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Excel can be used to store and analyze mainly numeric information such as sales, grades, bills, and so on. Basically, Excel is a spreadsheet application. You can use Excel to enter, manipulate, summarize, and analyze numbers for all sorts of situations. A spreadsheet doesnt hold only numbers, and certainly not just static numbers. You can enter formulas from simple to complex to manipulate those numbers. However, spreadsheets can do a lot more than just manipulate numbers and show the results. You can use them to easily create complex, professional-looking charts and graphs, add and format text, and add lines, pictures, and other graphical elements, all to spruce up a spreadsheets appearance and make it more useful by conveying more information.
Using Cells
A spreadsheet is made up of rows and columns of cells. Each cell can contain a unique item of information, such as a number, formula, or text string. By default, the rows in an Excel spreadsheet are numbered top-to-bottom, starting at 1. Columns are labeled with letters, left-to-right, starting with the letter A. See below for an example of rows and columns.
Name box Formula Bar Cell Columns
Rows
Sheets
The intersection of a row and column is called a cell. For example, Cell B8 references Column B, Row 8. Youll see that cell references are important when creating formulas (this is covered later). The cell reference is like the address of the data in the cell and the means by which you work with that data. A single spreadsheet can contain more than one sheet. By default, Excel creates three sheets in a new spreadsheet. The sheets dont need to be related to one another, but generally they are. For example, lets say you need to analyze sales figures for your East, West, North, and South divisions. Each division could have its own sheet, with a fifth sheet to summarize all the information. The mouse pointer changes in different areas of Excel. For example, it appears as a large addition sign when its over a cell. The pointer changes to a right arrow when it hovers over a row heading and to a down arrow when it hovers over a column heading. If you place the pointer between two column headings, the pointer changes to a left-right arrow for dragging the columns edge to make it wider or narrower. You can enter information, including formulas, right in a cell. The Formula Bar is the place to go when you need to edit some information or a formula without retyping it. Finally, like other Office and Windows applications, Excel includes a menu bar and toolbars that give you quick access to its commands and features.
Selecting Cells
If you have followed these instructions so far, you already have some experience in selecting cells. To enter a value, formula, or text in a cell you must first select the cell. Just click in a cell to select that cell. In many situations, you need to select more than one cell. For example, perhaps you want to select a range of numbers to add. Or you may need to format the text in several cells as bold. Selecting multiple cells is really no different from selecting multiple paragraphs in a Word document. Just click one cell, hold down the mouse button, and drag the pointer to select other cells. You can select cells in a rectangular area by using this method, whether in a single column, single row, or more than one row or column. See below for an example of a range of cells selected in a spreadsheet.
Sometimes it is necessary to select multiple cells that are not in a rectangular shape. For example, you might want to format several cells that contain text with a particular font, font colour, or background colour, but those cells are not side by side. To select multiple cells in this type of situation, click the first cell, hold down the Ctrl key and click another cell. Continue to hold down Ctrl while you select all the needed cells.
Resizing rows and columns in this way isnt very precise. Sometimes you might want an exact size or you might want to reset a row or column size back to the default setting. Excel provides a handful of commands to accomplish these tasks. First, lets look at rows. You can click in a row and choose Format, Row, followed by one of these commands: Height Select this command to open the Row Height dialog box (shown below) and enter a value, in points, between 0 and 409.
Auto Fit Select this command to automatically resize the row to accommodate the tallest data in the row. For example, if one cell contains three lines of text and all others contain one or two rows, Excel resizes the cell to the minimum needed to contain the three lines.
You can change the width of a column by clicking in the column and choosing Format, Column, followed by one of these commands: Width Select this command to open the column width dialog box, with which you specify the column width, in points, from 0 to 255. AutoFit Selection Select this command to automatically resize the column to accommodate the text or numbers in the currently selected cell or range of cells. Standard Width You can choose the Standard Width command to open the Standard Width dialog box. In this dialog box, you specify a width, in points. When you click OK, Excel resizes all columns that do not have the width explicitly set.
First you need to configure excel to accept labels in formulas: 1. In Excel choose Tools, Options to open the Options dialog box and then click in the Calculation tab, as shown below:
Now you can define and use the label in a formula: 1. Click in Cell D1 and Type Commissions. 2. Click the column header for Column D (that is, click on the D above Commissions). 3. Choose Insert, Name, Create to open the Create Name dialog box, shown below:
4. Choose Top Row and click OK. 5. Click in Cell F5 and type =sum (commissions). Then press Enter. Note that Excel highlights the column when you finish typing the label name. 6. Enter values in Column D and notice that Excel sums the values in Cell F5.
Defining Constants
Depending on the types of information with which you work in Excel, you might need to define some constants. For example, if you needed to calculate sales tax on sales, the tax rate would be a constant. You could use the constant in formulas where you needed to calculate the tax. In this example, assume that the constant will be named TAX and be set to 6%: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Choose Insert, Name, Define to open the Define Name dialog box. In the Names in Workbook field, type TAX. Click in the Refers To field, remove any existing text, and type = 0.6 Click Add and then click Close. Click in the cell where you want to use the constant and type a formula that includes the constant. For example, assume that you have defined a column label as Sales that totals the Sales column. To calculate the sales tax on that total, use the formula =sum(Sales)*TAX.