INTRODUCTION TO MICROSOFT EXCEL

DEFINITION
Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet program. They are mostly called electronic
spreadsheet. It is an accounting package that replaces Accounting ledger book, calculator,
pencil, eraser and ruler etc. it is a huge chart consisting of rows and columns. These rows and
columns interacts each other to form rectangular blocks called cells, which can be filled with
text, numbers, dates and formula. The number of rows varies from package to package. In Ms
Excel, the spreadsheet consists of 255 columns and 16384 rows.
Spreadsheet programs are popular because of its ability to handle urge amount of data.

Launching Microsoft Excel

The following steps can be used to launch your Microsoft Excel.
 Boot up your PC
 Select programs from the start menu by clicking start button
 Select Microsoft Office
 Select Microsoft Excel, and click or press enter key OR
 Double click on the Microsoft Excel icon on the desktop
OR
 Right click on the icon
 Select open and click or press enter key

The Microsoft Excel Windows & Terms

The excel window is a bit complicated, in the sense that it has terms relatively
different from Word and PowerPoint. e.g
i. Workbook: This is excel file that can hold many worksheets
ii. Worksheet: This is a grid of columns (designated by letters) and rows
(designated by numbers)
iii. Cell: This is the intersection between a column and a row.
Then, other features in Word and PowerPoint are such as: menu bar, standard toolbar,
formatting toolbar and more e.g cell number box, formula box, worksheet tab scroll
button, worksheet tabs, etc

CELLS, ROWS AND COLUMNS

A. Moving Through Cells: Use the mouse to select a cell you want to begin adding data to
and use the keyboard strokes listed in the below to move through the cells of a worksheet.
Movement Key Stroke
One cell up up arrow key
One cell down down arrow key or Enter
One cell left left arrow key
Top of the worksheet (cell A1) Ctrl + Home
End of the worksheet
(last all containing data Ctrl + End
End of the row Ctrl + right arrow key
End of the column Ctrl + down arrow key
Any cell File/Go To menu bar command

B. Highlighting single and multiple cells: use mouse to select the cell, hence the cell is
automatically highlighted and every effects will hold on that single cell. But, to highlight

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 multiple cells, you have to use the mouse to click, and hold down the starting cell and
doing to the last cell you want to highlight and the release your hand, then the cells will
be highlighted.

i. Selecting Cells
 To select a single cell, click it
 To select a range of cell, drag diagonally from the first cell to the last cell.
 To select non-adjacent cells or range, hold down Ctrl key as you click or drag
through additional cells.
 To select an entire row, click the row heading
 To select an entire column, click the column heading
 To select all cells on the sheet, click the SELECT ALL button at the extreme of
the worksheet.
Note: Selecting all cells on the worksheet is most useful for global formatting. For
example, changing the font of all the text on the workbook.

i. Inserting cells between existing cells: to insert copied or cut cells between existing
cells, copy or paste the cells you want, select a destination cell and then choose
the copied cells or cut cells command from the insert menu or the insert cut cells
or insert copied cells command from the shortcut menu. Also you can insert new
rows or column and blank cells.

ii. Copying To Adjacent Cells by Dragging

To copy the content of a cell to another cell(s)

 Move the arrow pointer to the cell where you have the data you are about to
move and click the cell.
 Move the arrow pointer to the right bottom edge of the cell for a cross sign to
the displayed on the edge
 Click the left button on the mouse and hold down
 Drag to the adjacent cell(s) where you are copying
 Release the button

iii. Deleting cells

When you delete cells, the cells are removed and surrounding cells shift to fill in the
space, to do this:
 Select the range of cell you want to delete
 From the EDIT menu or SHORTCUT menu, choose the delete reman on the
worksheet.
Note: You can also clear cells by selecting them, choose the clear command from the
EDIT menu or the shortcut menu and then selecting AA, contents, formats or notes.

MORE ON MICROSOFT EXCEL

Formatting
1. Formatting Toolbar: The contents of a highlighted cell can be formatted in many ways.
Font and attributes can be added from shortcut buttons on the formatting toolbar. If this
toolbar is not already visible on the screen. Then,
 Select View/Toolbars/Formatting from the menu bar.
2. Elements on the formatting toolbar are:
Font menu

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Font size
Bold, italics, underline
Left, center, right and justify alignments
Center across cells
Percent style
Comma style
Increase and decrease decimal
Increase and decrease indent
Border
Fill color
Font color

CREATING FORMULA AND LINKS

With a formula you can perform addition, subtraction, multiplication and comparison
on worksheet values. Use a formula when you want to enter calculated values on a
worksheet.
 Ms excel formula always begins with an equal sign (=) or (+)
 A constant is a numeric or text that you can type directly into a cell.

1. The Formula Bar: When the formula bar is active or when editing in a cell, you can
type a formula, insert worksheet functions and names into a formula and insert
formula by selecting cells. Click the mouse in the entry area or begin typing to
activate the formula bar.

2. Arithmetic Operations: This performs basic mathematics operations, combine

numeric values and produce numeric results
+ = Addition
- = Subtraction
/ = Division
^ = Exponential

3. Displaying Formula On the Worksheet

Normally: Only the values produced by formula are displayed. You can change the
display to show the underlying formula and values, hold down ctrl key and press left
sign quotation mark.

CREATING CHARTS FROM WORKSHEET

1. What is Chart?
A chart is a graphic representation of worksheet data. Showing you data in the
chart can make information clearer, more interesting and easier to read. Chart can
also help you evaluate your data and make comparison between different
worksheet values.
2. Chart Wizard: The chart wizard is a series of dialog boxes that simplifies creating a
chart. The chart wizard guides you through the process step by step, you verify
your data selection, select a chart type and decide whether to add items such as
titles and a legend
A. Enter the data into the worksheet and highlight all the cells that will be included
in the chart including headers.
B. Click the chart wizard button on the standard toolbar to view the first chart
wizard dialog box.

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 3. Chart Type: Choose the chart type and the chart subtype if necessary. Click
(Next).
4. Chart Source Data: Select the data range (if different from the area highlighted in
step 1) and click (Next).
5. Chart Options: Enter the name of the chart and titles for the X- and Y- axis. Other
options for the axis, gridlines, legend, data labels, and data table can be changed
by clicking on the tabs. Press (Next) to move to the next set of options.
6. Chart Location: Click (As new sheet) if the chart should be placed on a new, blank
worksheet or select (as object in) if the chart should be embedded in an existing
sheet and select the worksheet from the drop down menu.
7. Click (Finish) to create the chart.

PRACTICAL!!!

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