-Using Excel- Note: The version of Excel that you are using might vary slightly from this handout. This is for Office 2004 (Mac). If you are using a different version, while things may look slightly different, you will still be able to do the same things by following the directions found below. A couple of helpful hints about Excel You ll want to make sure you have the following toolbars visible by selecting the view option from the menu: This will allow you to see all the options listed below *The pages you are working on are called sheets. * There are multiple sheets that are available to you in each document that you are working on (found along the bottom of the page) *The text you are typing goes into a cell. To determine which cell you are looking at, you can always look directly above the column headings. *The columns are marked by letters, the rows by numbers. For example, A1 designates row A, column 1. *If you would like to change all of the information in a column (or group of columns), you can click on the letter names found at the top of each column. If you click your mouse and hold it down, you can select multiple columns. The same is true of rows. *If you would like to change the entire sheet, you can click on the diamond box at the top lefthand corner of the sheet. You will see the entire sheet highlighted besides the one cell you are currently working on (or cell A1).
Page Setup Click on File Page Setup. o You can change your orientation (portrait or landscape) and you can scale your work to autofit the text on a given number of pages (i.e. 1 page wide by 1 page tall). o Click on the page margins tab to change your margins or to center your text on the page horizontally or vertically. o Under Header/Footer you can add these to your pages (includes page numbers). o On the Sheet tab you can choose to print only a set area of your spreadsheet and select rows and/or columns to repeat on every page. You can also choose to print the gridlines (the default is to print no gridlines even though they appear on the page you are working on). Note: if you do this, you will also be able to see the page layout (where the margins will come in). Working with your Sheet Before you begin adding the text, it is a good idea to plan the overall layout of the page before you begin typing. For example, if you are making a class list, are you planning on having the student names down the left page margin with the skills on top? Or would it be easier to have skills on the left and names on the top? (Don t worry about text, direction that comes later.) Also, if you are going to have text across the top of the page, you might want to start typing names in the second row down instead of the first (if you don t though, that s not a problem you can always insert another row/column later). Inserting Cells If you would like to insert a row/column, simply click on the column letter or row number and right-mouse click (or hold down control and click if you don t have the right click option) and select Insert or select
Insert Columns or Rows. If you would like to insert more than one column or row at a time, select that number of columns/rows and again right-mouse click and select Insert or select Insert Columns or Rows. Note that columns always are inserted to the left of the selected column and rows are always inserted below the selected row. Deleting Cells To delete text in a cell, column, or row and not the cell (column, row) itself, click on the cell and select Delete from your keyboard. You can also right-mouse click and select Clear Contents. To delete an entire cell, column, or row, click on the cell (column, row) and right-mouse click and select Delete or select Edit Delete. If you choose to delete a cell or group of cells, you will be given the option of shifting the remaining cells up or to the left. Cell Properties Typically if you are changing font properties, you will choose to change them for the entire sheet. If this is the case, click in the small diamond box found at the top lefthand corner of your excel screen. You can then either select one of the icons found on the top toolbars, right-mouse click and select Format Cells, or select Format Cells. If you are using one of the format cell options (not clicking on an icon), click on the Alignment tab to change the horizontal and vertical alignment of the text, the text direction, or to wrap the text (have it go to the next line of the same cell) or merge cells. Helpful Hint: Use the alignment tab to change the text direction if you would like to have more narrow cells and still have text in the boxes across the top of the sheet. The Font tab allows you to change the Font type, style (bold, italics, etc.), size, underline, and color. The Border tab allows you to add a border around a cell or group of cells. You can also choose the color of the border or its pattern (i.e. bold line, dotted, double line). The Pattern tab allows you to change the cell shading (color). The Protection tab allows you to lock cells in your sheet so that other users cannot modify the contents. The Number tab allows you to format cells to accept different types of numbers. For example, if you are going to be entering dollar amounts, you can choose to have the numbers automatically change to currency. You can also auto setup dates, times, fractions, etc.
Helpful Hint: If you are working with a sheet and find that the numbers you are entering keep changing to a different format, look at the Number tab to format the cells for the type of number that you are using. Row and Column Width If you would like to change the row or column width, you have a couple of options available to you. o To auto fit your text in the cells (so that the row/column is exactly the width/height of your text), move your mouse between the Column letters to the right of the column you are working on. When your mouse is directly on the line, your cursor will turn into a line with two arrows. Double click your mouse two times and the column width will increase/decrease to fit the text. o You can also select a group of columns, row, group of rows or the entire sheet to auto fit the text and select format and columns or rows and select auto fit o To change the column width manually, again move your mouse onto the line between the column letters to get the symbol found above and this time, hold down the left mouse button and drag the cell to the width that you desire. o If you select a group of columns or the entire sheet and do the same method, you will manually adjust all of the column widths to be the same. The same is true of rows. Borders When adding borders, you might want to consider where you would like your borders to appear. You can always add borders to the entire sheet by select the sheet and clicking on Format Cells Border tab or right-mouse clicking and select Format Cells Border tab. In some cases, though, you might want different borders around different portions of the sheet and some areas without borders. o To adjust the borders of selections of your sheet, click on the cell(s), column(s), and/or row(s) that you would like to add a border to. o In the icons found in the top toolbars, you will find a borders option.
o Select the type of border that you would like to add to your selection. If you don t see the option that you desire (i.e. thicker borders, you can always keep the same selection and go to Format Cells Border tab or right-mouse clicking and select Format Cells Border tab. o A helpful hint about using the Border tab is that in the window you can see what you are adding a border to. The picture on the left shows that you are just adding a border to a single cell because you only see the word text. The picture on the right shows that you are adding borders to a group of cells because text is shown in four different cells. o In this area you can also add outline borders, inside borders, and borders that cross a cell. Helpful Hint: If you are creating a sheet where you want to have cells that you handwrite text in at a later time but still want them to print out on your sheet, you can add borders around these blank cells. As long as you don t add borders to the entire page or around an entire column/row, the cells you added borders to will print. Sorting Data If you would like to sort the data in your sheet, you first need to determine if you would like to sort all of the data or just a portion. If you select all, the information found in the rows will stay together. If you select just a portion by highlighting it, the text that you select will be sorted and the remainder will stay the same. After you have selected what you would like to sort, click on Data Sort. You can choose to sort in Ascending or Descending order and you have the option of sorting by just one column or by multiple columns (i.e. if you have the same book level in more than one cell in a column, you could then sort by author or title).
There is also a sorting icon found on the top toolbars which allows you to sort your information in ascending or descending order. You cannot select more than one option to sort by though. Printing Helpful Hint: Sometimes when you go to print your sheet, you will get a bunch of blank pages that come out or they may have text that you didn t remember adding. If this happens you can either go to File Print and select to Print Pages [first page] to [last page]. The preview picture gives you an idea of what it will look like. Below the preview window it tells you how many pages you are going to print. You can change it to print just to an area you ve selected, the whole active sheet, or the entire workbook (includes all sheets associated to your document).