An Introduction to Microsoft Excel Excel Workshop Presented September 10, p.m. Palmer 02

Workshop Outline Where Excel truly excels (in terms of what it’s useful for) How Excel thinks and manages data Creating data Using formulas to manipulate data Excel keystrokes Basic data Management Graphing data If statements Conditional formatting Goal seek Excel efficiency

Uses of Excel Budget data Accounting data Graphing Organizing information Finding information Creating data

DATA Management Tab menus Formula Bar Cell formats Editing Cells Inserting and deleting rows or columns

Creating Data Creating a series Type a value into cell A1 (no parentheses) Type another value into cell A2 Select both cells and click and drag Dragging the bottom right corner down, will create your series following the pattern you created in cells 1 and 2. You can use this technique to create a time series.

Exercise 1 Download the Excel workshop data from the economics and business page. On sheet 3 generate a new series

Reference Cells A cell reference refers to a cell or a range of cells on a worksheet and can be used in a formula so that Excel can find the values or data that you want that formula to calculate The importance of “=“ in formulas—necessary to direct excel to find your data Absolute reference cells ($) Basic data and reporting of statistics Formulas

Using Formulas Important formulas AVERAGE—gives the average of a set of reference cells ABS—gives the absolute values of cells LCM—returns the least common multiple of a number STDEV(P)A-returns the standard deviation of sample or entire population LOG-returns the log of a value MEDIAN—returns the median of a sample SUM—returns the sum of a sample COUNT(A)—counts the number of cells that have numbers/not empty NPV—returns the net present value given a rate, and original value IF—checks whether a condition is met and returns a value based on the test. PMT—calculates the payment for a loan based on constant payments and an interest rate.

Exercise 2 Switch to sheet 1—Accounting data Using the Sum function, calculate the following Total assets Total liabilities and stockholder’s equity Gross margin Income before taxes Income after taxes Using a formula project sales into 2002 where sales increases by a rate of 10% each year. Use similar rates for other key values in the spreadsheet.

Excel Keystrokes Shortcut keys work in excel as well as word Using the keystrokes will save you a lot of time Use the following two shortcuts while working in excel Ctrl+Shift+Arrow==allows you to select all the data in a row, column or matrix Ctrl+Arrow==allows you to move to the end of a row or column.

Exercise 3 Practice highlighting and selecting data using the two keystrokes just mentioned

Basic Data Management Sorting data Formatting cells Moving data across sheets Moving Data Paste Special Transpose Values and Formulas Find and Replace

Sorting and Formatting Cells Sorting Data Formatting Cells—click on the arrow under format  go to the bottom option, the format your cells for decimals, dollar signs, and other preferences.

Exercise 4 Practice changing the format style of your cells to general numbers, and different currency styles

Moving Data and Pasting You can copy and paste data into a new spreadsheet by moving over to a new sheet. Pasting Special Values—keeps the values and not the formulas you used to get the value Transpose—changes the layout of your data (columns and rows switch) Formulas—keeps your formulas in place, not the values Find and Replace Use to change your data quickly Ex. Ctrl+F  click replace, then fill in your data

Graphing Data First Select your graph Insert  select from the chart section Next click select data from the top tab Select the cells you want in the chart Click ok—your new graph will appear

Exercise 5 Graph sales between 1999 and 2002 Make a pie chart of current liabilities in 1999

Editing Your Graphs and Charts To add titles and axes labels: click the layout tab  chart title or axis titles Add labels as you like

Exercise 6 Add titles to both your graph and chart Add axis labels to your line graph

Cleaning up your data Not all data is in ready to analyze condition when you get it— the next few slides will present a few ways to clean up your data Text to columns Using “If” statements Concatenate Conditional Formatting

Exercise 7 Switch to sheet 2—BLS Data This data set contains the average price data for a pound of bacon and a pound of bananas for all US cities, Northeast Urban areas, Midwest Urban areas, and South Urban areas. Notice that the data is not in a very friendly manner in terms of recognizing the regions and substance. The next exercises will show you how to format this data.

Text-to-Columns Notice that column A—the data for region and commodity is coded in a moderately confusing way. We will use text to columns to recode these two categories. Step 1—add additional columns to the right of the column you are expanding (this will ensure you don’t overwrite your cells) Step 2—select the data you want to split (in this case A11:A18) Step 3—select the text to column button under the data tab

Text-to-Columns, cont In the pop up window, select “Fixed Width” Next, select the areas where you want to break the data into separate columns. In this case we want to separate the code APU from the regional codes (000,0100,0200,0300) and from the commodity code (704111, ) Hit next, then finish. Your data will fill the two open columns you had created. Click where you want the break

Exercise 8 Follow the text to column steps to separate the commodity and regional codes. You should have something like this…

Using “If” Statements We can use “if” statements to further clean up this data set. The syntax of the “if” statement is If([logical test], [value if TRUE], [value if FALSE]) Logical Test—This is the test you want excel to use to determine the output (use cell references). An example would be “B4=25” Value if True—This is the output value that excel will place in the cell if the logical test is true Value if False—This is the output value that excel will place in the cell if the logical test is not true.

Recoding Using If To recode using If, insert two new columns between the commodity codes and data Next, use your reference cells from above to make your if statements Remember to use absolute cell references ($G$3) Click and drag down your formula You can have multiple if statements in one line. Separate these by a comma. =IF(B11=0,$G$3,IF(B11=100,$G$4, IF(B11=200, $G$5, IF(B11=300, $G$6, 0))))

Exercise 9 Recode the data for commodities using the if statement

Combining Cells--Concatonate After recoding cells you can recombine them using Concatonate First make a new column between the commodity name and the data. Next, use the formula concatonate Syntax “=concatonate(cell 1, cell2,…)

Exercise--Transpose Finally, if we want our data in columns rather than rows we should copy and paste special into a new sheet. Use the shortcut keystrokes to copy your new data, paste special with values and transpose into sheet 4.

Conditional Formatting You may wish to use conditional formatting at some point during your research. Conditional formatting can be found under the home tab, styles tab. You can use conditional highlighting to draw attention to specific cells. Select the data you are interested in, then click on conditional formatting, next select the highlighting criteria that fits your needs.

Goal Seek You can use excel to find the answer to specific questions. You can do this by using the goal seek function. Goal seek is located under the data tab, in the “What-if- Analysis” You could use a goal seek to determine how long it would take to save $25,000 with a 2% annual interest rate making monthly deposits of $

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THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME Questions??? If you have additional questions, please or visit Palmer 101F.