Introduction to Microsoft Excel

Transcription

1 Introduction to Microsoft Excel Adapted by Steven Breiner for use at Appalachian State University from an original document by John Rostad Technology Instructor Le Center Public Schools Introduction To MS Excel Page 1 last revised 4/8/2002

2 Contents Introduction... 3 What Is Excel?... 3 What Will Be Covered In This Tutorial?... 3 About Excel and what will be covered in this tutorial... 4 Starting Excel... 4 Creating or Opening an Excel File... 4 Getting Help While You Work in Excel... 5 Preparing A Workbook... 6 Workbook Parts... 6 Naming/Saving Your Workbook... 7 Naming Your Worksheet... 7 Using Excel... 8 What Can Go In A Cell?...8 Entering Data... 8 Creating and Using Formulas Summarizing Data and Performing Other Functions Formatting Cells Refining Your Worksheet Filtering Your Work Choosing A Format Style...16 Centering a Category Title that Spans Several Columns Boldfacing Your Cell Content Adjusting Your Columns...18 Inserting Columns and Rows Graphing Your Results Concluding remarks (Wrap-up) John Rostad compiled the information in this handout from a number of sources, and added some of his own information. The sources he used to compile information for this handout are: Microsoft Windows 95, Produced by CompuMaster, 6900 Squibb Road, PO Box 2973, Mission, KS , Additional updating, editing, and information were provided by Steven J. Breiner, Instructional Computing Services, Appalachian State University. Introduction To MS Excel Page 2 last revised 4/8/2002

3 Introduction What Is Excel? Microsoft (MS) Excel is a spreadsheet program designed for use on computers running the Windows or Macintosh operating systems. Like all spreadsheets, Excel is a great tool for recording, calculating, analyzing, and graphing data. Excel has numerous built-in calculation formulas and formatting styles that you can apply to your work. You can also create your own formulas and customize your work to suit your specific needs. What Will Be Covered In This Tutorial? This tutorial will introduce you to a few of the many tools in Excel. Instructions and examples are given for common tasks that can be performed by Excel. Several exercises are included to help you to practice using Excel. Topics we will address include: Basics: paper vs. electronic spreadsheets The Workbook environment Multiple-sheet workbooks Moving around in a worksheet Entering and correcting data Editing cell contents Moving and copying data Entering and modifying formulae Absolute and relative references Saving files Modifying a workbook (working with ranges and functions) Formatting a worksheet (fonts, number formats, text alignment) Introduction to MS Excel Charts and Graphs Introduction To MS Excel Page 3 last revised 4/8/2002

4 Beginning Your Excel Session Starting Excel Excel is available to you as part of your Microsoft Office (97/2000/2001/XP) software package. There are several ways to access Excel, depending upon the computer you are working on. In most cases, the Excel icon will appear as part of the Programs submenu of the Start menu. The Start menu can be accessed by clicking on the Start button, located on the Taskbar. TheTaskbar is usually located at the bottom of your screen. Other means of starting Excel include the Office Shortcut Bar, buttons on the Quick Launch toolbar, or icons on the desktop. Double (left) clicking on an Excel file (something.xls, with an icon like ) will also usually open Excel, using the file you double clicked. Once you have located the Excel icon, left click the Start menu entry or double click a desktop shortcut icon and the Excel application will "launch" (begin running). The following exercise demonstrates a quick way to open the application from the Start menu: Exercise 1: Launching Excel from the Start Menu 1. Start Windows if it's not already running. 2. Click your left mouse button (left click) on the Task Bar Start button. 3. Position the mouse pointer over the Programs selection until Programs is highlighted. 4. Now, move the mouse pointer into the Programs submenu and position it over the MS Office icon, then over the Microsoft Excel icon until the icon is highlighted. 5. Left click on the highlighted Excel icon. Creating or Opening an Excel File When you launch Excel, an opening screen (called a "Splash" screen) appears, followed by the appearance of a blank workspace called a worksheet. There are several worksheets in each workbook. At this time, you can begin to enter data into the new worksheet, or you can retrieve a previously created and saved Excel file. To open a previously saved file, left-click on the File menu, then select Open on the file pull-down menu, or left-click on the folder icon button on the toolbar. When the location dialogue box appears, click on the correct disk drive and the folder in which your file is located, highlight (by left-clicking) the appropriate file name, then click the Open button near the bottom of the box. Introduction To MS Excel Page 4 last revised 4/8/2002

5 Excel Help let s explore a useful resource Excel offers a number of ways to get help while you work on your spreadsheet. The most obvious way is to click on the Help entry on the menu at the top of the Excel window. Additionally at most places in the program, you can hit the F1 key to bring up the Office Assistant (if it drives you crazy, you can turn it off.) There, you can search for words, ask plain-language questions, or read about designated topics. Let s click on the help menu now and explore a few options for getting help. The figure to the right shows what happens if the Office Assistant is active when you ask for help. If you turn off the Office Assistant with the Options button, it'll look more like the figure below use whichever method helps you find things faster! Then, next time you ask for help, you get this Introduction To MS Excel Page 5 last revised 4/8/2002

6 Preparing a Workbook Workbook Parts It is important to get familiar with your Excel layout so that you can make the most of your workbooks. The workbook is your collection of data, tabulations, and graphs for a specific project--the workbook can consist of a number of worksheets where you key in your data. The following chart will acquaint you with parts of a worksheet: active sheet The active sheet will be displayed in white, and the title tab at the bottom of the sheet will be in bold type. The active cell is the place in your worksheet where you enter information; it is active cell highlighted with a black border, and its address is shown in the name box at the farleftsideofyourtoolbar. row heading Rows are labeled with numbers, starting with 1 column heading Columns are labeled with letters Located below the icon buttons at the top of the window, the formula bar is a field that allows you to enter or edit data in a cell. The formula bar will display the formula bar formula for a selected cell instead of the results of that cell. Notice that the formula bar has a formula symbol (indicated by an "=" sign), and, once you start a formula, a cancel button (shown as an x) to the left of the formula bar. The tool bar displays buttons that you can click on to do frequent tasks such as tool bar formatting, summation, chart design, and editing. Address of the active cell Introduction To MS Excel Page 6 last revised 4/8/2002

7 Naming/Saving Your Workbook You'll want to name your workbook something that is relevant to your work so that you can quickly recall and locate the title. The following exercise will assist you in naming your workbook: There are two ways to save a document in Excel you can use the File pull down menu Save or Save As command or the Save toolbar icon button. The save dialog box will give you options for saving your workbook. Your options will include specifying the drive and the filename. All Excel workbooks will be saved with the ".xls" extension. Exercise 2: Naming Your Workbook 1. Be sure you have opened a new Excel file. Click on the diskette icon button or locate Save As on the File pull-down menu 2. Using the Save in: drop-down menu, select the Desktop to save your work to your desktop 3. Name the worksheet file as TA and RA Income and Expenses 4. Click on the Save button. By default, the worksheet will be saved as an Excel file. If you need to change the file type, you do so by clicking on the Save as type: drop-down menu in the Save As dialogue box and selecting the appropriate file type. Naming Your Worksheet Now that you have named your workbook, you may want to name the sheets in your workbook so that it is easier to locate specific sheets. Naming your sheets is quick and easy and provides you with a tab-like effect for identifying your sheets. The following exercise will show you how to name your sheet: Exercise 3: Naming Your Worksheet 1. Double-click on the sheet 1 number tab at the bottom of the worksheet 2. When the text is selected, type over the text so that you replace the sheet number with a title of your choice, for example, Office Worksheet." 3. Hit Enter on the keyboard or click once on your left mouse button to finalize the new sheet title. Introduction To MS Excel Page 7 last revised 4/8/2002

8 Creating a New Worksheet and Entering Data WhatCanGoInACell? A cell can contain alpha and numeric values that are typed directly into a cell. Values can be constant or formulas, where constant values or formulas are data typed directly into a cell. Data can also be entered as formulas (sequences of cell references, names, functions, or operators). Formulas always begin with an equal sign (=). A constant number might be something like $43,043 or 9/18/94; a possible formula would be of the form: =sum(j3:j43), where you are telling Excel to sum the data found in cell j3 through j43. Entering Data Now that you have created a new worksheet, you are ready to begin entering alpha (text) and numeric data into the cells. In this first exercise worksheet you create, you will be working on a budget for a fictitious department at a college. The first sheet in the budget will reflect Income and Expenses; the second sheet will reflect a breakdown of TA and RA salaries. Keep in mind that this type of example would lend itself well to having many sheets within a workbook one for each type of receipt or expenditure. Exercise 4: Entering Data 5. In cell A1, enter Office Worksheet for the Department. (If you make a mistake, click on the undo arrow,, on the toolbar.) 6. Move to cell A2 and enter Income 7. Move to cell A3 and enter Grant Overhead Returns; continuing on down in Column A, enter the following categories: Student Fees Other Total Income Expenses Faculty salaries TA and RA salaries Part-time salaries Computer purchases Office supplies Phone Travel Total Expenses: Monies to be returned 8. Move to cell B3 and enter for Grant Overhead Returns (don't enter any commas or $ signs; you will format later) 9. Move to cell B4 and enter for Student Fees. Continuing on down in Column B, enter the amounts according to the following instructions: Introduction To MS Excel Page 8 last revised 4/8/2002

9 Type in cell B5, to the right of Other. Do not enter a total income; you will use the SUM function for that a bit later. Move to cell B8 and enter continuing on down in Column B, enter the following amounts: in TA and RA salaries in part-time salaries in computer purchases 3000 in office supplies 5000 in phone in travel Don't enter amounts for "Total Expenses" or "Monies to be returned"; we will allow Excel to figure that out for us in our Summarizing Data section. Also, don't worry about the fact that some of the expense and income labels spill over into column B or are cut off - we will enlarge the columns at a later time. This is what your screen should look like so far. Save your work. Introduction To MS Excel Page 9 last revised 4/8/2002

10 Creating and Using Formulas Occasionally, you will want to subtract, divide, or average data in your cells; to do this, you can create or apply formulas. The following symbols are among those used to do this: * indicates that you would like to multiply numbers in the selected cell set / indicates that you want to divide numbers in a cell set + Indicates that you want to add numbers in a cell set - Indicates that you want to subtract numbers in a cell set : Specifies a range of cells for averages, sums, etc. When you decide which cell range you want to deal with, you designate the set by setting the cells in a bracket. Our next exercise will show you how to apply another formula to the cell set that you previously summarized: Exercise 5: Creating an Addition Formula 1. Select cell B6 2. Click on the = toolbar button 3. In the formula field, write the following =(b3+b4+b5). Tap Enter on the keyboard. Save your work. Note: The parentheses, ( ), tell Excel which cells and functions you want to grouped together, but is really only necessary when you need to specify the order in which Excel performs calculations. In general, operations occurring inside parentheses will be calculated before surrounding ones. Other, more complex mathematical formulas are also available through both the function button on the toolbar and the pull-down menu in the formula field (after you have selected a cell range). If you want to copy a formula to another cell where it will be used later, simply select the cell and click on the copy button followed by the paste button (or the options on the Edit pull-down menu. Exercise 6: Creating a Sum Function Formula 1. Select cell B6 2. Delete the formula you created in Lesson 5 from the formula entry box. To do this, either select the cell and hit the "Del" or "Delete" key on the keyboard, or right-click and select "Clear Contents" from the resulting menu. Introduction To MS Excel Page 10 last revised 4/8/2002

11 3. Go to Insert on the menu bar and highlight Function. Thiswill bring up a new dialog box entitled Paste Function 4. In the "Paste Function" dialog box, highlight All under Function category:. To the right, in the Function name: category, scroll through the alphabetized function list until you find SUM; highlight it, and click the OK button. 5. A Screen will appear on your monitor titled SUM, as shown below. In the Number 1 box, a range of cells will be identified, (B3:B5). This represents the range of cells that we will add together with the SUM function we will place the sum in cell B6. Keep in mind, as long as at lease one of the cells contains a numerical value, a number will be placed in cell B6, our total. In addition, this dialog box identifies for you what data are being used by the calculation and what would be the corresponding result. Typing additional numbers into the Number 2 box would cause them to also be included in the SUM calculated by the function. 6. Save your work. Exercise 7: Copying a Formula 1. To copy a formula, go to cell B6 where you have the SUM formula for the Income. Select that cell, go to edit on the menu bar, and highlight copy. (Alternatively, you can select the cell, right-click on it, and select Copy from the resulting menu.) 2. Place your cursor in cell B15, go to edit, and paste. TheSUMformulafromB6isnowincellB15, however it does not have the correct formula, yet. (Here again, you can alternatively select the cell, right-click on it, and select Paste from the resulting menu.) Introduction To MS Excel Page 11 last revised 4/8/2002

12 3. Place your cursor in the formula bar and within the parentheses highlight "B12:B14". You must change the range of cells so that it represents all of the cells to be included in the Expenses calculation. 4. With the range of cells selected, you now must select the correct range of cells. Go to the spreadsheet and highlight cells B8 thru B14. This range of cells will calculate the correct total. Press the enter key when you have correctly selected the range of cells for the Expenses. You may now note that the calculation now reflects the correct Expenses calculation. 5. Save your work. Introduction To MS Excel Page 12 last revised 4/8/2002

13 Summarizing Data and Performing Other Functions A significant aspect of Excel is its ability to calculate the totals automatically for our worksheet. The following exercise will show how the process works: Exercise 8: Summing Up the Information in the Worksheet 1. In cell B6, you should now have the Total Income calculated as =SUM(B3:B5) and in cell B15, the Total Expenses calculated as =SUM(B8:B14). 2. In order to calculate the Monies to be returned, we want to subtract the Total Expenses from the Total Income. In this particular example, we will have no monies to be returned to the state. We have spent more than we received from our revenue resources. (This should work out to calculate a negative amount.) 3. Move your cursor into cell B16 and enter the formula, =(b6-b15). Remember, cell B6 contains the Total Income and cell B14 contains the Total Expenses 4. Since the expenses are greater than the income, Excel places a " " indicating there is a negative balance. Save your work. Hints for entering other formulas can be found by using the Function Wizard by clicking on the "=" in the formula bar. You may want to try this later on when you practice creating a spreadsheet on your own. Exercise 9: Formatting Cells Our data and calculations, though currently correct, do not look particularly appealing, and we may want to display our numbers in more informative ways. To format the numeric cells to appear in a currency format, follow this procedure: 1. Select cells B3 thru B16. (These are all of the numerical cells in our spreadsheet.) 2. Go to format on the menu bar and highlight cells. ( or right-click within the highlighted range and select Format Cells ) Introduction To MS Excel Page 13 last revised 4/8/2002

14 3. Make the changes as shown in the Format Cells dialog box. On the number tab, select Currency. SettheDecimal places: at 2 if not already set. Negative numbers: should set to show with a minus sign in front. Click OK when you have made these changes and save your changes. Note: Some time, when you are back in your office after completing the workshop, take a few minutes to browse through the available formats to see what options you have for formatting numbers and other types of data. You will likely notice that different kinds of formats have different kinds of menu items play a bit and don t be intimidated. Introduction To MS Excel Page 14 last revised 4/8/2002

15 Refining the Worksheet Several factors can be considered in preparing your worksheet after you've entered your alpha (text) and numeric data. You may want to filter your information so that only relevant data is shown. You might also want to format your data using an autoformat process or techniques of your own. The following explanations and examples will show you how. Filtering Your Work It is sometimes necessary to set apart some data from other figures on a worksheet. For example, you may want to examine a certain trend in a list of data. In such a case, you will need to distinguish the data by filtering out the other content on the worksheet. Use the exercise below to separate the data on your sheet: Exercise 10: Filtering Your Work 1. Click on the Data pulldown menu in the menu bar 2. Select Filter then AutoFilter 3. Release the mouse button. Save your changes. You will notice a series of drop-down menu areas ( ) appear at the head of each column into which you have entered a list of data click on one of the drop-down menus to see that it reflects the contents of each cell of its column. With your left mouse button, you can select a specific value on the drop down menu to restrict the visible portions of the column to only the rows containing that value. Once you have selected a certain value, all other rows in the data which do not have that value will be temporarily hidden from view until you select (All) items again. You also have the option to filter the data by using (Custom) criteria such as "begins with " or "ends with " or "contains " In addition, you can filter data using multiple columns simultaneously for multiple criteria. Try the various options in the criteria menu to see how they work Introduction To MS Excel Page 15 last revised 4/8/2002

16 Choosing a Format Style After you have determined what data to emphasize, you will likely want to decide with what format you want to present the information. Excel offer several ways that you can design your worksheets so that they are easier to read and to understand. One such option is the AutoFormat method. AutoFormat allows you to select a layout style from a selection of formats. The formats range from sophisticated to calendar-style layouts. The following exercise can be used to select an autoformat style to apply to your work: Exercise 11: Applying an Autoformat Style to Your Worksheet 1. First, select the area to which you wish to apply a predefined table format. Next click on the Format pull-down menu 2. Select AutoFormat 3. Click on Accounting 2, and then click the "OK" button. See how things have changed. Save your changes. To create your own formatting, the following information on bold facing your headings and adding numerical symbols to your worksheet will be particularly helpful: Centering a Category Title that Spans Several Columns First of all, turn off the AutoFormat you created in Exercise 11. The easiest way to do this is to select the table you just formatted, and then use the Edit Clear Formats menu sequence. If you happen to need an "umbrella" heading, one that includes items in multiple columns on rows below it, you can center the heading so that it "covers" several rows of data. The exercise below will show you how to do that: Exercise 12: Centering a Heading over Several Cells 1. Select the cells you want to merge (merge means simply to combine a number of cells into one big one) into a multicolumn heading 2. Click on the "merge and center" button on the toolbar ( ) Introduction To MS Excel Page 16 last revised 4/8/2002

17 Boldfacing Your Cell Content Exercise 13: Adding Bold Font Type to Your Category Headings 1. Select the contents in cell A1 and A2. Move the mouse button to cell A1 and hold down the left button; drag your mouse down into cell A2 and then release. The contents in cells A1 and A2 are now highlighted. 2. Move up to the tool bar and click once on the B button. This will boldface the information you have highlighted. (An alternative way to do this is to select the data to be formatted and type Ctrl-B (hold the Control key (Ctrl) down while you hit the "B" key). Similarly, you can underline with Ctrl-U and italicize with Ctrl-I. 3. Add a new row between Total Expenses and Monies to be Returned. To do this, click on row 16. The entire row is highlighted. From the Insert menu, choose Rows. A blank line is inserted between the two rows. Monies to be returned should now be cell A17. (We'll do this again a bit later, so don t worry if it doesn t yet make sense.) Now apply the boldface format to the Expenses cell (A7), the Total Expenses cell (A15), and the Monies to be returned cell (A17). You can highlight all of these cells at the same time by holding down the Ctrl key on your keyboard and left-clicking on the cells at the same time. Save your changes. Introduction To MS Excel Page 17 last revised 4/8/2002

18 Adjusting Your Columns Notice that when you added some formatting to the cells with numbers in them, several of our cells returned a ##### in them. This is because our cell width is no longer wide enough to hold the new figure. Let s increase the cell width. The easiest way to increase cell width is to move your mouse over the column heading (the letter button) between the column to widen and the next this will change your cursor to a double arrow ( ) with which you can "drag" the column border. For this exercise, place the cursor on the border between cell B and C. You can now hold down your left mouse button, drag the column to the right to make it wider or to the left to make it narrower. Another way to adjust a column is to use the AutoWidth option. To adjust a column automatically to the width of the largest selected cell in the column, do the following: Exercise 14: Automatically Adjusting Your Columns 1. Select the column that you want to adjust 2. Click on the Format menu 3. Select Column. Select AutoFit Selection and notice how the column adjusts to the selected data. Save your changes. Note: You can similarly adjust row heights by using either the row headings (number buttons) to the left of the sheet or by using the Format Row AutoFit Selection menu sequence. Introduction To MS Excel Page 18 last revised 4/8/2002

19 Adding Columns and Rows You may occasionally find that you need to add new columns and/or rows to a worksheet, for instance, to addanewrowtotheexpenses or Income area of our spreadsheet. Excel makes it easy for you to do so, and is "smart" enough to update formulas so that the cells referred to by it remain correct: Exercise 15: Inserting a Column or Row 1. Click the column heading (letter button) or row heading (letter button) where you want a new column or row to be (it will "push" the selected column to the right or the selected row down). If you select multiple columns or rows by clickdragging the mouse over several headings, a corresponding number of columns or rows will be inserted. 2. Click on the Insert menu 3. Select Columns or Rows (depending on which you would like to add. Save your changes. The appropriate number of columns or rows will be automatically added to your worksheet. If you want to delete column or row, select the appropriate column or row headings, and then use the Edit Delete menu sequence to do the deed. Introduction To MS Excel Page 19 last revised 4/8/2002

20 Graphing Your Work When you present your work to other people, you will want it to be as clear and appealing as possible. Graphing your work can help to convey your message while providing a visually stimulating medium for your audience. The following exercise will help you to create a graph of your data: Exercise 16: Graphing Your Data We will go through step by step how to create a chart. When creating a chart, the chart will be more effective if it is representing a specific component of the spreadsheet, (ex: the Income section of the spreadsheet). The chart will not tell an entire true story if all of the spreadsheet is selected. You need to be specific on the data you want charted. We will chart the Income of the Income and Expenses spreadsheet. 1. Select the text that you want to have charted. This will be cells A3 through B5. 2. Go to Insert on the menu bar and highlight Chart. You will now be taken through a four step process, with the Excel Wizard, to create the chart of your choosing. Complete the wizard process by clicking on the appropriate choices. 3. Go to Insert on the menu bar and highlight Chart. Click on Pie Chart on the Standard Types Tab. Next, click on the exploded pie with a 3-D visual effect. Click on the button that says Press and hold to view sample. Here you will get a sample viewing of what your pie chart will look like. Click on the Next button. Introduction To MS Excel Page 20 last revised 4/8/2002

21 4. Step 2 of the Chart Wizard identifies the Data range. The data range will be identified as shown in the data range column. Notice the radio button for columns is selected. If rows were selected, you would have a different looking pie chart. Click on the Next button. 5. Step 3 of the Chart Wizard allows the user to place a title on the chart. Type "Income Sources" in the "Chart title" box. On the legend tab, click the right radio button to have the legend appear on the right side of the chart. On the Data Labels tab, you can have different pieces of information selected to appear on your pie chart. Click on the percent radio button to have percentages appear by the exploding pie charts. Click on the Next button. 6. Step 4 of the Chart Wizard allows you to place the chart either as a new sheet or as an object within the Office worksheet in which you are presently working. Be sure the "As object in" button is selected. The collapsible list button indicates that the object can be place in another spreadsheet file, if you choose. Click on the Finish button when done. Introduction To MS Excel Page 21 last revised 4/8/2002

22 7. Your spreadsheet is now updated with the pie chart representing the data of Income. The great thing about this pie chart is when (if) your data about income changes, the pie chart automatically changes. You can now copy this pie chart to word processor file or image editing program if you desire. Wrap-up You now have learned a bit about the basic operations and features of Microsoft Excel. The key phrase here is the "a bit" Excel has literally hundreds of features and formulas, many of which you may discover as you begin to "play" with the program. We've only had time to investigate a few of the more common tasks. So long as you save your work frequently and keep backup copies of your important work, don't be afraid to try something new. The worst that can happen is that it doesn't work more likely, you'll find capabilities, tools, and features that can help you work more effectively and efficiently. Who knows? You mayevenfindthatyouhavesomefun! Introduction To MS Excel Page 22 last revised 4/8/2002