's click on Ok.
Next, on this same data set, we want to highlight cells that are less than 15,000. And we want to
highlight these with a yellow fill. So back to Conditional Formatting, Highlight Cells Rules, less than
15,000. And we want these to be a yellow fill. Let's click on Ok.
I then asked you to delete the first rule, so that only the cells that are less than 15,000 are highlighted in
the data set. So for this, we're going to jump up to Conditional Formatting, Manage our Rules, there's
both of our roles, and it's this one that I want to delete. Click on Ok, and now I just have those values
less than 15,000 highlighted.
The next part of the exercise was to utilize Visual Conditional Formatting. So in this first table, I want
you to apply Data Bars, and I want you to Show the bar only. So let's select our data, up to Conditional
Formatting, into Data Bars. And for this, we're going to use a solid orange fill. Now we want to show
the bar only.

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So we need to go up and manage the rule, select the rule and edit it and make sure that we choose Show
bar only, and click on Ok. In table number 2, we want to apply a Color Scale. So once again, let's select
our data, Conditional Formatting, Color Scales. And we want to apply this one here the Red, Yellow,
Green Color Scale. So remember, because this is the Red, Yellow, Green, the highest value is going to
be in red.
So by looking at this table, I can see here that Shawn is the salesperson who achieved the highest sales
results and those occurred in Q2. So underneath here, I'm simply going to link to Shawn, and also to the
quarter. Now in table 3, we want to add some Icon Sets. So let's select our data, up to Conditional
Formatting, into Icon Sets. And we're going to apply this Icon Set just here four arrows colored, click to
select. And in the final table, table 4, we want to customize the way that these Icon Sets are displaying.
So, let's select our data, up to Conditional Formatting, Icon Sets.
This time, we're going to use these indicators here, three symbols circled. Now I want to make some
changes to how these symbols apply. So we're going to manage the rule. Let's edit it and make some
changes to the rules. Now the first thing to do here is make sure that we have Number in here because
we have numbers in our table. And I want to display a green symbol when the value is greater than
25,000. And I want an orange symbol when the value is greater than 15,000. Let's click on Ok, and Ok
again, and that's now updated.

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Section 13 – Inserting Pictures
Video: Inserting Pictures
Deb: In this section, we're going to shift our focus and start talking about inserting different items into
our spreadsheets. So far in the course, we've been very much focused on inserting text and values into
cells. But now, it's time to see what else we can insert into our spreadsheets to make them more visual
and interesting. And we're going to start out in this lesson by talking about inserting Pictures.
Now the spreadsheet that I'm currently working on, you can see that I already have a picture inserted
into one of the cells. And that is this picture of an apple. Now when you do have pictures in your
spreadsheet, if you click on the picture, notice that you get a contextual ribbon called Picture Format.
And as we've seen with other contextual ribbons, when we click on this ribbon is going to open up all of
the commands that we have available for formatting and modifying correcting pictures in our
Worksheet.
For example, if we take a look at this Adjust group, I can apply some different color corrections. So, I
can make the apple brighter or darker, I can sharpen or soften the image. I could choose to recover the
image by changing the saturation, the color tone, or the actual color of the apple, I can apply Artistic
Effects. And we have some really nice ones just here, although I will say I don't think I've ever used
these in Excel. But there might be situations where this is going to be appropriate, you have a gallery to
select from.
I can adjust the Transparency of this image as well. So maybe I don't want that apple to be quite as
opaque. I could choose one of these other options. I can also compress the picture, and we're going to
talk more about that later on this course, I can change the picture, so switch it out for something else, or
I can reset the picture. So any changes I've made, maybe if I've color corrected it or apply transparencies
or effects, if I want to just reset it back to how it was originally, I can click this button just here. We also
have various different Picture Styles that we can add.
So, most of these are kind of like frames and really work better with square or rectangle images. But you
have a little gallery to choose from just there. And then of course we have a Picture Border, we can do
things like add a border around the outside of our image, that might be something that you want to do.
We can apply some Picture Effects, so I could add a Shadow if I wanted to. And that's actually quite a
nice effect.
On this particular image, I could do things like change the Picture Layout. And again, we're going to
look at these a bit more later in the course. So now that we've had a quick tour through the Picture
Format ribbon, let's take a look at the different types of picture that you can insert into your Worksheets.

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So if we click in the cell below, B4, I'm going to insert a picture that I have saved off of an orange. So,
up to the Insert tab, into the Illustrations group, and we're going to click the Picture drop down. Now we
have three choices at this stage. I can choose to insert a picture from This Device, from the Stock Image
Library, or I can search the web for a picture. Now we're going to start with This Device.
Now I have all of the images that I'm going to be using throughout this section of the course stored in a
folder on my local drives. But you're going to need to navigate to wherever you've saved off these
course files, find the image of the orange, let's select it and click on Insert. Now notice that when I insert
this image, it is a lot larger than I actually want it to be. So, I'm going to need to do some resizing here.
Now with any image that you insert into Excel, you're going to see these Resize Handles at the side
which will allow you to manually resize, I can pick the object up and move it around. And I can also use
the Rotation Handle just to rotate that orange if I need to. Now if I want to make sure that the orange is
exactly the same size as the apple, what I could do, instead of dragging the Resize Handles in and kind
of guessing, I could click on the picture of the apple and then on the Picture Format ribbon, in the Size
Group, notice we have the exact sizing just here, the height and the width.
So, I'm basically going to copy these for the orange. So we have 2.1 and 2.22. So let's change this to 2.1
and then 2.22. Now notice when I hit Enter, it's going to change both the height and the width to 2.22.
And that's because I have Lock Aspect Ratio turned on. If you want to be able to accurately type in an
exact height and exact width without Excel automatically resizing, if you click the arrow to jump into
the Properties, you just need to deselect the Lock Aspect Ratio box. Now if I change this to 2.1, the
other one should stay at 2.22.
Now it might be that the orange and the apple, they weren't exactly the same type of picture. I can see
here, the orange looks slightly smaller, so I am going to just drag out the corner very slightly. Now in
order to not distort this image, when I drag, I want to make sure that I hold down the Shift key when I
resize just to maintain that Aspect Ratio. I'm going to try and make this roughly the same size, I think
that is pretty good. I can then place that in cell B4.
Now, one thing that you'll notice here is if I was to apply some filters to these column headings, and
then I filtered for, let's say, banana, grapes, and pear and click on Ok. Notice that the orange stays where
it is, it doesn't collapse up when I apply the filters. So to get around that, if we click on Undo just to put
everything back, if I click on the orange, right-click my mouse, remember, you always have additional
formatting options in that right-click contextual menu.
Now if I jump to the Size and Properties group, what I can do is expand Properties. And I can say
“Move and size with cells”. So once I've selected that option, if I now apply a filter, so let's do the same
thing here. Let's say bananas, grapes, and pear and click on Ok, you can see that that image of the orange

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now moves with its orange label. So everything appears to be working a lot more smoothly. So that is
one way you can insert an image that you've got stored off locally.
The other way you can insert an image is by choosing one from the Stock Image Library. And there are
hundreds of Stock Images that you can use in here. Now these are Stock Images, and Stock Images
normally need to be paid for. Now you don't need to pay for these if you're using them in Excel.
But I just would warn you that if you plan to use this Excel spreadsheet, in some kind of presentation, or
maybe on YouTube, you want to be careful that the image you're using doesn't have any copyright
attached to it. But effectively, you could jump into here and the next image we need is one of a banana,
it'll go away and it will search.
Now in this case, the Stock Images related to banana are not particularly great. So I probably wouldn't
choose one from this Stock Image Library. We have some other headings at the top here different things
that we can insert. We have an Icons Library, we have Cutout People, Stickers, and also Illustrations.
And we're going to be looking at these in other lessons in this section.
Now the final way that we can insert a picture is to search online for one. And this is going to open up a
window that's going to allow you to browse the internet using Bing for an image to use in your
spreadsheet. So let's look for banana and hit Enter. And now I have all of these different images of
bananas. And just to reiterate that point about copyrights, always try and make sure that when you're
searching online, you have this box selected, Creative Commons only. In most cases, that means that
you can use these images for your personal projects.
But still, when you select an image, you need to make sure you check the copyright attached to each
individual image. Because, some images are fine to use in personal projects. But if you want to use them
for a business related purpose, or maybe something that's going to generate money, it might be that you
need to include an attribution somewhere in your Excel spreadsheet, or even that you can't use it at all.
So, just be careful when you're using images.
Now if I want to refine my search, here, I have some filters, and I can filter by different Image Sizes,
different Image Types. If I'm looking for a piece of Clipart, or a Photograph. I can filter by Layout, and I
can also filter by Color. Now in this case, I'm just going to choose let's go for this image just here. Let's
click Insert, and there is my image.
Now notice when I insert it, I get this little Text Box underneath; “This photo is by unknown author and
is licensed under”, and then we have a code. So this is where you can check the Creative Commons
License assigned to this image. So if I click on this link, it's going to jump me to a web page which tells
me what I can do with this image. And I can see it says Attribution, Non-commercial. And there I have
what I'm free to do and under which terms.

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So, you can see here that if I'm using this image, I must give appropriate credit and provide a link to this
license. And also this image isn't to be used for commercial purposes. So, what I would probably do here
is I decided not to use this image and maybe choose something completely different. So, I'm going to go
through and I'm going to add the rest of the fruits to this little table. And you'll find all of the pictures
that you need for this in the Course Files Folder. And there we go.
Note again, if I apply a filter, and I start filtering for different fruits, everything moves with the correct
label because I've gone in and formatted the picture and made sure that I have “Move and size with cells
selected”. So, those are all of the different ways that you can insert pictures into your Excel
spreadsheets. The most important point here is to make sure that whatever image you choose; you check
the copyright to make sure that you're allowed to use it.

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Video: Inserting Shapes and Textboxes
Deb: In this lesson, we're going to take a look at inserting another type of object into our spreadsheets.
And that is inserting shapes, and also inserting Text Boxes because these two things kind of work hand
in hand.
Now if we jump up to the Insert ribbon, again, in the Illustrations group, notice that we have a Shapes
drop down, which is going to open up the Shapes Gallery, and all of the shapes and excel are divided
down into different categories, you're going to see your most Recently Used Shapes at the top for quick
access. And then we have Lines, Rectangles, Basic Shapes, Arrows, all different kinds of things, it really
depends what shape it is that you're looking to add to your spreadsheet.
Then what we're going to do here is we're going to use some shapes. And in those shapes, we're going to
link through to the quarter totals in this sales Worksheet. So if we take a look, here, you can see I've got
some subtotals applied, and at the bottom of each quarter, I can see the total amount of sales for each
quarter. And I basically want to put these totals in shapes on the Summary Worksheet.
Now on this Summary Worksheet, I've already inserted a nice little chart, which shows me the different
totals for the quarter, we want to jazz this up a bit and make it super clear. Now before we get on to
adding shapes, I just want to show you how to utilize one of the other pictures that we didn't actually
look at in the last lesson. And that is Cutout Images. So if we go to Stock Images, if you recall, we have
different categories running across the top, and one of those is Cutout People.
Now I'm going to use one of these Cutout People in this Summary Worksheet just to liven it up a little
bit. So if I scroll down, let's take a look at what we have in here. And I think I'm going to use this Cutout
Image just here. So let's select it and click on Insert. It’s going to download that image and I can then
move her over here. So, I'm going to make her a bit smaller just by dragging in that Resize Handle. And
I can place her just there to add a little bit of interest to my data.
So now that we have our Cutout Image, let's add in our shapes. So, up to Insert, into the Shapes drop
down, and I want a rectangle, but I think I'm going to have a rounded corner rectangle. Let's select and
let's draw our first rectangle. Now the Fill Color and the Outline Color and width that you get when you
draw a shape really depends on what your default setting is. So, I set this format as the default in the last
project I was working on.
And in order to set a default Fill Color and Outline Color, all you need to do is draw a shape using the
Shape Format tab, select your Shape Fill, and your Shape Outline and even any effects that you'd like to
add. And then you can right-click and from the menu, Set as Default Shape. And that just ensures that
every time you draw a shape, it's going to have those formatting properties. Now I actually don't want
mine to have this Fill Color, so let's go up here and change it. So we're going to do a dark green, and

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we're going to do a light green outline. And if you want to change the outline, if you click the drop down
just here at the bottom, you can choose the Weight.
So essentially the thickness of the outline, if it's Sketched, and you can also choose if you want a solid
line, a dotted line, a dashed line, so on and so forth. Now I'm going to make this a bit smaller. Let's just
drag that in, because I want to have four of these shapes running across the top. Now the easiest way to
copy a shape is simply to duplicate it. And the shortcut key to duplicate is Ctrl + D. I'm going to do that
two more times Ctrl + D, Ctrl + D. And now I have four shapes that all have the same formatting.
Now I'm going to roughly align these, something like that. And I want to make sure that these are all
aligned perfectly. And this is where we use our Alignment tools. So what I can do here is select all of
the shapes, click on the first one, hold down Shift, click the next one, keep Shift held down, and click on
the others. Now with all of these selected, if we jump up to the Shape Format tab, notice in the Arrange
group, we have some Alignment options.
So, I want to align all of these to the middle of each other. And I want to ensure that I have equal
distance in between each shape. So back to Align, and we're going to say Distribute Horizontally. That's
going to ensure that my shapes are aligned with each other, and I have even spacing in between. Now
maybe I want to adjust the position of these as a group, I don't want to move them individually, what I
can do is group my shapes.
Now again, in the Arrange group, we have a Group option just here. So let's select it. And that
effectively makes them one big object. Now, I'm going to use my Arrow keys just to nudge these along,
so that the last shape is in line with the edge of the chart below. And it's just minor little adjustments that
you can make here, which make all the difference. Now to ungroup the shapes so that I can format them
add things to them individually, you can jump back up to Group, and select Ungroup.
Now what I'm going to do here is from within each of the shapes, I'm going to link to the quarter totals
that we have on the sales Worksheet. So this is a nice little trick, if you click on the first shape, put your
mouse up into the Formula bar and press equals, we're simply going to link to the cell. So we did this
before, but the only difference here is that we're using a shape. Let's jump across to Sales and select cell
E23, and hit Enter.
Now, we're going to format this in a moment. But let's just do the same for these others equals Sales
Worksheet, this time, we want the total for quarter two, E43. The next one, up to the Formula bar, equals
let's go to quarter three. And then finally, up in the formula bar equals and this time we want quarter
four, and hit Enter. So now I have all of these values in the shapes, I need to apply some formatting.
So I'm going to select all of my shapes by holding down my Shift key, go to the Home ribbon, I'm going
to make this a little bit larger, I'm going to change the font color to white, I'm going to align to the

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bottom vertically and to the middle horizontally. So now that I have those, I just want to add some labels
above that, say quarter one, quarter two, quarter three, and quarter four. And for this, I'm going to use a
Text Box.
So up to the insert ribbon again, and all the way over on the end here we have a Text group. And I'm
going to choose Text Box. The Text Box is just a rectangle that you can draw, which will allow you to
add text into any part of your spreadsheet. So if I draw my little Text Box just here, my cursor flashes in
the middle, and I can type in quarter one. And notice that this Text Box, by default has an outline and a
white fill background.
Now the first thing I'm going to do here is I'm going to remove both of those. So up to Shape Format,
I'm going to say that I don't want an outline. And I also don't want a background fill. And then I'm going
to go to Home and we're going to modify this text. So again, let's make this a little bit bigger. I'm going
to make it white, because when I drag it over here, you can see that that looks pretty good.
Now I could go through and do exactly the same process for these other ones. I'm going to duplicate
because it's much quicker Ctrl + D, let's drag it over. And then to modify, we can just click in the Text
Box and change it to quarter two. Let's do the same for quarter three. And then finally, we want to do the
same for quarter four. So very quickly there, just using some basic shapes, some formatting, some
alignment tools and a little bit of linking, we've managed to create a really effective looking Summary
Sales Worksheets.

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Video: Inserting Icons and 3D Models
Deb: Icons and 3D Models can really enhance and add interest to your Worksheets. And you can see
here that we have some data in a table related to sales for a specific laptop. And I've applied some color
scales to these sales. And I've also got some shapes in here that are linked to the top sales months in the
table.
Now, what I might want to do here is add a little bit of interest by adding a picture or a 3D Model of the
product, I might also want to add some Icons. So let's take a look at where both of these options are.
You've probably guessed they are on the Insert ribbon in the Illustrations group. And here they are we
have Icons and 3D Models. So let's take a look at Icons first of all.
Now notice as we hover over, we get a ScreenTip that says, “Insert an icon to visually communicate
using symbols”. And I would say that I generally tend to use these to add a bit of interest and personality
to things like charts. So if we click on the Icons heading just here, this is going to open up the Icon
Library. And all of these are free to use in Excel. And all of them are SVGs, scalable vector graphics.
And the good thing about that is that it means you can resize these Icons, and also recover them and not
going to lose any quality in the image.
Now, this spreadsheet is sales of a laptop, so it might be that I want to search for an image or an icon, I
should say, of a laptop. Now I'm going to choose this one, just here and then click on Insert. So these are
very basic little Icons, but they can just add a little bit of pizzazz to your Worksheets. Now notice as
soon as we insert this, we get a contextual ribbon called Graphics Format, which allows us to really
customize the look and feel of this particular Icon. So if I want to change the color of it, I can choose a
color from the drop down up here.
So, I'm just going to make this let's just make it a darker gray color. I'm going to resize it by holding
down my Shift key to keep that Aspect Ratio, I'm going to make it quite small. And maybe I want to
place this somewhere next to the title, I'm sure you can come up with a lot more imaginative locations
for Icons than I am just here. So, very straightforward to add in Icons. Now what about 3D Models?
What exactly are they?
Well, again, if we go up to the Insert ribbon, and click the drop down next to 3D Models, we can choose
to add our own 3D Model. So if you have a 3D Model already stored on your device, you can insert it
from here. Or, you can browse through the Stock Library of 3D Models. And these are pretty cool. So
again, we want to show a 3D Model of the laptop that we're selling. So I'm going to type in the word
laptop, hit Enter, and it's going to pull me back all of these really cool images.
Now, I'm just going to select any of these, let's go for this one, just here and click on Insert. Now, these
can sometimes take a few seconds to load, mine was pretty quick. I can drag it down to this little box,

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I'm going to resize it to make this a lot bigger. And the thing with 3D Models is that you can rotate
them. So when I click on this image, notice I have this little handle in the middle. If I click and start to
drag it, I can get a 360 view of what this product looks like. And you might have seen this type of thing
on various different shopping websites.
So if you've ever bought a pair of trainers, a lot of the time you can spin them around so you can see
what they look like at the back, the front, the side, so on and so forth. So, this works in the same way. So
this is really great if you're trying to display something like a product. For example, if I was selling this
laptop, I might want to display it like this and show people the ports on the side of the laptop, I then
might want to flip it around so that they can see the keyboard, like so. So, having this ability to rotate
this model through 360 degrees is really great in some circumstances.
And of course, when we clicked on this 3D Model, we get a contextual ribbon called 3D Model where
we have all of our different options for managing this particular graphic. For example, if I make changes
to this, I can reset the model. I can choose a different view. So if I just want to choose a very specific
view, I can select it from here, like so. I can do things like add Alt Text. Now you'll see this option
available when you add a picture or an icon.
Pretty much anything you insert into your document, you can provide alt text. So maybe I want to give
the name of this laptop, which is the Randoma SX 12. So, Randoma SX 12 Laptop. Now the advantage
of adding an Alt Text is for people with disabilities. So if anybody is using a reader to look at this
spreadsheet, it means that the reader can effectively read out their Alt Text when they hover over this
image. So if somebody is visually impaired, that's going to be extremely helpful.
So, always think about adding Alt Text into your images to make them completely accessible to
everybody. But that is about it when it comes to Icons and 3D Models. Really simple, really easy. Have
a little play around with them.

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Video: Creating Diagrams Using SmartArt
Deb: In this lesson, we're going to take a look at how we can use SmartArt to visually communicate
information. And if you've never used SmartArt before, then this is a really good time saving feature of
Excel. Because what SmartArt allows you to do is to create really visually stunning Process Flowcharts,
organization charts, hierarchies, cycle diagrams, all of those types of things super quickly. And I've got a
couple of examples to show you, and then I'll show you how I created them.
So on this first Worksheet here called Process Flow, I've got a piece of SmartArt, which just shows the
process for some kind of customer service help desk. And this might be something that you see in a
process manual that you give to new joiners when they're trying to learn their job. So we can see here
that all of the helpdesk operators need to answer a call within 30 seconds, complete the full details of the
issue, assign the issue a priority, and then assign the ticket to the correct team. That is the process flow.
And we can create this really quickly using SmartArt. Let's take a look at another example.
On the Hierarchy Worksheet, you can see here I have a very small organization chart. And of course, if
you have more people in your organization, we can add more branches to this chart. But in its most basic
form, this is a really nice quick way of creating a hierarchy to show the people in the organization,
again, using SmartArt.
So I'm going to show you how to create both of these and then I'll leave you to have a little play around
with other pieces of SmartArt. So let's start with the Process Flowchart. Now I'm just going to delete out
this one, and we're going to start again. Now you'll find your SmartArt on the Insert tab, in the
Illustrations group, it's this button just here. Let's click to open the SmartArt Gallery. And you can see
that all of the SmartArt is divided down into different categories.
So this makes it a lot easier for you to find exactly what you're looking for. So we want to create a
Process Flowchart. So I'm going to select the Process category, and have a little look at some of these.
And the one that I'm going to choose is this one just here, Continuous Block Process. And this one is
used to show progression or sequential steps in a task, process or workflow. So let's click on Ok, and it
inserts that SmartArt.
Now without SmartArt, the way that we would create this would be to use shapes. And using shapes is a
much more manual process, it's going to take us a lot longer. Now notice now that I'm clicked on the
SmartArt, I have two contextual ribbons at the top; SmartArt design where I can do things like add
additional shapes if I have more processes to add, I can change the layout, change the color and apply
SmartArt Styles.

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The Format tab is where I can come if I want to get very granular about the colors that I'm using, the
shapes, styles, so on and so forth. Also notice that when I'm clicked on this graphic, I have this little
pane pop out to the left-hand side. So, this is just another way that I can type in text that goes in each of
these shapes. You can click in the SmartArt shape and type it in. But sometimes, it's easier to work over
in this panel.
So our first item here is to Answer call within 30 seconds. And notice as I type that Excel is going to
adjust the size of the text so that it always fits within this SmartArt object. Let's click on the second
bullet points, which is Complete full details of the issue. The third bullet point that we have is Assign a
priority. And now we've run out of shapes. So what can I do here? Well, let's see what happens if I just
hit the Enter key. It gives me another shape automatically.
Alternatively, if I just backspace out of there, what I could do is make sure that I'm clicked on the last
shape, go up to SmartArt Design, and choose Add Shape from the Create Graphic group. And then the
final thing here is to Assign ticket to correct team. Once I'm happy I can close down this pane and I can
resize this if I need to. So, I think I'm going to give this a little bit more breathing room. Let's make that
a little bit bigger, like so.
Now that I have my text in there and the basic structure of my SmartArt, I can go in and I can start
formatting it to make it look as I want it to look. So I think all we're going to do here is we're going to
change the color. So let's jump up to Change Colors, and I can choose any of these from the gallery.
Let's go for these colorful ones. Let's go for colorful at the top here, like so. So notice how quick that
was just to create this very basic Process Flowchart.
Let's move on now to taking a look at a different type of SmartArt, and that is the Hierarchy. We're
going to basically recreate what we see here. So let's go on to our Hierarchy (2) Worksheet. Let's select
this SmartArt and just delete it out by pressing the Delete key. Insert SmartArt, and this time, we're
going to choose the Hierarchy category. Now some of these will allow you just to add text, but some of
them will allow you to add pictures as well.
Now I want to add pictures. So I'm going to choose the Picture Organization Chart. Let's click on O.
Now with charts like these, there is a lot of customization that you can do, because you need to make
sure that this works for your particular team. So it might be that you have the CEO at the top, but then
you have four managers underneath him. So, we're going to need to do a little bit of rearranging.
Now, first things first, let's just get the pictures into this diagram. And all of the pictures that I'm going
to use, you're going to find saved off to the Course Files Folder. Now all we need to do here is just
simply click on the Image Icon within the SmartArt shape. I'm going to select an image From a File, and
I'm going to use Matt just here. So, let's select him and click on Insert. Let's do exactly the same for the
others. So I'm going to go From File, let's insert Amy. Let's do the next one, and this time we are going

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to have Marcus. The next one is going to be Ken. And then finally, we are going to insert Molly in that
last one.
Now one thing you'll notice with these images is that some of them don't look particularly great. For
example, Mark is just here, he's sort of almost cut off at the side. And when you're doing something like
this, it's always a good idea to adjust your images so that they're all equal distance away from the camera
lens, I guess. And this is a really cool little trick.
Now if we click on the first one, Matt, and because it's a picture, we're going to go to Picture Format. In
the Size group, we're going to use Crop and Fill. And what this allows us to do is then drag the Image
Handles and resize and reposition this image. So, I want him to be a lot closer than he currently is. So
I'm just going to drag that around until I'm happy, and then I can click the Crop button.
Let's do the same with Amy, Crop and Fill. Let's move her over a bit, and I'm going to make her very
slightly bigger. Like so, click Crop. Marcus, let's go to Fill, and he definitely needs to move over a little
bit. And let's make him bigger so he's kind of the same size as the other two guys. Click on Crop. The
same with Ken, Crop and Fill, let's drag out, move him down there. And then finally we have Molly,
Crop, Fill, let's make her a little bit bigger, and reposition her as well. So don't forget about that little
Crop and Fill trick.
Now I'm simply going to go through and I'm going to add the names for all of these people off camera.
So I'm quickly going to do that and I'll join you back here in a couple of seconds. So if I take a look at
this structure, I can see that Amy is Matt's assistant. And then we have three heads of department which
report directly into Matt. Now if I want to add another head of department, all I need to do is select
Molly, go up to the SmartArt Design ribbon, and choose to Add a Shape After, and that's going to give
me another one. I can then go in select the correct person. So let's say Carolina, Insert and then we can
do our old Crop and Fill trick.
So let's just move her over a little bit, Crop and then I can go in and add her name. So you can really
customize this Hierarchy using the Add Shape drop down. You can Add Shapes After, Before, Above,
Below or even Add Assistance. Once you're happy with the structure of your organization chart, you can
format it. So we can change the colors, maybe to something like that. And I can even go in and start
changing the way that it's laid out.
So, I have all different kinds of ways that I can display this particular hierarchy. I can apply SmartArt
Styles. So this is going to change the look and feel of the SmartArt diagram. But that in effect is how
you can insert SmartArt into your Excel Workbooks.

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Video: Inserting Screenshots
Deb: Another type of content you can insert into your Excel Worksheet is a Screenshot. Now you might
be familiar with taking Screenshots in other applications, most of us are very familiar with the old
method of pressing the Print Screen button on our keyboards.
Now, integrated into all of the Microsoft applications, we have an inbuilt Screenshot feature. So you're
going to find this on the Insert ribbon. Again, in the Illustrations group, we have a little Screenshot
button just here. And the ScreenTip says, “Quickly add a snapshot of any window that's open on your
desktop to your document”. And that's a really important point, whatever it is that you want to take a
Snapshot or a Screenshot of, you need to make sure the already have it open directly behind your Excel
Workbook.
Now when it comes to actually taking a Screenshot, we have a couple of different options. We could
take a Screenshot of any window that we currently have open and maximized behind Excel. So you can
see here that I have two Available Windows, I have a Word document open, and I also have File
Explorer open. So I want to take a full screen Screenshot of either of these windows, I can simply click.
So I'm going to take a Screenshot of the blog post that I've written in Word.
So if I click this, it's literally going to take a Screenshot of the entire window. And I'm going to
minimize that and move it over. And you can see there is my blog post on Pivot Charts in Excel. And
the cool thing about this is you don't need to switch over to the Word application and do any kind of
copying and pasting, it's just automatically going to add it to the Worksheet that you're currently on.
Now if I minimize Excel, notice that I have Word directly open behind. Now if I was to minimize
everything, and then jump back to Excel, when I click Insert, and Screenshot, notice I no longer have
that Available Windows section. And that is because you can only see your Available Windows if
they're maximized behind Excel, so just bear that in mind. Now notice here that with the Available
Windows Snapshot option, you get the entire window. But what if I just wanted to take a Screenshot of
the first paragraph in this blog post?
Well, this is where the second option comes in. And that is Screen Clipping. Now once again, you need
to make sure that you have whatever you want to clip directly behind your Excel window. And I'll show
you why. If I click Screen Clipping, it minimizes Excel down into the Taskbar, the screen grays out, and
my cursor changes to a crosshair. And whilst I'm in this mode, I can't actually get down to my Taskbar
to switch to the application that I need.
So, the only thing I could really clip right now would be part of my background, which isn't really
particularly helpful. So, always make sure that whatever it is you want to clip you have that open
directly behind Excel. So now, I'm going to delete out our previous Screenshot. Let's go up to Insert, go

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to Screen Clipping, Excel is going to minimize and then once that screen grays out, my cursor changes, I
can select what I want to clip. And when I let go, it's automatically going to paste that into my
Worksheet.
Now, these types of Screenshots are considered to be pictures, you can't edit them. And if the text were
to change in the Word document, there's no link back to here, which is going to automatically update the
text in Excel. It is simply just a picture. And we can confirm that because once we've clicked on it, we
have the Picture Format ribbon available. So, we have all the same tools in here that we have when we're
just inserting a regular picture from the web or from the Stock Image Library. So again, just bear that in
mind.
I find this type of thing particularly useful if I'm trying to put together things like “How to instructions”,
maybe I need to take a Screenshot of the ribbons or something like that. So if you're putting together
instructions or manuals, things like that, this tool can be extremely useful.

Excel 2021
Video: Inserting Comments
Deb: Worksheets can be annotated and effectively marked up using Comments in Excel. And
Comments can be added to any cell. And they're particularly useful if you're sharing Workbooks with
colleagues, clients or other members of your team as they're a nice discreet way to add instructional text
and information. So, let's take a look at how we add Comments to our Worksheets.
Now, here I have a list of leavers, so people who have left the organization; the date, the department that
they left, and if they've had an exit interview or not. And then over on the right-hand side, I just have a
little table, which is just telling me how many people have left, split down by different departments, and
how many people have had their exit interview and how many haven't. And what I have in these cells is
just a very simple COUNTIF Formula.
Now, we haven't covered COUNTIF so far in this course, so don't worry too much about the formula,
we're really just going to focus on adding Comments. So the first thing you need to do here is select the
cell or cells that you want to add the Comment too. So maybe I look at this Leavers List, and I think to
myself, I'm pretty sure that Irene wasn't in the Creative department. So, I might want to add a note for
HR asking that they check this information.
Now Comments in general are something that you add once your spreadsheet has been completed, and
anything that you tend to add at the end, you're going to find on the Review tab. And in the middle here
we have a big old Comments group. And the first option here is New Comment. Notice there is a
Keyboard Shortcut for this of Shift + F2.
So if I click New Comment, gives me this little call out box, and you can see my name just there. So I
might want to say here, “Please check this department information”. Now I can make this Comment
wider or narrower, I can drag it up from the bottom or down to accommodate more text. Now when I
click away from this Comment, notice that the Comment is going to disappear. But there's a little red
triangle in the corner where I added the Comment. And what this means is that if you hover your mouse
over that cell, it's going to open the Comment temporarily so you can read it.
When I move my mouse away, it disappears again. So you can go through your document adding all
different types of Comments. So this time, I'm going to use the Keyboard Shortcut, let's do Shift + F2,
“Please check this date”, click away. And let's add one final Comment, Shift + F2, “Check the spelling
of this name”, and click away.
Now the way that these Comments behave as in, I'm seeing a red triangle in the corner, and when I
hover over, I get to see the Comment, you do have a little bit of control over this. If we go to File, and
all the way down to Options, and into Advanced, there is a small section in here where you can
customize how those Comments display. In the Display section here, notice it says, “For cells with

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Comments show”. And then I have Indicators only, and the indicator is that red triangle, and comments
on hover. If I wanted to I could change this to No comments or indicators, or Comments and indicators.
So if I were to select this option, and then click on Ok, it's going to permanently display both the
Comment and the indicator.
Notice that now I've toggled that option on, in this Comments group at the top here, Show All
Comments is now toggled on. If I click this again, it's going to toggle them all off. So, you can
customize those a little bit. If you want to edit a Comment, just select the cell and click the Edit
Comment button. And then you can go in and add more text. If you want to delete a Comment, again,
select the cell or you could select multiple cells by holding down the Ctrl key and then click the Delete
button.
Or if you right-click your mouse, you also have the Edit Comment and the Delete Comment option in
the right-click contextual menu as well. Now if you have lots of Comments in your Worksheet and you
want to quickly cycle through all of them, you can use the Previous and Next buttons. So if I click on
Next, it's going to open up that first Comment. If I click Next again, it's going to jump to the next one.
And I could carry on going.
Now, I only have two Comments in this document so it's reached the end of the Workbook. But that's
really useful if you just quickly want to speed through a Worksheet and read all of the annotations and
notes. And of course finally here, you have Show/Hide Comments, so you can choose to show or hide it.
And of course, as we've seen, you can choose to Show All Comments.

Excel 2021
Video: Exercise 12
Deb: In this exercise, we're going to practice inserting pictures, shapes and Icons, and also 3D Models.
So the first thing I'd like you to do is on the Insert Pictures Worksheet, I'd like you to complete the
images in column B.
So in cell B10, I'd like you to insert an image of Australia from This Device, and you'll find all of the
images that I use in the Exercise Files Folder. In cell B11, I'd like you to insert an image of Thailand
from Online Images. And in cell B12, I'd like you to insert an image of Greece also from This Device.
And again, you'll find that photo in the Exercise Files folder. I'd like to ensure that all images are the
same size. And then I'd like you to format the images so that they move with cells when the data is
filtered.
In the next part of this exercise, we're going to practice inserting shapes and Icons. So on the Insert
Pictures Worksheet, I'd like you to draw a rectangle shape above the table. And you can see on the right-
hand side what I want this shape to look like. I'd like you to format the shape with a dark green
background fill, and add the text Footprints Travel Company, and Trip Sales Data (Q1 - Q4, 2020).
Format, the text is white, Calibri font, 16 points, and also add an Icon to the header. And a tip here, if
you jump into the Icon Library and search for Travel, you should be able to find the Icon that I've used.
Once you've inserted the Icon, I'd like you to change the Fill Color to white, resize it appropriately, and
position it on the left-hand side of the banner. And in the final part of this exercise, we're going to create
a SmartArt diagram. So on the Diagram Worksheet, we're going to insert the Bending Picture Caption
List from the Picture SmartArt category. We're then going to format our SmartArt diagram. I'd like you
to add a shape after the last shape so that you have four shapes in the diagram. And I'd like you to fill
those shapes with photos from the Exercise Files folder.
Once you've done that, change the color of the SmartArt diagram to Colorful Range - Accent Colors 3 to
4. Add captions for each photo. And finally add a 3D Model of a plane. So, quite a few different things
to do there. Give it a go, and if you'd like to see my answer, then please keep watching.
So, the first thing we're going to do here is we're going to insert an image of Australia from our device.
Now all of the images that I'm using in this particular section you're going to find in the Exercise Files
folder. So, make sure you have those files downloaded and saved off somewhere on your PC. So up to
Insert, into Pictures, This Device. Navigate to the folder where you have them saved, and there is the
image that I'm going to use. And it's inserted in.
Now notice that this is a lot bigger than I want it to be. And if I take a look at the image above and go to
the Picture Format tab, I can see that this is 259 centimeters by 432. So I'm going to click this one and

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make it 259. And there we go. Let's just drag this and reposition it. And that's going to go out very
slightly.
Next, I'm going to add an image of Thailand from the Online Images gallery. So into Pictures, Online
Pictures this time. And when we do this, we're basically just searching the web. So let's type in Thailand
and hit Enter. And now I can choose one of these images. Remember to always check the license if
you're using an image from the internet. Now I'm going to select this one, let's insert it. And once again,
I'm going to make sure that this size is 259. And let's drag that out a little bit. We're only resizing these
images roughly.
And then finally, we need to add an image for Greece. So Insert, Pictures, from This Device. There's the
one we want, so let's click on Insert. And again, we're just going to change this height 259, hit Enter, and
then we can drag that into position and make any final adjustments. Now what I also asked you to do
was ensure that if this table was to be filtered that these images work correctly.
So I'm going to apply some filters to these heading rows. And then I'm going to select all of the images
by holding down my Shift key. Let's right-click, Format Object, and then in Size and Properties, let's
expand Properties. And we need to say “Move and size with cells”. So now if I apply a filter, so let's just
select a couple of these trips, these images are gonna move appropriately.
The next part of the exercise was basically to recreate this header image here. So I'm going to delete out
the one that we have, and we're going to recreate it up in this header area. So the first thing we need to
do here is insert a shape, I'm going to use the rectangle tool. And I'm just going to draw it above this
table, and let's make it about that big. I'm going to fill the shape with a dark green color, and I'm going
to make sure that I don't have any outline.
What I'm going to do then is add some text. So we're going to insert a Text Box for our text. So, I want it
to say “Footprints Travel Company, Trip Sales Data, (Q1 - Q4, 2020). And now I can apply some
formatting to my textbox. So up to Shape Format, we're going to remove the background fill, we're
going to turn off the outline, we're going to make this text white, and also increase the font size to 16
points. Now, I need to expand that a little bit. And I'm also going to align this to the right-hand side and
then drag it into place in this banner.
And then the final thing I asked you to do was to insert an Icon from the Icon Library. So if we go into
Insert and Icons, let's search for travel and hit Enter. Now it doesn't look like the Icon that I used is
there. So let's use this one instead, and click on Insert. And I'm going to drag this over, let's resize it so
it's a bit more manageable. I'm going to put that just there. And then I'm going to change the Fill Color
to white. So, you should end up with something that looks similar to this.

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For the final part of this exercise, I asked you to add a SmartArt diagram. So let's jump up to Insert and
into SmartArt. And you're going to find this in the Picture Category. And it's this one there that we want,
the Bending Picture Caption List. Let's click on Ok. Now I'm going to drag this over, let's make it a little
bit bigger. And the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to add another shape because I have four
pictures to add.
So let's click on the last one, up to the SmartArt Design ribbon, and let's choose Add Shape so that we
now have four. So now that I have my diagram, let's add some pictures. And once again, you're going to
find all of these pictures in the Exercise Files folder. So we're going to choose From File, and I want to
add an image of Rwanda. And in this next one, From File, we want a picture of Germany. In the next
one, we're going to add an image of the UK. And then in the final one, we're going to add an image of
Russia.
So now that we have our images in there, we just need to edit this text to reflect the image. So we have
Rwanda. And I'm just double clicking in here to edit this text, Germany, UK, and then finally, Russia.
Next, I asked you to change the color of this SmartArt diagram. So if we click the Change Colors drop
down, I wanted you to choose this one just here, Colorful Range - Accent Colors 3 to 4.
And then the final thing I asked you to do was to add a 3D Model of a plane. So up to Insert, let's click
3D Models, and Stock 3D Models. And for this, I'm actually going to scroll through the different
categories. And I'm going to go to the Traveler category and choose this image of plane, click on Insert,
and now I can rotate this and move it into position.
So I think I'm going to have it like that, and then we're just going to move it up here. Let's make it a bit
smaller maybe, like so. And then we can just start repositioning some of the objects in our diagram.

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Section 14 - Work Book Views
Video: Workbook Views
Deb: In this lesson, we're going to be taking a look at Workbook Views. And Workbook Views are
pretty much what they say on the tin, it's the way that you're viewing your Workbook. Now we have a
few different ways that we can view our spreadsheets other than the Normal View that we're looking at
right now. And this Normal View is the standard view that you're going to see when you create a new
Workbook in Excel, or open a Workbook in Excel.
Now, how do I know that I'm in Normal View? Well, there are a couple of ways that I can tell. If I take a
look all the way down at the bottom of the screen in the Status Bar, on the right-hand side, notice that I
have three icons just here. And one of those icons is highlighted in gray. And if I hover my mouse over
it, you can see it says Normal. So this shows me that I'm currently viewing my Workbook in Normal
View.
The other views that I have here are Page Layout, and also Page Break Preview. I'll also find these views
on the View ribbon in the Workbook Views group. And once again, the Normal View is currently
selected, because that's the view that I'm currently in. So, Normal View is generally what you're going to
be in when you're working in Excel. So, what are these other views that we have? Well, let's click on
Page Break Preview.
Now, what this will show you is where the page breaks in your spreadsheet occur. So if I wanted to print
out this spreadsheet, if I switch into Page Break Preview, I can see that not all of my data is going to fit
on one page. But this is going to show me exactly where the page is going to break and where page two
starts. And it might be that I want to start making some adjustments to these page breaks.
For example, if I absolutely had to have all of this data contained on one page for printing, I could
simply grab the page break and drag it all the way down to the bottom. So now everything is going to be
on page one. Now you will have to make a sacrifice in order to cram more onto the page. And in
general, what this normally means is that the data that you can see on this page will be in a much smaller
font, than if this data was spread across those two pages. So, just bear that in mind.
If you do want to check what this is going to look like when you print it out, you can press the Ctrl + P,
keyboard shortcut, to jump across to Print Preview. And in this case, this actually doesn't look too bad,
the data is still readable, and it's all on one page. So that is what Page Break Preview can help you with.
The next Workbook View that we have is the Page Layout View. And if we take a look at the
ScreenTip, this says; “See how your printed document will look. This is a good way to check out where

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pages begin end, and to see any headers and footers on the page”. So, let's flip into Page Layout View.
And you can see immediately, this is a completely different kind of view.
I can see all of my data, but also notice at the top here I have a space where I can add a header. So if I
want to very quickly just add a header to this Worksheet, I can. So let's call this Employee Bonus
Scheme, something along those lines. Notice that now that I'm clicked in header and footer, I have a
header and footer ribbon at the top with various different elements that I can add to my header and
footer.
Now we have a whole lesson on customizing this header and footer. So for the time being, we're just
going to leave it with that text in the top there. Now I'm going to use my Zoom slider in the bottom
right-hand corner just to zoom out a little bit so we can see the entire page. And this is pretty much what
it's going to show you. It's gonna show you exactly how this is going to print out. What I could also do is
click down here and add a footer in much the same way that I added the header. And as I said, we're
going to add things like page numbers in a later lesson. So, that is Page Layout View. Let's jump back to
the View tab.
The final view that we have in here is a Custom View. So this says, “Save your current display and print
settings as a Custom View that you can quickly apply in the future”. So now that I've made some
changes, i.e. I've jumped into Page Layout view, and I’ve added a header. Maybe I want to save this
layout. So if I click on Custom Views and click the Add button, I can then give my view a name. So I'm
going to call this Deb's View and I can choose what I'm including in this view.
So I'm going to include all of the print settings and any hidden rows, columns and filters settings that I
might have applied. Let's click on Ok. So now if I jump back to Normal View, and then click on Custom
Views, there is the view that I just created. And if I choose Show, it's going to flip me straight back into
my Custom View. And you can create as many Custom Views as you like for layouts that you use all the
time.
And just before we leave this lesson, I just want to run through these items in the Show group just here
because these are other things that we can choose to view in our Workbook or not. Now I'm going to
switch back to Normal View, I can toggle off the Formula Bar. So if I decide that I don't want that there,
I can deselect it, or put a tick back in the box to bring it back. I can turn off all Gridlines. And I do this
fairly frequently just because it gives the Worksheet a much cleaner look.
So, you can toggle your Gridlines off and on really easily. And I can also disable Headings. So notice
now I don't have the row or the column headings. Now, I wouldn't recommend toggling off Headings if
you're trying to do things like formulas, because that's going to make your life really difficult. But in
some cases, if you're just trying to present data and you want it to look as clean as possible, that might
be an option that you'd like to choose

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Video: Using Zoom in a Worksheet
Deb: In Excel, we have the ability to zoom in and out of our Worksheets to really get up close and
personal with our data. And as you may expect, there are a number of different methods that we can use
to zoom in and zoom back out again. And I'm going to leave it up to you to decide which one you prefer.
Now, the first method you can use is for people who have a scroll wheel on their mouse. The easiest way
to zoom into an Excel spreadsheet is just to hold down Ctrl and scroll the wheel up on your mouse. And
to scroll back out again, just go in the opposite direction.
Now if you don't have a scroll wheel on your mouse, you can use the Zoom Slider in the bottom right-
hand corner. And it's this little thing just here that is currently showing me that I'm at 85% Zoom. So I
can just drag the Slider to zoom in and drag it back down again, to zoom out.
The third method I can use is the Ribbons. And you're going to find your zoom in and zoom out options
on the View ribbon. And here they are in the middle in their own little Zoom group. Now the first option
here allows us to zoom to a level that's right for us. So I can click this button, and then I can specify my
level of magnification. So maybe I want exactly 200%. And that's what it's going to give me. Click it
again, and I could say Fit selection, click on Ok, and it's going to zoom in to wherever I've selected.
Now I'm going to zoom out to 100% once again. Because if I select an area of this Worksheet, so if we
go up to the top, maybe I'm just interested in seeing, let's say, this piece of information, what I can do is
click on Zoom and Fit selection, and click on Ok. And it's going to zoom me into the maximum for that
range that I've selected. So that's a really nice little option. Now let's select 100%, and Ok.
Now, because 100% is the default, and most people tend to work at a 100% Zoom, it has its own
dedicated button here, so you can just quickly get back to 100% if you've been messing around with that
Zoom slider. And again, we have another way of zooming to our selection. So again, if I was to select an
area, Zoom to selection, pretty much does the same as the Fit selection option in zoom. Let's click on
100% again.
And for all of you who love your keyboard shortcuts, there is a keyboard shortcut to zoom in and out. If
you want to zoom in, it's Ctrl Alt + symbol and you can just carry on pressing + to zoom in further and
then Ctrl Alt - to zoom back out again.

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Video: Arranging Workbooks and Worksheets
Deb: When we're working in Excel, most of the time, we won't just have one Excel Workbook open, we
might have numerous open at the same time. It might even be that we're working on two at the same
time. Maybe we're copying and pasting information from one to the other, or maybe we're reviewing one
and updating another.
So having the ability to manage and organize and arrange all of the different Excel windows that you
have open is of paramount importance. And to help us with that, we have a number of different options
on the View ribbon in the Windows group just here. Now the first one we're going to take a look at is
Arrange All. And what this is going to do is it's going to stack your open windows so that you can see all
of them at once. Now I currently have three Excel Workbooks open.
So when I click on Arrange All, I can choose how I want those tiled. So I could choose to have them
tiled Horizontal, Vertical, or in a Cascade formation. So if I choose Horizontal and click on Ok, it's
going to arrange my Workbooks like that. Now, that might not be the most appropriate way to tile these
with three documents open. So let's jump straight back into View, and into Arrange All and this time,
I'm going to go for Tiled, and click on Ok.
Now that might be a more appropriate way to organize my windows. If I wanted to see a bit more
information in these two smaller windows, I could choose to collapse up the ribbon to give myself a
little bit more room. Let's go back to Arrange All, I could cascade the windows. Let's click on Ok. And
it kind of puts them in this formation. So, the Title Bars are kind of poking out at the top, which means I
can quite easily click on them to switch between my different Workbooks.
Now if you are in a situation where you're working in an Excel Workbook, and you have other
Workbooks open and you want to quickly switch to them, we do have a Switch Windows drop down
just here. So provided that you have the other Workbooks already open, you're going to be able to see
them listed here, and you can select any of these to switch directly to that specific Workbook. Now this
was the one where I collapsed up the ribbon. So I'm just going to change this back to always show
ribbon. Let's go back to View.
Now another option that we have up here is View Side by Side. Now you can only view two documents
side by side. So because I have three open, it's going to ask me which one I want to use to compare to
the one that I'm currently working in. So I'm just going to select the top one, let's click on Ok, and it's
going to allow me to view those side by side. Also notice that now because I have less room on this
ribbon, some of these icons are a bit squished up. But this one underneath View Side by Side is
Synchronous Scrolling.

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And this is turned on by default when you switch into View Side by Side mode. And what this means is
that when you start scrolling in one of the documents or in one of the Worksheets, the other one is going
to scroll at the same time as well. So, this is a great option if you're trying to compare two very similar
documents, or you're doing a lot of copying and pasting.
Now I'm going to click the Maximize button just to come out of there, and I'm going to turn off View
Side by Side like so. Now, I will say that despite having all of these options for arranging your windows
within Excel, the way that I arranged my Windows most often is by using Windows Snapping. And this
feature has been available from I think Windows 8 up until the later versions, Windows 10 and
Windows 11. And for me this is by far the easiest way to view two spreadsheets side by side.
So if we just pick up this spreadsheet by the Title Bar, drag it all the way over to the left-hand side, and
let go, it's going to snap into place. I can then choose something else that I already have open to snap
into the other half of the screen. And for me, this is a much neater and nicer way of doing it. One thing
that doesn't happen when you use this option though, is that you don't have Synchronous Scrolling. So
I'm scrolling in this one, but it's not moving in the other one. So as I said, I will leave it up to you to
determine which one of these options suits you best.
The final option that we have here, which we haven't discussed yet is the New Window button. And this
will just open a second window for this document so that we can work in different places in the same
document at the same time. So if I click New Window, it's going to open exactly the same document. It's
going to label it with a 2 on the end, that's the new title. And I can now compare both of these
documents and again, I'd probably put those side by side in a similar way.

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Video: Freezing Panes
Deb: When you're working in a Workbook, particularly a large Workbook that contains lots of data,
have you ever noticed that when you scroll down, you lose your column headings? So when I get sort of
halfway through this data, it becomes quite difficult for me to ascertain the difference between columns
D, E, and F. What do those values represent? Which one's the Salary, which one's the bonus?
So instead of having to keep scrolling back up to the top to check which column heading belongs to
which column letter, we can invoke utility called Freeze Panes. And what this will do is it will freeze
rows or columns that you specify, so they don't move when you scroll. Now you're going to find Freeze
Panes on the View ribbon in the Window group, and it's this one it just here.
Now we have three different options. The one that I use most often would be Freeze Top Row. So what
this is going to do, it's going to keep the top row visible while scrolling through the rest of the
Worksheet. Now bear in mind, this will always freeze Row 1. So if your column headings are in Row 2,
or Row 3, it's not going to freeze them, it's still going to freeze the blank Row 1 that you have at the top.
Now you can freeze more than the top row. We're going to get onto that in a moment. But probably the
easiest solution there is simply to move your data set up so that your column headings are in Row 1. So
if I choose to freeze the top row, now when I scroll, those column headings stay exactly where they are.
And this makes it so much easier for me to see what I'm looking at.
Let's jump back up to Freeze Panes, and I'm going to choose Unfreeze Panes just to remove the freezing
from the top row. Let's take a look at the other options that we have in here. I can choose to freeze the
first column. So again, if you have information that's going to be useful to keep static when you're
scrolling, and this time we're talking about Scrolling horizontally, you could freeze the first column.
So, now if I scroll across, the first column stays put and everything else scrolls. Back up to Freeze
Panes, and Unfreeze Panes. If you want to be a bit more granular about exactly what you're freezing,
you could choose the Freeze Panes option. And this says: “Keep rows and columns visible whilst the
rest of the current Workbook scrolls”. And it says, “Based on current selection”. So, if I click my mouse,
let's just do something really random.
If I was to click my mouse, just here in cell B7, and then choose to freeze panes, it's going to freeze it
here, and here. So if I scroll vertically, it's frozen the first few rows, and if I scroll horizontally, again,
it's just frozen that first row because of where I was clicked. Let's Unfreeze Panes again. If I was to click
down here and choose Freeze Panes, you've guessed it, when I scroll up, it's gonna have frozen the first
11 or 12 rows, and I can scroll horizontally. So, you can customize exactly what you're freezing and
where.

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Now, another option which works along the same lines is the Split option. You can select a cell and
choose to split your Workbook at this specific point. Now if I was to click let's say in cell A10 and
choose Split, it's going to put that split just above and now I can scroll my document in the top half of
the screen and also scroll it in the bottom half as well. If you want to remove that split, just click the
Split button again.

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Video: Exercise 13
Deb: In this exercise, we're going to practice arranging Workbooks and Worksheets and also Freezing
Panes. So the first thing I'd like you to do is create three new blank Workbooks. And I'd like you to
practice arranging them on the desktop in different ways.
So maybe you feel like tiling them, or arranging them horizontally or vertically or in a cascade
formation, have a little play around with those different layout options. I'd then like you to add some
dummy data into the Worksheet. And it doesn't have to be a large amount of data, you can just add a few
numbers into some of the cells.
I'd then like you to practice zooming in and zooming out using the various different methods that you've
learned in this course. I'd then like you to select the cell range that contains your dummy values, and
zoom to selection. And in the final part of this exercise, on the Weather Data Worksheets, I'd like you to
freeze the top row and the first column. I want you to check to make sure that that freezing is working
correctly. Once you've verified that, I'd then like you to Unfreeze Panes. And if you'd like to see my
answer, then please keep watching.
So in the first part of this exercise, I asked you to create three blank Workbooks. Now, I already have
one blank Workbook open. So I'm going to create two more; Ctrl + N, Ctrl + N. I then asked you to
practice arranging these in different ways on your desktop. So for this, we need to jump up to the View
ribbon, I'm going to select Arrange All, and I can choose any of these. So let me go for Tiled. And there
we go. That is what that looks like.
If I decide I don't like that, I can click on Arrange All again, and let's arrange these vertically instead.
So, have a little practice playing around with these different ways of tiling. I then asked you to enter
some dummy data into your spreadsheet. So I'm just going to add a few numbers just here, and practice
zooming in and out. So remember, we can hold down Ctrl and use the scroll wheel on our mouse if that
suits.
Alternatively, we can use the Zoom Slider in the bottom right-hand corner. And if we go way too far and
want to get back to 100% on that View ribbon in the Zoom group, I can click 100% to come back out.
We can click the Zoom button and specify exactly our level of zoom. And if we want to zoom into just
what we have selected on the Worksheet, for example, if I select these values, click on Zoom to
selection, and that's going to zoom me right in. And in the final part of this exercise, I wanted you to
practice Freezing Panes.
So on the Weather Data Workbook, I wanted you to freeze the top row and the left column. So if I want
to freeze both the top row and that first column, what I'm going to need to do is click in this cell just
here which is basically where they intersect, go to Freeze Panes and choose Freeze Panes. So now, that

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is going to freeze that top row, and when I scroll horizontally, I should find that the first column is also
frozen. Now that I've verified that that is working, I can simply go in and unfreeze the panes.

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Section 15 – Margins and Orientation
Video: Margins and Orientation
Deb: In this section, we're going to explore some Printing and Page Layout options. And we're going to
start out in this lesson by taking a look at Margins and Orientation. So, let's start out with Margins first
of all.
Now when we're talking about Margins, we're talking about the whitespace that you see down the side
of each page. And also at the top and bottom when you print a document or a spreadsheet. For example,
if I was to switch into Page Layout view for this particular spreadsheet, this is going to show me the
Margins that I have set.
So you can see here, this whitespace down the left-hand side and this whitespace down the right-hand
side, those are the Margins for this particular spreadsheet. And we can adjust those Margins if we want
to. Now, when we're doing anything relating to the Page Layouts, we need to be working on the Page
Layout Ribbon. And it's this group here that we're going to be taking a look at throughout this section,
the Page Setup group.
Now before we jump into this, let me just switch back to Normal View. And I'm going to do that by
using my icon in the Status Bar. And let's click the Margins drop down. Now notice the Margins that I
currently have set the default for pretty much all spreadsheets in Excel are Normal Margins. And you
can see they're the exact measurements of the top, the left, the bottom, and the right Margins. And you
can also see how much space we have for the Header and the Footer at the top and bottom of the
spreadsheet.
Now if I want to change this, I have a couple of other presets that I could apply. So if I'd like those
Margins to be a little bit wider, I could set this to Wide. And then if we switch back into Page Layout
view, you can see that those now look a lot wider. Now for me that is a little bit too wide. Let's give
Narrow a go. Let's take a look at those. And there you go, you can see I now have very, very narrow
Margins.
So this might be a setting that I would use. If I was just trying to fit a little bit more on the page, I might
use Narrow Margins, so I can really utilize the full width of the page. Now of course, you can also set
your own Custom Margins. If we select this option at the bottom, it's going to take us into the Page
Setup dialog box, and jump us directly to the Margins Tab.
It's also worth noting that you can get to this same dialog box by clicking the diagonal arrow in the
bottom corner of the Page Setup group, and then flip across to that Margins Tab again. So if you want to

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customize your own Margins and set your own measurements, then you can do that from here. And
everything can be changed the top, the bottom, the left, the right, even the amount of space you have for
the Header and the Footer. You can also specify in here if you want your data centered horizontally or
vertically on the page.
So if I was to select vertically, you can see in the preview there, it's going to move it down. If I center
horizontally, and vertically, it's going to be dead in the center of the page when I print it out. So if you
want to customize your own Margins, you can definitely do that from here. Now I think for this
particular document, I'm going to leave these Margins on Narrow.
Now if I want to get a look at what this is going to look like when I print it out, I can press Ctrl + P to
take me into my Printing options, which also shows me a preview of how this is going to print out. Now
notice currently, I don't have all of my columns on one page. So, I'm probably going to need to do some
adjustments here. Now currently, this page is going to print in Portrait.
Now because I have more columns than the ones you can see here, it's probably going to be beneficial
for me to switch the Orientation to Landscape instead. So let's click the Back Arrow because there are a
couple of different ways that you can do this. The easiest way is simply to go back up to the Page Setup
group and change the Orientation from Portrait to Landscape. Let's do Ctrl + P again.
Now you can see I can fit a lot more on this page. It's also worth noting while we're on this screen, you
can change your Orientation from the Print Settings as well. So I could flip it between Portrait and
Landscape here as well. Now let's take a look here. The last column I can see here is Cogs. Let's go
back. Now I can see here that Cogs is column I still have two more columns J and K.
So currently J and K are being cut off. And I can see that there's a very faint dotted line in between
columns I and J to show me that this is kind of where the Page Breaks. So I'm probably going to want to
do some adjustments just so that I fit all of the columns on one page. Otherwise this is going to look a
little bit weird and be really difficult for people to understand. So we're gonna continue on in the next
lesson preparing this document for printing.

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Video: The Print Area
Deb: When it comes to printing out your spreadsheets, it might be the case that you don't always want to
print the entire spreadsheet. Maybe there's just a section that you want to print out, or maybe just a few
rows.
Now if that is the case, what you can do is set a Print Area. Once again, we are working up on the Page
Layout Ribbon in the Page Setup group. And this is the button that we want. And as we hover over, it
says: “Select an area on the sheet that you'd like to print”. And if we click the drop down, we only have
two menu items in here, Set the Print Area and Clear the Print Area.
So maybe I only want to print the first few rows, maybe this selection just here. All you need to do is
select exactly what you want to print, and then set it as the Print Area. Now notice what happens here.
As soon as I set this as the Print Area, a Named Range is created called Print_Area.
You can see that in the Name Box just here. And if we go to the Formulas Tab and into Name Manager,
take a look at that, it's automatically created a Print Area for us. Now if I wanted to print this, I can press
Ctrl + P to jump across to my Printer options. And it's only these first few rows that are going to be
printed out.
Let's jump back for one second. Now even if I was to click away and start clicking and working
somewhere else, if I maybe later on want to print the entire Worksheet, I press Ctrl + P. Notice that it's
still going to remember that selection that I made.
So if you have just selected to Set a Print Area, you must make sure you clear that Print Area before you
can print the whole spreadsheet again. So back up to Page Layout and just clear the Print Area. Ctrl + P
to check this and everything's back again.
Now it's worth noting that you can do a very similar thing from this Settings area. Notice in this drop
down where we specify exactly what we want to print, one of the options we have there is to print a
selection, so only print the current selection.
So if I didn't want to necessarily set a Print Area, which is a bit more permanent, what I could do is I
could select an area to print, Ctrl + P, and then choose to print selection only. And take a look at that.
Now in the Print Preview window, it's just those cells that I've selected. So once I've printed it, if I go
Ctrl + P again, it's still only going to print whatever I've got selected, which at the moment is just one
cell.
So you do need to make sure that you change this back to Print Active Sheets if you want to print
everything again. But that's how Print Area and Print Selection works.

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Video: Inserting Page Breaks
Deb: In the previous lesson, we started to prepare this spreadsheet for printing. And if you recall, we
adjusted the Margins, we set those to Narrow, and we also changed the Orientation to Landscape. And if
you recall, not all of the columns that we have in this spreadsheet are currently being printed on one
page.
If we press Ctrl + P to take a look at the Preview, the printout is going to stop at the column named
Cogs. So currently, I have two columns Profit and Date, which are going to be printed on their own on
an entirely separate page, which isn't the best when it comes to readability. So I'm probably going to
want to do some fiddling around with this, so that I've got all of those columns on one page. And there's
a couple of ways that we can go about this.
Currently, I have a Line Break between columns, I and J. And that was put there automatically by Excel
when I went into Print Preview, and came back out again. Because Excel recognizes the columns J and
K are going to be printed on another page. And it's put that Line Break in there for me.
Now, there are a couple of ways that we can sort this spreadsheet out and get everything printing nicely
on one page. And I'm going to use a combination of Page Break Preview. And I'm going to also add in
some manual breaks.
Now Page Break Preview is something that we did look at previously, you're going to find it on the
View Tab, and it's this option just here. So let's click it. And that's going to show us exactly where our
pages are. And this is quite a long document. So I'm probably going to have quite a few pages here if I
scroll all the way down. Yep, I've got 20 pages.
So basically all of this is going to be printed on Page 1, and then this is going to be Page 2, so on and so
forth. And that's going to carry on all the way down. And then it's going to loop back up again and print
this little section on a page, so on and so forth. And I don't know if you can see very tiny in the
Background, I can see just about that that says that this is going to be Page 22. So I'm basically going to
have just these two columns of data randomly on Page 22.
Now, obviously, that's not going to make this document particularly easy to read. So the first thing I'm
going to do here is adjust this Page Break, let's hover our mouse over the blue dashed line, click, and
drag all the way out. And that will include those two columns on that first page.
Now, as I said, there are some concessions you have to make here. For Excel to be able to accommodate
those two columns, it's going to have to reduce the size of the font that it's using on the printout. So let's
do Ctrl + P and take a look at it. This isn't actually too bad, the font is still very easy to read, and I have

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all of my columns on this page. So I'm really happy with that. Let's click the Back Arrow. So now I
basically just have all of my pages with all of my data on each one. So that's going to look a lot better.
Now what about if I want to add in my own Page Breaks? Well, yes, we can do that as well. So I'm
going to continue working in Page Break Preview. Let's go to Page Layout and click Breaks. Now notice
here we can Insert Page Break, Remove a Page Break, or Reset All Page Breaks. So maybe I want a
Page Break, let's just say just there, all I need to do is select where I want it and Insert Page Break. And
there we go. We have a new manual Page Break.
Notice the difference between the Page Breaks that you insert manually, those are a solid line. And the
ones that Excel inserts, when you click on Page Break Preview are showing as dotted or dashed lines.
Now if I press Ctrl + P, I can see that on that first page, the Page Breaks at the row I specified. You
could also add a vertical Page Breaks.
So if I select column F, Insert Break, it's going to insert it there and move everything around. Ctrl + P to
take a look at that, and now I just have that little section just there. And of course to remove your Page
Breaks, now I don't want my document to print out like this. So, I'm just going to go to Breaks and say
Reset All Page Breaks.
Now, that's going to reset it back to the original, so when I clicked on Page Break Preview. So I'm going
to want to do some adjusting again by just dragging that Page Break out so that I have all the columns
on the first page.

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Video: Print Titles and Background
Deb: One thing that can be a little bit of an inconvenience when you're printing large spreadsheets is the
fact that at the top of each page, you don't have your column headings. So if I press Ctrl + P to jump into
our Print Settings, notice that I see those column headings on Page 1.
But if I go to Page Number 2, those column headings disappear. So once again, if somebody is just
looking at Page 4, it's going to be harder for them to decipher the information on the page without those
column headings being present. Now fortunately, in Excel, we do have a way to get those column
headings to appear at the top of each printed page. And it's called Print Titles. So let's take a look at it.
We're going to jump across to the Page Layout tab. And in the Page Setup group, we have a Print Titles
button. The ScreenTip tells us that we can choose rows and columns that we'd like to repeat on each
printed page, such as those with Labels or Headers. So, that sounds like exactly what we want to do
here. So let's click it. Once again, it jumps us into that Page Setup dialog box and to the Sheet Tab.
Now all we need to do here is define our Print Titles. And you can see here, we can choose to repeat
rows at the top, or we can choose to repeat columns at the left. Now I want to repeat rows at the top. So
all we need to do here is select the rows we want to repeat. So if you wanted to have more than one row
repeating, you could select more than one row, it doesn't just necessarily have to be the top row. So let's
click in the little field there. And I'm just going to select the first row. Click on Ok.
Now if we go to Ctrl + P, Page 1 looks good. Let's scroll across to Page 2. And would you look at that?
Each new page I go to, I have those titles printed at the top. So that is working perfectly. Now something
else I might want to do just to add a little bit of interest, is add a Background to my Worksheet.
And you can see here it says: “Choose a picture for the Background to add some personality to your
Worksheet”. This can look really effective. But I would say that you need to be a little bit careful here.
Because depending on the image you choose to insert, it can sometimes really detract from the
information that you want people to focus on. So, I would say be very careful about the type of image
you use.
Now let's click on Background. And I'm going to insert a picture that I've got stored off from a file. And
you'll find this picture in the Course Files Folder available for you to download if you want to practice
along with me. And it's this one I'm going to use here, landscape.jpg. Let's click on Insert. Now notice
here, this image is so large that it's really just picking up the blue of the sky.
If I scroll down, we can see a little bit of the rainbow there. And then we have the mountain. And it's
going to take us through the rest of the image. And this image just tiles. So if there's more data, it's just
gonna tile again so we get the image repeated, the further down we move. But take a look, it makes it

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really difficult for me to see the information when we get down to the darker parts of the image. And
this is why I would say if you're going to do this, maybe choose an image that's very, very light or
maybe muted in color.
So, I don't think this image works particularly well for my data. So, I'm going to choose to delete the
Background. Let's add a slightly different image to see if this one works any better. And I'm going to
choose subtle.jpg, insert this one, and it's definitely planar. I'm still struggling to see the information.
But, what I might want to do in this situation is select the entire Worksheet, so I can press Ctrl + A to do
that, and maybe change the font to white, and then everything stands out. And this is actually a really
effective way of making your spreadsheet look a lot more interesting. I'll leave you to have a little play
around with that. And I'll see you in the next lesson.

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Video: Headers and Footers
Deb: Adding a Header and Footer to your Worksheets prior to printing is a great way to be able to add
useful information that's really going to help the reader. For example, you might want to add into the
Header of the Workbook, the name of the document, or maybe even the path name that the document is
stored. You might want to add the Page Number into the Footer, or maybe the date.
All of these things can be added using the Header and Footer Contextual Ribbon. So let me show you
how you can do this because as always, there are a couple of different methods. Now one of them we did
touch on briefly in an earlier lesson. What we could do is go to the View Tab, switch into Page Layout
View. And this is going to show us our Header. And if I scroll down our Footer as well. So I can add
them into here.
And when I click in this Header area, notice that I can now see the Header and Footer Contextual
Ribbon. And this is where I come to add all of my different Header and Footer elements. Now notice
that this Header is divided into three sections. So, I can add three pieces of information into this Header:
one that will be aligned to the left, one aligned to the middle, and one aligned to the right. If I scroll
down to the Footer, you can also see that the Footer has three parts as well. So, you can really add a lot
of extra information into your spreadsheets prior to printing. So, that's one method you can use.
Now if we switch back into Normal View, the second way that you can access the Header and Footer
options is to jump into Page Layout, click the diagonal arrow to open up the Page Setup dialog box, and
in here you have a Header and Footer tab. And from here, you can choose to customize your own
Header and Footer.
Now one of the advantages of doing it this way is that we do also have some presets in here. So in this
little drop down, you're going to find pieces of information that people will commonly add into the
Header and the Footer, for example, the Page Number or the name of the Worksheet. So, I could simply
select Sales Data, which is the title of this Worksheet, as opposed to the Workbook name. And then I
could choose to add maybe the Page Number into the Footer. And if I click on Print Preview, I can see
what that is going to look like. Looks pretty good.
Now I'm going to go back, click Page Setup again, and Header and Footer. And I'm going to change
both of these back to None. Because what I want to do is add a Custom Header and a Custom Footer. So
if I click on Custom Header, this is basically going to replicate what we see when we go into that Page
Layout view; the left section, the center section, and the right section. And just above, I have all of the
different things that I can add.
So in the Header, I actually want to add something into this center section. And what I want is to insert
the name of the file. So all I need to do here is click the Insert File Name button, and it's going to put in

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a little piece of code, which when I click Ok, is going to pull through the correct information. Let's click
on Ok.
I'm now going to add a custom Footer. And what I want to add in here is the Time, the Date, and also
the Page Number as well. So in the left section, I'm going to have the Date. So I'm going to click Insert
Date. In the center section, I'm going to have the Time. And then in the right section, I want the Page
Number.
Now when it comes to Page Numbers, we have two little buttons just here; we can insert a Page
Number, and also insert the number of pages. So maybe I want it just to say 1, 2, 3, 4. If that was the
case, I would just insert the Page Number. But if I want it to say Page 1 of 5, that is when I would use
both of these buttons. So let's click Insert Page Number space. And then we have number of pages. Let's
click on Ok, and click Print Preview to see what this is going to look like. So that looks pretty good. I
have my Headers and Footers title at the top.
Now let's take a look at this Footer. I've got the Date, that is fine, the Time also fine. But look, it says
118. So, I don't want it to look like that. I want it to say Page 1 of 18. So we need to make a
modification. So, let's go back, and let's jump into Header and Footer. Now I'm going to click Custom
Footer again. And I'm going to make some modifications because what we can do in here is we can add
our own text. So I can say Page 1, and then in the middle here, of space, and then the number of pages.
Let's click on Ok, Print Preview to see what this looks like.
Now that looks a lot better Page 1 of 18. So, don't be afraid to make minor amendments like that. If you
find it easier to do this from the Page Layout view, then feel free to do that. You pretty much have the
same options. For example, if I click in this left part of the Header and go up to the Header and Footer
Contextual Ribbon, I have all of those buttons in this Header and Footer elements group as well. So, in
general, pretty straightforward to add in a Header and Footer to your spreadsheet.

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Video: Printing a Workbook
Deb: Now that we have our Worksheets all set up correctly and ready to go, it's time to move on to the
final stage, which is printing this Worksheet. Now we've already seen a couple of times in this section,
how we can get to our Print Area. We can go to the File menu, and click on Print.
Or alternatively, if you like your Keyboard Shortcuts, you can press Ctrl + P to jump you to the same
area. So, let's run through the options that you have when it comes to printing. Now remember, the way
that your document prints very much depends on the Printer that you have attached. So, it might be that
you're printing to a network Printer in your office. Or if you're at home, you might be connected to your
Printer via a cable or even via Wi Fi. And the type of Printer that you have, will determine how your
Printer prints.
And what I mean by that is that if you have a Printer that's only capable of printing in black and white,
and you have different colors in your Worksheet, it's only going to print in black and white. So the first
thing you need to do here is you need to select your Printer from the Printer drop down. And if you have
a Printer installed already on your PC or your laptop, you should see it in the list just here.
However, if you don't, you're going to need to add your Printer. And adding a Printer is fairly simple. As
you can see, I'm using Windows 11. But you'll get an equivalent looking screen if you're using Windows
10 or earlier. And all you need to do is click on the Add Device button. And if your Printer is connected
to Wi Fi or connected to your PC, you're going to see in the list below. And you can see here there is my
Printer just below.
So make sure that you have your Printer set up and available for you to select from this drop down list.
Once you've selected your Printer, you can then customize your Print Settings. So in the first drop down
just here, you can choose exactly what it is that you want to print. So if I choose Print Active Sheets, it's
only going to print the sheet that I currently have open, the sheet that I'm currently clicked on. So this
first sheet just here.
I can choose to print the entire Workbook. So for me, that would be 18 sheets. Or I can choose to Print
Selection. And we saw how that works before. You can make a selection of a group of cells and only
print that selection. You can even choose specific pages to print. So maybe I only want to print Pages 2
to 6, I can type that into here, and that is all it's going to print out. I can then choose if I want my pages
collated or uncollated.
So if you're printing multiple copies of this particular Workbook, you can choose how those come out of
the Printer. So do you want it to print all of the first copy first? So for me that would be Pages 1 to 18,
and then print the second copy Pages 1 to 18. Or do you want them to print all the Page 1s first, all the
Page 2s first, so on and so forth. Now for the most part, I always choose Collated.

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You can change your Orientation here as well. So if at the last minute prior to printing, you decide you
want to change to Portrait, you can do that from here. And you can also select your paper size. Now I'm
in the UK, and we generally tend to use A4 paper when we're printing. But if you're in the US, you
might want to select something like letter or a different paper size.
We then have our Margins. So if you remember earlier on in this section, I set my Margins to Narrow.
And it showed me at the top my last custom setting, which is basically Narrow. So all of these
measurements are exactly the same as the measurements we have down here.
But again, if you want to change this to Normal, you can do that. And you'll notice that it changes in that
Print Preview, or I can have Wide if I want to. I'm going to stick with Narrow because I know that
everything fits on the page when I'm using Narrow.
And then finally at the bottom, we can choose how we want to scale our print out. So if we jump into
Custom Scaling options, it's going to open up that Page Setup dialog box, we have a little Scaling
section here where we can choose to adjust this to a percentage of the normal size, or we can choose to
fit to or maybe choose one pages wide, one pages tall. So lots of different options that you can choose in
there.
And then of course, finally, the most important thing at the top, you can specify how many copies of this
Workbook you want to print out. So you can just use these little arrows to go up or go back down again.
Once you're happy with all of your settings, you can click the big old Print button just here. And that's
going to go away and print out your Workbook. Now another thing that's really important to note here is
that you don't just have to print to a Printer.
So if we go back into File, Print, what we can do is we can choose to print to a PDF document. So this is
a really nice way of converting essentially your Excel Worksheet to a PDF, and you'll see Microsoft
Print to PDF listed in your drop down. So let's click this and click on the Print button. It's going to go
away, and it's going to ask me to save. So I'm just going to save this to my Desktop. And I'm just going
to call this Sales PDF.
You can see the Save As type is a PDF file. And if I click on Save, it's going to print to that PDF, and it's
going to save to my Desktop once it's finished. So if I now go to my Desktop, there is my PDF file. I just
need to double-click and it's going to open it up. So now I have a PDF file of this document. And if I
send this to anyone, it's going to make it a lot harder for them to make any changes or edit it.
So, it's a good way of protecting your documents if you don't want any changes to be made. So, don't
forget that Print option isn't simply for printing to a Printer, you can effectively create PDFs from there
as well.

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Video: Exercise 14
Deb: In this exercise, we're going to practice preparing our spreadsheet to print. So the first thing we're
going to do here is adjust our Page Setup options. So on the Weather Data Worksheets, I'd like you to
switch into Page Break Preview view.
I'd like you to adjust the breaks so that all of the columns fit on one page, I'd like you to set the Margins
to Narrow and change the Orientation to Landscape. And I'd like you to set the headings to repeat on all
pages.
Once you've done that, I'd like you to check that the spreadsheet looks good in Print Preview. The final
thing I'd like you to do is sort the data by the Humid column largest to smallest, and then save that as a
Custom View. And then in the final part of this exercise, I'd like you to add a Header to the Workbook
that displays the Workbook name. And I'd like you to add a Footer to the Workbook that displays the
Date and the Page Number. If you'd like to see my answer, then please keep watching.
So the first thing we're going to do here is we're going to switch into Page Break Preview. So up to the
View Ribbon, and let's click on Page Break Preview. So now I can see where my Line Break is, all I
need to do is drag this across to accommodate all of those columns.
Next, I asked you to change the Margins so that they are Narrow. So we need to switch across to Page
Layout, into Margins, and change this to Narrow Margins. I also asked you to change the Orientation
from Portrait to Landscape. And also, set the Print Titles so that they repeat at the top of each printed
page. So, I'm going to select Row 1, and click on Ok. So now let's check what this looks like in Print
Preview, Ctrl + P. Yep, that looks pretty good to me.
The next thing I asked you to do is to sort the data by the Humid column largest to smallest. So let's go
to the Humid column, I'm going to use my Sort buttons on the Data Tab, and I’m going to sort largest to
smallest. Now what I'm going to do is save this as my very own Custom View. So back to View,
Custom Views, let's add a new view. I'm going to call this Weather_Sorted_By_Humid, and click on
Ok.
The final thing I asked you to do was to add Headers and Footers to this Workbook. And remember,
there are a couple of different ways you can do this. I'm just going to do it by jumping across to Page
Layout, I’m going to add my Header just here.
So, the first thing I want to add into the Header is the File Name. So, let's just select that. And then in the
Footer, I want to add the current Date and also the Page Number. Now, if I press Ctrl + P to check this,
everything is looking pretty good.

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Section 16 – Protecting Workbooks and Worksheets
Video: Protecting Workbooks and Worksheets
Deb: Protecting your Workbook in Excel is a great way to prevent other people from making changes to
your Workbook. And in some cases, even control exactly which cells, they can edit information. And
there are three ways that you can do this. You can protect the Worksheets, you can protect the entire
Workbook, or you can protect specific cells. And we're going to look at all of these different methods in
this lesson.
Now before we begin, let's make sure we understand the data that we're looking at. So I just have a
sample invoice for a company called Learn4Fun Limited. And you can see that we have some invoice
items listed in column A, we have the quantity column B, the price per item in column C, and then we
have our line totals in column D. And in column D, we have a formula.
So if we take a look at the Formula Bar, you can see we have this little IF formula just here. And all this
basically says is IF cell A6 is empty, if that's true, it's going to do nothing. If that's false, and there is an
item listed here, it's going to perform the calculation C6 multiplied by B6, which will give us our line
total. And I have this formula structured this way, mainly so that if I copy this formula down, I don't get
any errors just here. Because if there is no item listed in column A, it's not going to perform the
calculation.
Now it might be that I want to send this invoice template or this invoice to somebody else in my team,
but I don't want them to edit the formulas that I have in column D. Now if I don't want them to be able to
edit anything on this Worksheet, I could simply protect the Worksheet. Now you'll find your Protection
options on the Review tab in the Protect group. And the first option here is Protect Sheet. And it says:
“Prevent unwanted changes from others by limiting their ability to edit”.
So if I click on Protect Sheet, I can put a password on this particular sheet. And if I put a password on,
it's going to protect the Worksheet and the contents of locked cells. And then underneath I have two
items selected by default. And these two are the only things that people will be able to do with this
Worksheet. So they're going to be able to Select Locked Cells and Select Unlocked Cells.
So it basically means they can click on cells, but they can't do anything else. They can't change it, they
can't edit them, they can't format them, they can't insert anything either. So I'm going to put a quick
password on here and click on Ok. I'm going to reenter the password and click on Ok again. So now,
notice that I can click around on this Worksheet, I can effectively select cells.

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But if I try to go in and make a change here, it's going to pop up with an error message. And it tells me
that the thing that I'm trying to do is on a protected sheet. So to make any changes, I need to unprotect
the sheet first. So if I do have the password, I could click Unprotect Sheet, and then enter in that
password to unlock it. And now, I can go in and I can make any changes that I need to. So, protecting
the sheet is your first method. You can password protect it and choose what people can do with those
cells.
The next option we have is to protect the entire Workbook. Now this is slightly different. If we hover
over it says: “Keep others from making structural changes to your Workbook such as moving, deleting,
or adding sheets”. And that is the key thing here, structural changes. And what we mean by that is
currently if I wanted to, I could click the Plus symbol at the bottom to add a new Worksheet. I can right-
click, I can delete the Worksheet, I can rename it, so on and so forth. If I protect the Workbook, it's not
going to allow me to do that.
So, let's click Protect Workbook. Again, it's going to ask me for a password. So I'm going to set a
password to protect the structure, let's reenter it. And now if I try to click the Plus, it's not going to let
me do that. If I try and right-click on the current Worksheet, notice pretty much all of the options are
grayed out so I can't insert, I can't delete, I can't rename, I can't change anything about the structure until
I unprotect this Workbook.
So, if I go back up to my Protect group and click Protect Workbook again, it's going to ask me to enter
the password to unprotect that Workbook. And now that I've done that, I can go back to adding in and
changing the structure. So, that is the difference between the two. One protects the actual Worksheet the
other one protects the structure of the Workbook. And it might be that you want to apply both of these to
really lock down the entire Workbook. That is absolutely fine. You can set a password to protect the
sheet and also protect the Workbook structure.
Now the final option you have when it comes to protection is you can protect individual cells. So it
might be that I want to send this Workbook to a colleague, and I am happy for them to add new items to
this invoice and add quantities and prices, but I don't want them to be able to edit the formulas that I
have in column D.
And the way that I've set up this invoice is that as soon as I add a new item, and the quantity and the
price, the formula in the cell is going to automatically work out the line total. So, I don't want anybody
messing with these formulas and breaking them effectively. So, what I can do here is choose just to
protect the cells in column D.
Now the way you need to think about this when you're doing it is it kind of works a little bit backwards.
By default, all cells in Excel are locked. And you might be thinking to yourself, well, how is that the
case? Because as we know, you can click in any cell and you can type, they don't look locked. But they

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are in fact locked by default. The only reason that you can type is because there is no protection applied
to Workbooks and Worksheets by default. As soon as you go to the Review Tab and protect the sheets,
it invokes locking.
Now if you don't believe me on this one, if we click on a cell, right-click our mouse and go down to
Format Cells, notice that you have a tab in here called Protection. And take a look at what is currently
selected, locked. Now you'll find that whatever cell you click on in your Worksheet, it's going to be a
locked cell. But because I don't have Protection applied, I can type into the cells.
So the way that we have to do this is we need to select the cells that we want to allow users to type into,
and unlock them prior to protecting the sheet. So maybe I want them to be able to edit all of these cells
just here. I'm going to right-click, I'm going to go back into Format Cells, and I'm going to use the
Keyboard Shortcut this time of Ctrl + 1. Run the Protection Tab, and I'm going to unlock these cells and
click on Ok. And then, I'm going to protect the sheet. I'm going to add in my password, and let's confirm
that password.
So, now I can go in and I can start adding things to the cells that I've unlocked. But if I try and make any
edits to this line total, it's going to say that I can't do it. So, every cell is now locked apart from these
ones that I selected. So, that is how protecting cells works. It is a little bit of a backwards way of
thinking. Now what I'm going to do here is I'm going to reverse this, I'm going to unprotect the sheet.
Let's type in the password. I'm going to choose these cells again, Ctrl + 1, and I'm going to lock them
just to put everything back to how it was.
Now there is one final way that you can apply protection to your Workbooks. And that is by going to the
File Tab. And I can choose Save As, and let's just select a folder to save this into. What I could do from
this Save As window is click on the Tools drop down, go to General options, and then I can set a
password to open or modify this file.
So if I do this, let's add a password and also a password to modify and click on Ok. Need to enter it one
more time. Now I can click on Save. And if I close this document down, so let's go to File, Close, and
then try and reopen it, it's going to ask me for a password. So, using this method, they can't even open
the file without knowing what the password is.

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Video: Spellcheck
Deb: In this very quick lesson, we're just going to run through how to Spellcheck your Workbooks
before sending them out or printing them. And Spellcheck is so important. If you send out a Workbook
with errors in it, spelling mistakes, it really makes it look like your Workbook isn't that professional, and
you're not a particularly detail-oriented person. So, you want to make sure that the last thing you do is
run a Spellcheck on your entire document.
Now, Spellcheck in Excel works pretty much the same as Spellcheck in the other Microsoft applications.
So, if you've used it in maybe Word or PowerPoint, then it's exactly the same in Excel. Now, if you're
not familiar with it, let's quickly take a look at how it works, very straightforward, very simple.
Now, there are a couple of different ways that you can invoke Spellcheck, you can use the Ribbons, and
you'll find it on the Review Ribbon, in the Proofing group at the beginning here. Notice we have a
button called Spelling. If you like your Keyboard Shortcut, there is the Keyboard Shortcut, it is F7. So if
I press F7, it’s going to open up my Spellcheck.
Now notice that this Spellcheck is going to start looking through the document from the point where
you're clicked. So I was clicked towards the top of this document. So now, Spellcheck is going to run
through your Workbook and look for any spelling errors. Now notice, the first one that is picked up for
me is where I have the word Brazilo, as opposed to Brazil. So I've accidentally made a typo here.
Underneath, it's giving me some suggestions. And I have a few different choices here. I can choose to
Ignore, which means it's going to move on to the next spelling error. I can Ignore All spelling errors, I
wouldn't recommend that you do that. Or I can Add to Dictionary. Now you will find as it's running
through its Spellcheck, that there are some words in your spreadsheet that are an actual word, but they're
just not recognized by Excel’s internal dictionary.
And an example that comes to mind would be things like company names. The company name might be
correct, but Excel doesn't have it in its dictionary, so it thinks that it's a spelling error. Now, if you do
have an instance, like that, this is what the Add to Dictionary button can help you with. So maybe
Brazilo is actually a country that I want to use. But it's just not being recognized in the dictionary, I
could select Add to Dictionary, which means the Spellcheck isn't going to pick it up next time.
Now, in this case, Brazilo isn't a word, I meant to type Brazil. So all I need to do here is select Brazil,
and then click the Change button. Now, if I think that I've made this spelling mistake throughout my
Workbook, I could choose to Change All of them to the word Brazil. So I'm going to say, Change All.
Now it's reached the end of my Workbook, and it's asking me do I want to check from the beginning of
the sheet? So I'm going to say Yes. And once again, it's picked up a word that's not in the dictionary,

Excel 2021
Japan, and I've got an L on the end there, another spelling error. It's given me the suggestion of Japan,
which in this case is exactly what I want. So, I can just click Change to change that. Also, note before I
do that, the dictionary language I have is set to English United Kingdom. So, you want to make sure that
the dictionary that you're using is appropriate for your locale.
If it's not, then just select it from the drop down list. So I'm going to Say change, and there we go. The
Spellcheck is now complete, and I am good to go. So, it is that simple to run a Spellcheck.

Excel 2021
Video: Inspecting the Workbook
Deb: By default, in Excel, every Workbook that you create stores a certain amount of information. For
example, if I go to the File Tab and into Info, in this Properties Area just here, you can see a few pieces
of information about this Workbook.
You can see the Size, you can see when it was Last Modified. You can see when I Created it, and when I
Last Printed it. And you can also see that I am the Author. And if I click on Show All Properties, that's
going to open up a more comprehensive list. Now you might think to yourself, well, what is this
information for? Why is it useful?
Well, a lot of this information can be used to search for files. So for example, I could tag this Workbook
as maybe Excel or Sales Data, or Calculations or something like that. And all of this property
information really helps when it comes to searching. Now, that's all well and good. But what if I send
this Workbook out to a client or a third party, and I don't want them to see this information?
There have been industries that I've worked in in the past, and one that springs to mind would be the
legal industry, where they don't want their clients to see when the document was created, who created
the document, when it was last modified, so on and so forth. And all of these properties we kind of refer
to as Metadata, it's stuff that kind of sits there in the background. If you're just creating Workbooks for
yourself or your team, you might not worry too much about this.
But it is always worth prior to sending this out to someone inspecting the Workbook and removing
anything that you don't want to be there. And that is where we have this Inspect Workbook button. So if
we click the drop down, I have three different options in here. Now, the first option, Inspect Document,
is going to show me all of the properties that I have set. So, all of the information that other people can
view, if they were to go into this information area of this Workbook.
So I'm going to click Inspect Document, it's going to ask me to make sure that I save my changes. So I'm
going to say Yes, save the file now. And now it shows me a big long list of all of the things it's going to
inspect my document for. So it's going to check this document, and it's going to see if I have any
comments in this Workbook. The comments are a great example.
It might be that you've been working on this Workbook with your team and everybody's added
comments in, but you don't necessarily want those comments to be viewable by the client that you're
sending this document to. So, it's going to check to see if you have any comments in your document and
you're going to get the opportunity to remove them at this final stage.
It’s also going to check for Document Properties and Personal Information. So that information I just
showed you Author name, when it was Last Modified, when it was Created, File Size, things like that.

Excel 2021
It's going to check for any embedded data module. So if you've linked to another Workbook, it's going to
check to see if there's any connections there. It's going to check for things like Add-ins and Task Panes,
and all these other different types of data that you might have included in your Workbook that you
wouldn't necessarily want clients to see.
So I'm going to say yes, check everything and click on Inspect. So now I get my results in this
Document Inspector window. So you can see here for the most part, I have green ticks next to
everything. So, it means that I don't have these items in my Workbook. Where I have these little
exclamation points, it's saying yes, we found those items.
So it's found that I have Headers and Footers in my document. And the Header and Footer might contain
information that I don't want a client to see, such as the Creation Date, or the File Name or where I've
got it Saved, things like that. And I can choose to remove all of them. If I scroll back up to the top, I can
see that yes, I have comments in here as well. And I also have lots of Document Properties. So things
like Author Details.
Now it might be that you want to just close out of here and go and manually check these items. If you
want to simply remove them all, just click Remove All, Remove All. And the final one, the bottom here,
Remove all. I'm just going to do re-inspect again, just to make sure that I've got rid of everything. Yes, I
have a full list of green ticks. So now, if I go back to File, and into Info, notice the changes that have
been made here.
For example, you can no longer see that I'm the Author. It's also gone through and it's removed the
Header and Footer from this document. So, I can't see that in my Print Preview anymore. It's also
removed a comment that I had further down in this Worksheet. So, I now feel fairly happy that this is
okay to send out to a client.
Now if we quickly jump back to File and Info, in this Check for Issues drop down, we do have two other
options in here. So we can also check our Workbook for Accessibility. So this will allow you to check
the Workbook for content that people with disabilities might find difficult to read. So, if I click Check
Accessibility, you can see I get this pane on the right-hand side, and it hasn't found any issues. So people
with disabilities shouldn't have any difficulty reading this Workbook, everything is clear.
So if somebody is using something like a screen reader, because they are visually impaired, the screen
reader is going to be able to read everything that I have on this Workbook. If it does come up with an
issue in this pane, you're going to have the opportunity to correct that as well. And the final one that we
have in here is just to check for Compatibility. So, this is going to check for features not supported by
earlier versions of Excel.

Excel 2021
So I've created this Workbook in Excel 2021. But what if I'm sending this to somebody who's still using
Excel 2010? It might be that I've used formulas or other things that are available in 2021, but aren't
available in 2010. So, this allows you to check for Compatibility issues. Now in this particular
Workbook, I haven't got any Compatibility issues.
However, if I was to, I'm just going to insert an icon. Because icons are reasonably new to Excel. Let's
just put a plain icon in there just so you can see how this works. So now I have an icon. If I go to File
and into Info, let's check Compatibility. You can see here it's brought up an issue. It says: “This
Workbook contains scalable vector graphics that will be displayed as PNGs effectively in previous
versions of Excel”.
So, if I'm sending this to somebody who has a version of Excel that doesn't have icons, it's basically
going to convert this into a PNG as opposed to an SVG in later versions. And what that means is if it's a
PNG, they're not going to be able to do things like change the color, resize it, so on and so forth. So,
that's how that Compatibility checker works.
So, definitely worth jumping into Info and checking all three of those items prior to sending your
Workbook out to client or a third party.

Excel 2021
Video: Saving Different Formats
Deb: When you save a Workbook in Excel by default, it saves it as a standard Excel file type with the
file extension .xlsx. But there are other file types that we can save our Workbooks as.
So if we jump up to the File tab, and go down to Save As, and I'm just going to select this folder just
here. Notice that where we have the File Name, underneath, we have a Save As type. And currently,
mine is saved as just a standard Excel Workbook. But if we click the drop down, we have all of these
different file types that we can save this file as. Now I'm not going to go through all of these, but I will
highlight a few that are quite important.
So aside from the top one here, which is by far the most common one that you're going to use, we also
have the ability to save this Workbook as a Macro-Enabled Workbook. Now, Macros are an advanced
Excel topic and outside the scope of this course. What they basically allow you to do is automate
processes in Excel.
So if you have Macros contained within your Workbook, you need to make sure that you save it as a
Macro-Enabled Workbook. What about if I'm sending this Workbook to somebody using a much older
version of Excel?
Well, in order to make sure that they can open it and work with it, I might want to save it as an Excel 97
to 2003 Workbook. Or maybe I want to save this as a Web Page. If I want to use this Workbook on an
intranet site or an internet site, I can convert it to an HTML document. Or maybe I want to save it as an
Excel Template, or an Excel Macro-Enabled template. I could save this as a Text file, which means that
I can open it in Notepad and look at it in a different way.
Or maybe I want to save it as a PDF. And we saw in a previous lesson, how we can quickly print a PDF,
we can also select that as the Save As file type. So the point I'm trying to make here is that you're not
just stuck with saving as an Excel Workbook, you can really choose what you want to save this
Workbook as. Now another way that we could do this is to export the Workbook and change the file
type.
And once again, we're presented with all of these options, which is going to basically export this file and
re-save it as a completely different file type. So for example, if I choose let's go for this one here, a Text
file, I'm going to select that option, click on Save As. I'm going to save it to my Desktop, in my Course
Files Folder. And notice here it's called Inspecting the Workbook. But it's changed the file type to a Text
file.
So if I click on Save, and go to my Desktop, if I open up the Course Files Folder, I'm now going to have
a Text file in here. If I double-click, it's going to open it in Notepad, because that's the default

Excel 2021
application for Text files. So now I have that data in a Text file, I might want to send that to somebody
else. And they might want to re-upload it to their system. Sometimes it's easier for external systems to
upload text files, then files that are in other formats. So that might be a reason why you might want to do
that. But hopefully there you can see how easy it is just to switch to a different type of file.
Now if we jump back into File and go down to Export, remember, this is now a Text file. So I'm going
to change the file type again, I'm just going to put that back to a regular Excel SX file. Let's do a Save
As, let's choose our folder. I'm just going to call it Inspecting the Workbook again. Yes, I want to
overwrite the one that exists, and there we go.
Now the final option I just want to highlight in here if we go to Export is the top option here. You can
also come here if you want to create a PDF file. So as you can see, there are numerous different ways to
create a PDF. We can export it to a PDF, we can print it to a PDF, or we can save it as a PDF file type.
So, don't forget about those three different methods. But that is pretty much it, very simple to change the
file type.

Excel 2021
Video: Sharing a Workbook
Deb: Before the advent of things like the cloud, the only way to really share a Workbook with your
colleagues or other people was to attach it to an Email and send it through. Now the problem with that
was always that you ended up with multiple copies of your Excel Workbook, all of them different. If I
attach this Workbook to an Email and sent it to Adam, when he opens the attachment, he's essentially
working on a copy.
So any of the changes that he makes are not going to automatically update in my copy, he would have to
reattach the Workbook with his changes and send it back to me. And this process was very laborious and
long winded and was really open to mistakes. Fortunately, in the last few years, we've been able to
utilize things like the cloud and sharing has really been integrated into the Microsoft applications.
So, if I want to share this Workbook with Adam, I have a couple of different ways that I can do this, as
always. The first thing you'll notice is that all the way over on the right-hand side, I have a Share button.
So, I can choose to share this document and see who it shared with. So if I click on Share, it's going to
open up the share pane on the right-hand side. And this is where I can essentially invite people to this
Workbook.
So what I'm going to do in here is I'm going to type in Adam's Email address. So we're going to do
Adam(.). Now, it might be when you type in an Email address, it pops up in a list below. And that in
general happens if you are all working in the same organization and all connected to the same network
service. Now Adam and I aren't on a network together, we don't work for the same company, so that's
why I'm getting no suggestions. But that's fine, I can still have his Email address in there. And then I can
choose his level of access to this particular Workbook.
So if I want him to be able to make changes, I can choose Can edit. If I only want him to be able to view
or effectively just read this Workbook, I can change his access to Can view. Now I'm going to say that
he can edit, and I'm going to include a quick message. And the final thing that I can change in here is if I
want to automatically share changes. So I'm going to say yes, always share changes that either myself or
Adam make to this Workbook.
When I click on Share, Adam is going to receive an Email. And in that Email, he's going to have a link
which will link him directly to this Workbook. Now, of course, remember, in this scenario, if you have
any protection applied, they're going to be asked to enter in the password. So just bear that in mind when
you're sharing.
As soon as I share with him notice that I can now see all the people that I've shared this Workbook with.
So I can see myself, and I can also see Adam. Another thing I can do in here is I can choose to get a

Excel 2021
sharing link. So if I click Get sharing link, I can choose to create my own edit link or my own view only
link.
So this is an alternative way of basically doing the same thing. I can choose to create an edit link, and
then I can copy that link and maybe paste that into an Email, or maybe paste it into something like
Teams or some other messaging application. So, you can effectively send an email with the link in it to
whoever you specified in this Invite people area, or you can grab an edit link and send it out. And in
general, I find using the link option works better if you want to send this Workbook out to lots of
different people.
Because instead of typing 50 people's Email addresses into this Invite people area, I can simply grab the
link, maybe open up Outlook and use a distribution list that I've already got set up. So bear that in mind,
if it's just for a few people, then this is absolutely fine. Now if I then decide that I no longer one Adam to
have access to this particular Workbook, I can remove his access at any time.
So if I hover over his name, right-click my mouse, I can change his permissions so that he can only view
as opposed to edit, or I can remove him entirely. Which means now that if he was to click on the link in
the Email that he's received, the link is effectively going to be broken and he won't be able to get to this
document. So, really easy to manage access.
So you have your Share button in the top corner. If you prefer, you can go to File and you have a Share
option in here as well. And this works in basically the same way I can choose to share with people and it
opens up that same pane. Alternatively, I could go to File, Share, email, and then I have a few different
options. So if I still want to send this as a copy as an attachment, I can choose to create an attachment.
Now if I click Send as attachment, it's going to open Outlook with that attachment. I can choose to send
a link so that everybody is working on the same copy of this Workbook. I can send it as a PDF
attachment and again, this is all attachments because we're in the Email section. I can choose to send it
as an XPS.
Now an XPS is basically Microsoft's version of a PDF file. Or I can send as an Internet Fax. So, you
have a few additional options if you use Share from the File menu, as opposed to clicking the Share
button in the top corner.

Excel 2021
Video: Exercise 15
Deb: In the final exercise of this course Exercise 15, we're going to practice spellchecking a Worksheet
and also protecting cells and Worksheets. So on the P&L Worksheet, I'd like you to run a Spellcheck
and correct any errors.
I want you to ensure that the Spellcheck has picked up all the errors, and also review your proofing
settings if the Spellcheck isn't picking up or incorrect words. And in the second part of this exercise,
we're going to practice protecting cells and Worksheets. So I'd like you to apply protection to the
Worksheet so that only the cells that do not contain formulas can be edited.
So effectively, what you need to do here is unlock all cells that contain Constant Numbers. And a special
little hint here, which we didn't cover in the course, but should be fairly easy enough for you to work
out. If you want to select all constant numbers only in a Worksheet, you can use Go To Special and
choose to select all Constant Numbers, unlock those cells, and then protect the Worksheet with a
password. Once you've done that, I'd like you to test that the protection is working by trying to edit a cell
that contains a formula. And if you'd like to see my answer to this, then please keep watching.
So the first thing we're going to do here is we're going to run a Spellcheck on this document. So I'm
going to invoke Spellcheck using the Keyboard Shortcut of F7. So the first one here, reflunds, well, that
should definitely be refunds. So let's click on Change. I want to change this to advertising, I'm going to
change this to salaries, and finally utilities, I'm going to change that to the correct spelling. I'm going to
say Yes to continue checking at the start of the document, and my Spellcheck is now complete.
Now remember, if you do want to check your proofing options, you need to go into File, Options, and to
that Proofing Tab in here. The next thing I asked you to do was to protect this Workbook. So the only
cells that don't contain formulas can be edited. And a quick way of finding all of the Constant Numbers,
i.e. ones that don't have formulas behind them in a Worksheet is to use Go To Special.
Now if you didn't know how to do that, you could very simply have highlighted all the cells which don't
contain formulas. So these are the cells which have formulas, all of the total cells, the ones highlighted
in Bold. So I'm going to use Go To Special, Ctrl + G, and click on Special. And I want to find all the
Constants. And I'm just looking for the Numbers, click on Ok.
Now that I have those selected, I'm going to right-click, Format Cells, and go to that Protection Tab.
And I'm going to unlock these cells and click on Ok. The only thing left for me to do now is protect this
entire Worksheet. So up to the Review Tab, Protect Sheets. I’m going to set a password and I'm going to
confirm that password. So now, I should be able to edit any of these values, but I shouldn't be able to
edit any cells that contain a formula.

Excel 2021
So if I select this cell just here, B7, and try to change that I'm going to get an error message. But I can
click down here in advertising and change that to 70 for example. So, I can see that that is working.

Excel 2021
Section 17 – Course Close

Video: Course Close
Deb: A huge congratulation everybody, for making it all the way through to the end of this introduction
to Excel 2021 course. I really hope that you enjoyed running through this course as much as I've enjoyed
hosting it. And most importantly, I hope you feel that you now have a much better knowledge of some
of those important basic Excel skills.
The key here really to progressing on with your knowledge is just to practice on lots of different types of
datasets. And when you feel ready, maybe consider checking out the intermediate and advanced Excel
2021 courses. And if you're interested in checking out some more videos and tutorials from Simon Sez
IT, then please feel free to take a look at our YouTube channel and subscribe. And you can jump straight
there by using the QR code.
All that's left for me to say is it's been an absolute pleasure running through this course with you, and I
hope to see you next time. My name is Deb, bye for now.

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Excel 2021 Beginners

Course Introduction ..................................................................................................................................................................... - 7 -

Excel 2021 vs Excel 365 .............................................................................................................................................................. - 8 -

Section 2 – Launching Excel ........................................................................................................................................................ - 10 -

Applying Number Formats ..................................................................................................................................................... - 10 -

The Start Screen .......................................................................................................................................................................... - 12 -

Exploring the Interface............................................................................................................................................................. - 16 -

Ribbons, Tabs, and Menus....................................................................................................................................................... - 20 -

The Backstage Area.................................................................................................................................................................... - 23 -

The Quick Access Toolbar ....................................................................................................................................................... - 25 -

Useful Keyboard Shortcuts ..................................................................................................................................................... - 29 -

Getting Help .................................................................................................................................................................................. - 32 -

Section 3 – Working with Templates ...................................................................................................................................... - 36 -

Working with Templates ......................................................................................................................................................... - 36 -

Working With Workbooks and Worksheets ................................................................................................................... - 39 -

Saving Workbooks ..................................................................................................................................................................... - 42 -

Entering and Editing Data ....................................................................................................................................................... - 45 -

Navigating and Selecting Cells and Ranges (1) .............................................................................................................. - 48 -

Section 4 – Formulas and Functions Explained .................................................................................................................. - 53 -

Formulas and Functions Explained..................................................................................................................................... - 53 -

Calculating with the SUM Function ..................................................................................................................................... - 57 -

Counting Values with the COUNT Function ..................................................................................................................... - 60 -

Finding the Average with the AVERAGE Function ........................................................................................................ - 63 -

Working with Min and Max .................................................................................................................................................... - 65 -

© Copyright 2022 Simon Sez IT, INC. All Rights Reserved.

Handling Errors in Calculations............................................................................................................................................ - 66 -

Absolute vs Relative Referencing......................................................................................................................................... - 69 -

AutoSum and AutoFill ............................................................................................................................................................... - 71 -

Flash Fill ......................................................................................................................................................................................... - 74 -

Section 5- What Are Named Ranges? ...................................................................................................................................... - 78 -

What Are Named Ranges? ....................................................................................................................................................... - 78 -

Creating Named Ranges ........................................................................................................................................................... - 80 -

Managing Named Ranges ........................................................................................................................................................ - 82 -

Using Named Ranges in Calculations ................................................................................................................................. - 84 -

Section 6 – Applying Number Formats................................................................................................................................... - 88 -

Applying Number Formats ..................................................................................................................................................... - 88 -

Applying Date and Time Formats ........................................................................................................................................ - 92 -

Formatting Cells, Rows, and Columns ................................................................................................................................ - 94 -

Using the Format Painter ........................................................................................................................................................ - 97 -

Section 7 – Working with Rows and Columns ................................................................................................................... - 101 -

Working with Rows and Columns ..................................................................................................................................... - 101 -

Deleting and Clearing Cells ................................................................................................................................................... - 104 -

Aligning Text and Numbers .................................................................................................................................................. - 107 -

Applying Themes and Styles ................................................................................................................................................ - 111 -

Exercise 06 .................................................................................................................................................................................. - 114 -

Section 8 – How to Structure a List ........................................................................................................................................ - 116 -

How to Structure a List .......................................................................................................................................................... - 116 -

Sorting a List 1 ........................................................................................................................................................................... - 118 -

Sorting a List 2 ........................................................................................................................................................................... - 120 -

© Copyright 2022 Simon Sez IT, INC. All Rights Reserved.

Sorting with Custom Sort ...................................................................................................................................................... - 122 -

Using AutoFilter to Filter a List........................................................................................................................................... - 125 -

Format as a Table ..................................................................................................................................................................... - 127 -

Creating Subtotals in a List ................................................................................................................................................... - 131 -

Exercise 07 .................................................................................................................................................................................. - 134 -

Section 9 – Using Cut and Copy................................................................................................................................................ - 136 -

Using Cut and Copy .................................................................................................................................................................. - 136 -

Paste options .............................................................................................................................................................................. - 138 -