Working with multiple worksheets and workbooks

Week 1: Toolbox
Keyboard Shortcuts

If a shortcut requires pressing two or more keys at the same time, keys are separated by a +
sign. An exhaustive list of shortcuts is available on the Microsoft Office Support pages.
Below are a small number of shortcuts that we have selected to improve your speed and
efficiency. The list is by no means exhaustive. Mac shortcuts are listed in brackets (In newer
versions of Excel on Mac, the CTRL+ shortcut keys also work). For a list of Mac specific
keyboard shortcuts see the Microsoft Office ( for Mac) Support page.
If you need to move to another worksheet but don’t want to take your hands off the
keyboard, you can use these shortcuts:
CTRL + Page Down | Option + Right Arrow: Move to the next sheet in the workbook.
CTRL + Page Up | Option + Left Arrow: Move to the next sheet in the workbook.
------------------------------------------------
Windows Shortcuts: Microsoft Office Support pages | Mac Shortcuts: Microsoft Office
Support pages

Excel Terminology

3-D Reference
The references we have used before can be thought of as 2-D references because they
have 2 dimensions (2 important things to specify to identify a cell): columns (letters) and
rows (numbers). They might refer to a single cell (A3), a range in the same row or column
(A3:D3, B2:B5), or span multiple rows and columns (A3:D6). These cells must all be on the
same Worksheet.
If you expand these references to include multiple Worksheets, you get a 3-D reference (an
extra dimension to specify to identify a cell). Again, these can refer to a single cell on
multiple Worksheets (Sean:Carlos!C8), or a range of cells on multiple Worksheets
(Sean:Carlos!C8:E13).
Structure
In this topic, structure refers to the way the data is arranged in the workbook (this means the
number of rows and columns into which the data is entered and also the order of the rows
and columns that the data appears in).
Workbook
This is your entire Excel file. It contains 1 or more Worksheets.
Worksheet
Often just called a Sheet, this is where your data and charts live in Excel. You must have at
least 1 Worksheet in your Workbook and the upper limit is only limited by the resources on
your computer.
Ninja Tip of the Week

If you have many Worksheets in your Workbook, it can be difficult to move between them to
find the one you are looking for. You can use the Activate dialog to move directly to a sheet.
Right-click on the arrows next to the Worksheet tabs:

You will see the Activate dialog:

You can select the Worksheet to move to and click OK. In this Workbook there are only 4
Worksheets, so it does not save much time, but it would be very useful if you had many
Worksheets.

Text and date function

Week 2: Toolbox
Keyboard Shortcuts

The CTRL (CMD) key When you are using a function like CONCAT to join text from multiple
cells, hold down the CTRL key while selecting the cells and Excel will automatically insert
the comma between each cell reference for you. For example, if you want the formula
=CONCAT(A2,D2,G2) then hold down CTRL while you click on cell A2 then D2 then G2.
CTRL + ; Inserts today’s date as a fixed value. (Note that this is different to the =TODAY()
function because this date is fixed and will not change when you come back to your
workbook tomorrow or next week.)
CTRL + SHIFT + ;| CMD + ; Inserts the current time as a fixed value. (Note that this is
different to the =NOW() function because the time is fixed and will not change when you
come back to your workbook an hour or a month later).
F4 | CMD + T Toggle between relative and absolute references.
------------------------------------------------
Windows Shortcuts: Microsoft Office Support pages | Mac Shortcuts: Microsoft Office
Support pages

Excel Terminology

The anatomy of a function

Let’s look at the MID function as an example: =MID(text, start_num, num_chars)
= [equals] Every function must start with an equals sign.
MID [FUNCTION NAME] The standard syntax is to use upper-case letters, but the function
will still work in lower-case letters!
( [Open bracket] After a function name you must have an open bracket, "(", after this open
bracket you can start entering your arguments.
text, start_num, num_chars [arguments] These are the arguments that we input into a
function. An argument is an input into a function, where a function reads this argument, and
other arguments if needed, to process the function. You can directly type in arguments
yourself or you can have other functions calculate the values of the arguments for you. We
explain this latter bit under nested functions below.
A2 [Cell reference] Within a function, depending on the function, you may either need to
specify a cell reference or you may need to specify a range. If a range is needed (not for this
function), a range would be specified in the syntax: A2:A10. Here A2:A10 which reads in
natural language as A2 to A10, in other words, the colon, ":" is the natural language
equivalent of "to".
, [comma] Commas are used to separate arguments within a function. This way, Excel
knows that the input of one argument has ended and the input of the next argument is
beginning. Some functions have only one argument, and thus, a comma will not be needed.
) [Close bracket] At the end of the function, you must have a close bracket, ")", then Excel
knows that you have stopped inputting arguments. In the latest versions of Excel, you can
get away without typing the last bracket and then pressing Enter and Excel will automatically
add this bracket for you.

Nested Functions
We can also have a function inside another function, where a function is used as an
argument, such as:
=MID(A2,2,FIND(" ",A2))
Here, the FIND function is used within another function, MID, this entire then becomes a
nested function. Excel will work the innermost function first and gradually work its way
outwards. Inner functions are sometimes called helper functions.
Here, FIND(" ",A2) is used as the third argument of the MID function which should be
num_chars, i.e. the number of characters. In other words, instead of us telling Excel the
number of characters, and this value being static, the helper function, FIND, is telling Excel
to find the number of characters, and hence this value becomes dynamic.

CONCAT, CONCATENATE and &

The CONCAT function joins text together. The text being joined can be entered by referring
to other cells, e.g. =CONCAT(B4,B3), or the text can be typed directly
=CONCAT("John","Smith"), the comma specifies what you would like to join. Remember
that when inputting text into a function use " " around the text.
The & works in a similar way. It can be viewed that & is what tells Excel to join the text so
=B4&B3 joins B4 and B3. The same rules apply if the reference is made to text directly
="John"&"Smith". Remember that & is used as part of a formula so you need to start with
=.
CONCAT is the newer version of CONCATENATE function which became available in the
Office 365 version of Excel. It does everything that CONCATENATE does and it also
supports using a range as an argument, for example, =CONCAT(A5:A20). CONCATENATE
is still available in the newer versions of Excel but you will not get the extra functionality.
CONCAT became available in the January 2016 version of Excel, which is only available if
you have the Office 365 version of Microsoft Office. You can read the Release Notes for the
various versions of Excel and you can also find out which version of Excel you are using.

Text to Columns
Open the file W2_Extracting_Text, where we want to extract the Floor, Wing and Extension
from Column K that contains all this information under Location.
Select the Location column, go to the Data tab and click on Text to Columns. You should
get a dialog box that looks like this where you can select Delimited or Fixed Width.
For Step 1, let’s start with Delimited and click Next.
In Step 2 above, check Space and Other, and type "-" next to Other. Here, Excel will split
the string of text in the Location column whenever it sees a space, " ", as well as whenever
Excel sees a hyphen, "-".
Now click Next and you will see Step 3 as below:

Here you can specify the data format. Since ours is the default, General, we just need to
click Finish. Excel will then warn you that there is already data, and ask you whether you
want to replace it. Click OK.
Now you should see the Location data split into 3 columns in your spreadsheet – the floor,
the wing, and the extension.
Another option to split the text into columns in Excel is to choose Fixed Width in Step 1 and
then click Next. Then Step 2 will appear as below:
You will then need to click within Data preview to add arrow markers to split the text
according to a fixed width.
This works well if the data follows a fixed length pattern like it does for the characters of the
floor. However, this does not work well for the wing (as you can see above) which sometimes
has 4 characters, and at other times has 5 characters.
Text to columns is a great tool for one-off changes, and when you do not need to retain the
original raw data. However, for more automated dynamic changes that need to occur as our
spreadsheet is populated, functions are much more useful, as we discuss in this week’s
Practice Videos.

Ninja Tip of the Week

TEXTJOIN
TEXTJOIN is another function that can be used to join text together, this works well because
of the following:
1. You can specify once that you want a space between each word and don’t have to
include a space each time like we did in CONCAT
2. You now have the choice to ignore empty cells in a range.

For example =TEXTJOIN(" ", FALSE, "JOHN", "SMITH") returns JOHN SMITH. The first
argument specifies the separator you would like to see between each word (a space in this
instance), the second argument specifies whether to ignore empty cells or not, and then the
text follows. You can specify the text as a range, so =TEXTJOIN(" ", TRUE, A5:A12) is also
valid and the text is contained in the specified range.
Like CONCAT, TEXTJOIN is only available in the latest Office 365 version of Excel.

Inserting a line break within text functions

In the course Excel Skills for Business: Essentials we saw that you can enter a line break
inside a cell using the shortcut ALT + ENTER (or CTRL + OPTION + RETURN for Mac),
however this shortcut will not work when you want to include a line break inside a text
function. For example, say we have been given the data in cells A2 and B2 below, and we
want to join them on two lines in cell C2.

We can insert a line break using the function CHAR(10), so cell C2 could be entered as
either of the following functions:
=A2&CHAR(10)&B2
=CONCAT(A2,CHAR(10),B2)
Remember to turn on "Wrap Text" formatting for cell C2, otherwise it will display with all of
the text on a single line.

Named ranges

Week 3: Toolbox
Keyboard Shortcuts

Ctrl+Enter -- Finish Editing and stay in the cell.

When you are typing in a cell, if you press Enter you will move to the next cell down or Tab to
move to the next cell to the right. To finish editing but stay in the same cell you can use
Ctrl+Enter instead.
F3 -- Paste Name
When you are writing a formula, if you cannot remember the Named Range that you are
trying to use, the Paste Name dialog can help by displaying a list of all the names defined in
the workbook.
Ctrl+F3 -- Name Manager (Windows only)
You can use the Name Manager to create, modify and delete Named Ranges.
Cmd+fn+F3 -- Define Name (Mac only):
The shortcut key is Mac-specific but the Define Name tool is available in both Windows and
Mac. It allows you to create new Named Ranges.
Ctrl+Shift+F3. Mac: Cmd+Shift+fn+F3 -- Create Names from Selection
If you want to create several named ranges at once you can use the Create Names from
Selection tool. First, select the range, including headers, then activate the tool. You can
 choose where the names come from, usually the Top row or Left column, but you can also
use the Bottom row or Right column.
Ctrl+Shift+Arrows -- Select to the edges of the data
To easily select large data ranges you can use Ctrl+Shift and the arrow key in the direction
you want to select. Continue to hold down Ctrl+Shift and use another arrow to select in
another direction.

Terminology

Named Ranges
Named Ranges are a way to give a memorable name to a single cell or range of cells. You
can then use this Named Range in formulas where it functions like an absolute cell
reference. It can also make your formulas more readable because the name has more
meaning than a cell reference. For example, =N4*Pension_Rate is more meaningful than
=N4*$P$2.

Ninja Tip of the Week

Want to see all the named ranges you have created in your table? Simply zoom out to less
than 40%.

Summarizing data

Week 4: Toolbox
Keyboard Shortcuts

Ctrl+D -- Duplicate a chart

F4 -- Cycle between relative and absolute references
When you are writing a formula, if you have a cell reference selected, such as D4, if you
press F4 once you will get the absolute reference $D$4, press it again to get D$4 (row
absolute, column relative), again to get $D4 (column absolute, row relative), and once more
will get you back to the relative reference D4.
Ctrl+Shift+> -- Increase the font size of a chart element
This only works on Windows. On Mac you should use the font size tools in the Home tab of
the ribbon:

Excel Terminology

COUNTIF and COUNTIFS

The function signatures for the 2 functions are:
COUNTIF(range, criteria)
COUNTIFS(criteria_range1, criteria1, [criteria_range2, criteria2]…)
If you only have 1 criteria that you want to count, these functions are identical. However, you
can also use COUNTIFS when you have multiple criteria. Other functions that follow this
pattern are SUMIF/SUMIFS and AVERAGEIF/AVERAGEIFS. We recommend that you
always use the -IFS versions of these functions.

Criteria Range
This is the range of data that includes the subset which is of interest. For example, the
Account Manager range when Connor Betts is the subset of interest.

Relative and Absolute Cell References

A relative cell reference looks like D4. This consists of the column letter(s) and row
number(s). If you copy this cell reference one column to the right it will change to E4. The
column letter will increase by 1. Similarly, if you copy it one row down it will change to D5.
The row number will increase by 1. This is very useful as you can write 1 formula and copy it
across or down and have the formula change as you copy it.
But what happens if you do not want the cell reference to change when you copy the
formula? You can change the cell reference to an absolute cell reference by putting dollar
signs ($) in front of the column letter and row number. So we could change D4 to $D$4. Now
when you copy the formula the cell reference will not change.
You can also have mixed cell references, where either the column or row is “locked” and the
other is relative. If you copy $D4 one column to the right it will not change, but if you copy it
one row down it will change to $D5. Similarly, D$4 will not change when copied down rows
but will when copied across columns.
https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Switch-between-relative-absolute-and-mixed-referenc
es-dfec08cd-ae65-4f56-839e-5f0d8d0baca9?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US&fromAR=1

Types of Trendlines
When you add a trendline to a chart it will default to a Linear trendline. However, there are
other options:

Exponential fits a lot of curved lines. It is ideal when data values rise or fall at constantly
increasing rates:
Linear is good for a straight line graph, this shows a constant rate of change:

A Logarithmic trendline is useful when the rate of change in the data increases or decreases
quickly and then levels out:

Polynomial is good for data that fluctuates, a single peak like this would be an order 2, two
peaks would be an order 3, you can go up to order 6.
Power trendlines are good for datasets that compare measurements that increase at a
specific rate:

And a moving average is good for evening out fluctuations in the data:

The Elements of a Chart

When you want to drag a chart around a worksheet you might find that you accidentally drag
one of the elements within the chart instead. To drag a chart you should put your mouse in
the Chart Area. But where is this? The Chart Area is the part of the chart that is not covered
by any other elements. If you hover over the chart a tooltip will appear showing you which
element you are hovering over.
Some common chart elements are the Chart Area:

Plot Area:

Chart Title:
Legend:

These elements might not appear in the same place as on this chart. You can move these
elements around manually or use the Quick Layout tool.

Changing the Scale of a Chart

In the Advanced Charting video, we show how you can change the Axis Bounds of a chart.
This has the effect of changing the scale of the chart. You can use this to emphasize a
particular feature of the chart or it can mislead the reader into thinking that an effect is more
important or dramatic than it actually is. There is no firm rule about this. You should be very
careful when presenting any data that you are representing the data faithfully and not just
telling the story that you or your audience wants to hear.

Ninja Tip of the Week

Comparison Operators
The criteria in these functions can use different comparisons. The simplest is equal to. You
use this when you want to find an exact match between the values in the criteria range and a
given value. For example, =COUNTIFS(Account_Manager, "Connor Betts") or
=COUNTIFS(Order_Quantity, 50).
Equal to is the comparison operator that Excel will use if you do not specify something else.
You can explicitly use the equal to operator by using, for example, "=50", but you generally
do not need to. Notice that you need to use quotation marks when you specify the
comparison operator.
The comparison operators for numbers are:
Equal to (=) =COUNTIFS(Order_Quantity, 50) or
=COUNTIFS(Order_Quantity, "=50")

Not equal to (<>) =COUNTIFS(Order_Quantity, "<>50")

Greater than (>) =COUNTIFS(Order_Quantity, ">50")

Greater than or equal =COUNTIFS(Order_Quantity, ">=50")

to (>=)

Less than (<) =COUNTIFS(Order_Quantity, "<50")

Less than or equal to =COUNTIFS(Order_Quantity, "<=50")

(<=)
You can use these comparison operators with dates as well. You should specify the date in
your local format, for example =COUNTIFS(Order_Date,"<2015-01-01").
These operators also work when you are comparing text. Equal to and not equal to work
the way that you would expect. The greater than and less than operators work by comparing
the words letter-by-letter. So "a"<"b" and "apple"<"apricot". Note that these are
case-insensitive: =COUNTIFS(Product_Container, "Small Box") and
=COUNTIFS(Product_Container, "small box") do the same thing.
When comparing text there are 2 other operators that you can use: ? and *. These are called
wildcards and can take the place of a single letter (?) or many letters (*). So S?ng will match
Sang, Sing, Song and Sung (as well as nonsense words like Sqng) but it will not match
Sting. The asterisk (*) will match any number of letters. So we could use
=COUNTIFS(Product_Container, "Small *") and that will count Small Box and Small
Pack.

Using a cell reference in the title of a chart

Just like a regular cell, chart titles can contain fixed values or you can use a formula.
However, you can only use very simple formulas that refer to another cell. If you want to use
a more complicated formula, you should create that formula in a cell and then reference that
cell from the chart title.
Click on the chart title. It is important that the title is only selected, not in edit mode

Notice that the chart title has a solid border around it. If you click inside it to start editing, the
border changes to a dashed line

You can press Escape to get out of edit mode.

So we have the title selected. Now, how do we start all formulas? With an '=', so type that,
then click on a cell and press Enter to point the chart title to that cell. If you are using the
workbook for the Advanced Charting video, use A37 (Orders by Year and State) as the cell
that contains the title.
On the Mac you will need to select the title, click in the Formula Bar, type '=', then click on
the target cell. This also works on Windows, but you have the option not to click on the
Formula Bar.

Tables

Week 5: Toolbox
Keyboard Shortcuts

Ctrl+T (Cmd+T or Ctrl+T) — Insert Table

Shift+Space (Shift+Space) — Select table row
Ctrl+Space (Ctrl+Space) — Select table column
Ctrl+A (Cmd+A) — Select table
Ctrl+. — Move between the corners of a table

Excel Terminology

Named Ranges and Tables

Named Ranges and Tables have some overlap in functionality and use, but there are some
key differences.
 Named Ranges Tables

Do not automatically extend at the edges of Automatically extend to include rows and
their range columns added

Behaves like an absolute reference when Structured References behave like a relative
used in a formula — when you copy the reference when used in a formula — when
formula to another column the reference to you copy the formula to another column the
the Named Range will remain the same Structured Reference will change

Do not have formatting tools Can be easily formatted

Named Ranges do not know about other Provide a range of sorting and filtering tools
Named Ranges — they do not work together that work with the Table as a whole unit

Ninja Tip of the Week

You can easily move columns and rows around in tables:

To move a column in a table you must first select the column that you desire to move then
navigate the mouse icon to either the right/left edge depending on which direction you want
to move the column in, move the mouse icon it till this icon appears:
Click and drag the column to the position you want it in, watch the vertical bar that appears
to drag it to the edge of the column you desire to move to. You can move a row using a
similar process.

Pivot tables, charts and slicers

Week 6: ToolBox
Excel Terminology

Dashboard
A dashboard is a summary display designed to give the user a quick overview of the data.
They often contain graphs and tables of numbers. They sometimes have some interactivity
so that the user can select the specific points of interest to focus on. Dashboards usually
update automatically so that the user is looking at the most recent or relevant information.

PivotChart
A chart based on a PivotTable. By using a PivotChart you get the summarization and filtering
power of a PivotTable combined with the visualization power of Excel charting.

PivotTable
A powerful and convenient way to summarize data in Excel. Similar to a cross-tabulation in
other software.

Slicer
Slicers provide a convenient way to filter a PivotTable. You can also see which filters are
currently in use.
https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Use-slicers-to-filter-PivotTable-data-249f966b-a9d5-4
b0f-b31a-12651785d29d

Dataset
A dataset is a set of data that contains fields (columns) that usually have different formatting
for example, text, number, currency.

Field List
This is the list of all the columns contained in the dataset. For example Account Manager,
Total Revenue, Cost, etc.

Field
This is one of the elements that makes up the field list (one of the columns in the dataset
e.g. Account Manager).

Data Source
This refers to where the data is coming from (the original table on which the pivot table
depends on).

Ninja Tip of the Week

You can format empty cells in a pivot table by right-clicking on any cell in the table, then go
to Pivot Table Options. In Layout & Format, under Format, you can choose to put a hyphen
for every empty cell. A hyphen is one reasonable example of something you could add, you
can add something else more appealing for yourself.