01 Introducing Excel

Difficulty Level: Beginners

Excel Version: XP

Assumed Knowledge: None

 

 

The aim of the tutorial is to:

introduce you to Excel and explain what you should see on the screen. It will also explain how to find basic commands and tools in different menus.

Introducing Excel

Excel is a useful programme to use if you want to create books containing worksheets that hold numbers or numerical data as well as text. The programme allows you to easily create new books and worksheets and save them, adjust the data and lay it out to your liking, amend and correct the data and move it around, present data in different tables and charts, use formulae and perform functions, sort data, include graphics and much, much more.

Opening up Excel

To access Excel click on Start at the bottom left of the screen. On the pop-up menu click on All Programmes and on the next pop-up menu click on Microsoft Excel. Alternatively, if you can see a Microsoft Excel icon on the desktop click on it.

When you open up Excel for the first time the screen layout should look like this:

Have a good look at the screen layout.

At the top is a blue bar. At the left end of the blue bar you will see that you have opened Book 1 in Microsoft Excel. At the right end of the blue bar you will see three small boxes with pictures in them.

The first box is the minimize button. This allows you to shrink the Excel window so that it appears as a small oblong at the bottom of the screen, but the book is not closed. A minimized book can be restored to a larger size by clicking on the small oblong (at the bottom of the screen).

The second box is the restore button. This allows you to restore the Excel window to its previous size.

The third box (marked with an X) is the close box. This allows you to close the Excel window including any open documents.

Excel allows you to create worksheets and perform automatic calculations. Each Excel file is a workbook that can hold many worksheets although each one usually starts with 3 (shown at the bottom left of the screen). The worksheet is a grid made up of columns (designated by letters) and rows (designated by numbers). The letters and numbers of the columns and rows (called labels) are displayed in grey buttons across the top and down the left side of the worksheet. Where a column and a row intersect is called a cell. Each cell on the worksheet has a cell address which is made up of the column label and the row label. The illustration above shows a black border around the cell with address A1. Cells can contain either text, numbers, or mathematical formulae.

Using Pop-down menus

Underneath the blue bar is what's called the menu bar:

Each word on this bar is the name of a pop-down menu. When you click on any of these words the menu will pop-down on the screen. The menus in Excel sometimes display only the commands recently used.

To view ALL the available commands in a menu:

  1. Click the double arrows at the bottom of the menu.
    So for example, by clicking on Format the menu on the left below might appear on the screen. This shows just some of the commands available in this menu. By clicking on the double arrows at the bottom of the menu all the commands in the Format menu appear like the menu shown on the right.

Or

  1. Click on the menu name.
  2. When the menu pops down wait for a short while. The rest of the menu will soon appear.

To customizing the pop-down menus so they ALWAYS show ALL the commands:

  1. Click on View in the menu bar.
  2. In this menu use the mouse to move the pointer onto Toolbars.
  3. In the Toolbars menu click on Customize.
  4. In the Customize box click on the Options tab:

  5. Click the box next to Always show full menus.
  6. When you have finished click Close.

Underneath the menu bar are two more bars that spread across the screen. The first one is the Standard toolbar and the one underneath is the Formatting toolbar. You can learn more about these toolbars in the handouts:

Short-cut Menus

Shortcut menus are slightly different to pop-down menus. They allow you to access various Excel commands faster than using the options on the menu bar. Most of the time when you use the mouse you will click the left button. Shortcut menus only display the options that can be applied to the item that is right-clicked. This facility can save you time because you wont have to search through all the menu options in the menu bar until you find the command you are looking for.

To open up a shortcut menu:

  1. Click on the right mouse button anywhere on the screen.

    2. A different menu will appear depending on where you place the mouse. So a right click on the blue bar will give a menu that is different to a right click on the menu bar which will be different again from a right click on a page of an open document (shown above).
  2. Carry out a command from the menu in the usual way by moving the pointer on to the command and then left clicking on the mouse.

Activating and moving through cells

Data can be added to a cell but first the cell must be selected.

To activate or move to a particular cell using the mouse:

  1. Move the pointer to the chosen cell.
  2. Click on the mouse.
  3. A black border will appear around the active cell.

To activate or move to a particular cell using keys on the keyboard:

Movement
Keystroke
One cell up Up arrow key
One cell down Down arrow key or ENTER
One cell left Left arrow key
One cell right Right arrow key or TAB
Top of the worksheet (cell A1) CTRL + HOME
End of worksheet (last cell containing data) CTRL + END
End of row CTRL+right arrow key
End of column CTRL+down arrow key
Any cell FILE|Go To menu bar command

Understanding Toolbars and how they work

A Toolbar is a bar a bit like the menu bar at the top of the screen. Each toolbar contains shortcut buttons for tools that fit into the theme of the bar. If you click on View in the menu bar and then highlight Toolbars a list of available toolbars will appear. The illustration below shows what you will see if you do this.

The above illustration shows a tick beside two particular toolbars which means that the Standard and Formatting toolbars will appear on the screen. As you are a beginner to Excel I would recommend that you always have these two toolbars visible on the screen.

To add and remove a toolbar from the screen:

  1. Click on View on the menu bar.
  2. Move the pointer to Toolbars.
  3. In the pop-down menu click on the name of the toolbar you want to add to or remove from the screen.
    The menu will automatically close and the toolbar you chose will be either added to or removed from the screen.
  4. Repeat the above steps for each toolbar you want to add to or remove from the screen.

Using the Standard toolbar

You will see the standard toolbar located just below the menu bar at the top of the screen. This toolbar allows you to quickly access basic Excel commands:

Hover the pointer over each button to see the screen tip that reminds you what the button is for. The above illustration shows the screen tip Save appear when the pointer is hovered over the third button.

To open a new work book:

  1. Click on the first button on the toolbar:
Or
  1. Click on File on the menu bar.
  2. In the pop-down menu click on New.
Or
  1. Press CTRL+N.

To open an existing file:

  1. Click on the second button:
Or
  1. Click on File on the menu bar.
  2. In the pop-down menu click on Open.
Or
  1. Press CTRL+O.

To save a work book for the first time:

  1. Click on the third button:
Or
  1. Click on File on the menu bar.
  2. Click on Save or Save As on the pop-down menu.
  3. Type in the new name of the workbook.

To save a new version of a work book that was saved previously:

  1. Click on the third button:
Or
  1. Click on File on the menu bar.
  2. Click on Save on the pop-down menu.

To preview a work sheet before printing:

  1. Click on the Print Preview button:
  2. In the preview window click on Close to return to the worksheet.

To print a work sheet:

  1. Click on the Print button:

To begin the spell check facility:

  1. Click on the Spell Check button:

This action is explained further in the handout Formatting Your Worksheet Contents (Part 2).

To Cut part of your worksheet before pasting it elsewhere:

  1. Select the cell or cluster of cells that you want to cut.
  2. Click on the Cut button
  3. The cell or cells will now have a moving dotted border indicating that the contents are ready for pasting elsewhere.

If you are moving the cell contents only a short distance, the drag-and-drop method may be easier.

To use the drag-and-drop method:

  1. Select the cell or cluster of cells to be moved.
  2. Click on the border and drag the selected cell or cells to the destination cell or cells.
  3. Release the mouse button to drop the contents into this cell.

To Copy part of your worksheet before pasting it elsewhere:

  1. Select the cell or cluster of cells that you want to copy.
  2. Click on the Copy button
    The cell or cells will now have a moving dotted border indicating that the contents are ready for pasting elsewhere. They will remain ready for pasting elsewhere until you press the Esc key or begin another action.

To Paste part of your worksheet cut or copied from elsewhere:

  1. Select the cell or cluster of cells where you want to paste to.
  2. Click on the Paste button
    The cell or cells that have a moving dotted border will be pasted to the new place.

To use the Format Painter:

  1. Select the cell that has the formatting that you want to copy to another cell or cluster of cells.
  2. Click the Format Painter button in the standard toolbar .
  3. Select the cells you want to add the same formatting to.
  4. The Format Painter will then become inactive.

To copy the formatting of one cell to separate cells or groups of cells:

  1. Select the cell that has the formatting that you want to copy to another cell or cluster of cells.
  2. Double-click the Format Painter button.
  3. Select the cells you want to add the formatting to.
  4. The format painter will remain active so you can continue formatting other cells in the same way.
  5. Press the Esc key to turn the Format Painter off.

To undo or redo commands:

  1. Click the backward Undo arrow to cancel the last action you performed, whether it was entering data into a cell, formatting a cell, entering a function, etc.

Or

  1. Click the forward Redo arrow to cancel the undo action.

To insert a hyperlink:

  1. Type the text into a cell you want to be the link so that it can be clicked with the mouse.
  2. Click on the Insert Hyperlink button
  3. Select whether to insert a link to an existign file or webpage, a place within the same document, a new document or an e-mail address.
  4. Selet a place in the worksheet for the link to appear in.
  5. Click OK.
  6. Click OK again.

To use AutoSum:

The AutoSum facility is a quick way to find the Sum of a range of values on your worksheet.

  1. Click on the cell where you want the result to be shown on your worksheet.
  2. Click on the AutoSum button
  3. Ensure that the formula is correct in terms of the function and cell address.
  4. Press the ENTER button.
  5. The result of the formula will appear in the cell.

The default setting of the AutoSum facility allows you to find the sum of a range of cell values. It is also possible to find other information about a range of cell values including the average, count, maximum and minimum cell value. Formulae and functions are explained further in the handout Using Formulae and Functions.

To sort a range of cell values:

  1. Click on a cell within the range to be sorted.
  2. Click on the Sort Ascending button .
    This will sort the values with the smallest at the top and the largest at the bottom.
  3. Click on the Sort Descending button .
    This will sort the values with the largest at the top and the smallest at the bottom.

To create a chart using the Chart Wizard:

  1. Click on the Chart Wizard button
  2. Specify the chart type.
  3. Specify the chart source.
  4. Specify the chart options.
  5. Specify the chart location.
  6. Click on Finish and the chart will be created.

The Chart Wizard is explained in further detail in the handout Creating a Chart.

To view the drawing toolbar:

  1. Click on the Drawing button
  2. The drawing toolbar will appear at the bottom of the screen.

This drawing toolbar is explained in the handout Drawing in Excel.

To zoom in and out of the worksheet:

  1. Click on the down pointing triangle next to the % figure
  2. Click on a size from the list.

Or

  1. Double click on the number in the box.
  2. Delete the existing number.
  3. Type in a larger number to zoom in or a smaller number to zoom out.
  4. Press ENTER.

Inserting, Deleting and Renaming Worksheets

You can access the worksheets in a workbook by clicking the worksheet tab just above the status bar on the bottom left. Each workbook starts out with three worksheets.

To insert a worksheet:

  1. Click on Insert on the menu bar.
  2. In the pop-down menu click on Worksheet.
  3. The new worksheet will appear on the screen with its tab shown on the bottom left of the screen.

Or

  1. Right click on a worksheet tab on the bottom left of the screen.
  2. In the short cut menu click on Insert.
  3. The new worksheet will appear on the screen with its tab shown on the bottom left of the screen.

To delete a worksheet:

  1. Click on Edit on the menu bar.
  2. In the pop-down menu click on Delete sheet.
  3. The sheet will disappear from the screen.

Or

  1. Right-click on the worksheet tab to be deleted.
  2. In the short cut menu left-click on Delete.
  3. The sheet will disappear from the screen.

To rename a worksheet:

  1. Right-click on the worksheet tab.
  2. In the short-cut menu left-click on rename.
  3. Type in the new name of the worksheet on the tab.
  4. Press ENTER.

Exercises

  1. Left click on File on the menu bar. Use the mouse to move the pointer onto the other labels on the menu bar. In which pop-down menus will you find the following commands?:

    1. Delete Sheet


    2. Row


    3. Sort


  2. Move the pointer back to View in the menu bar and then move the pointer onto Toolbars in the pop-down menu. Which toolbars are already selected?

    1. Add a toolbar and look to see what has appeared on the screen.


    2. Go back to the toolbars menu, remove a toolbar and look to see what has disappeared from the screen.


    3. Try a. and b. again so that you are familiar with removing and adding toolbars to the screen.


    4. Ensure that the Standard and Formatting toolbars are visible on the screen. Add any others if you wish.

  3. When you are ready to close Excel click on the close button on the blue bar (marked with an X at the very top right of the screen).

 

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