CS 106 Computing Fundamentals II Chapter 5 “Excel Basics for Windows” Herbert G. Mayer, PSU CS status 6/17/2013 Initial content copied verbatim from CS 106 material developed by CS professors: Cynthia Brown & Robert Martin

Syllabus Excel Versions Workbook Excel Sheets Controls Adding Data Excel Formulae Absolute and Relative Names Functions

Excel Versions You can use Excel 2010 or 2007 on Windows. They are quite similar You can use Excel 2011 on a Mac. Earlier versions do not work

Open Excel to get a Workbook

Workbook Consist of Spreadsheets Tabs let you switch between sheets

You can rename a sheet by double clicking and typing a new name Here I renamed Sheet1 as tab1

Adding Sheets Just click here

Multiple Sheets Many times you will only need one sheet Multiple sheets can help you organize your work For example, you might want a sheet for each time period, like a week, month, or quarter Or, if you have multiple stores, you might want one for each store

Controls

Ribbons, Not Menus The newest Microsoft Office programs under Windows have eliminated menus in favor of ribbons that run across the top of the window Controls are grouped into tabs and within the tabs are grouped into functional categories On some items, a small downward triangle can be clicked to show options

This shows the Home tab Main ribbon tabs Qi Group names Quick access items

Using the Controls Many of the controls you will frequently use are on the home tab Check out the other tabs to get a feeling for what is there; we’ll discuss individual controls as we use them The built-in help is very good In a separate short presentation, we show you how to make the Developer tab show up

Structure of a spreadsheet

A sheet is a grid of cells Column names Row numbers

A cell is named by column and row Cell A1 is selected and its name is shown in the name box; you select a cell by clicking it

Cell C1

Cell B2

Cell G17

Adding Data

You can type directly into a selected cell

Types of Data Excel can handle various kinds of numbers, strings of characters (text), and dates Most of the ordinary formatting you might want to do can be handled by the home tab controls

Number formatting group Use this group to format numbers as currency, percent, etc. To format a whole column or row, click on the column letter or row number

Tapping the Power of Excel Suppose I want to fill the first column with numbers 1000, 2000, 3000 etc up to 20,000 I could just type them but that would be silly Instead, I will use an Excel formula to accomplish this task To type a formula you must start with an = sign

A Formula: =A1+1000 When writing a formula, you don’t have to type the name of a cell you want to use. Just click on it and it will show up in the formula.

Now push return…

Now the good part… I’m going to copy the formula by selecting the cell it’s in and clicking the copy icon in the clipboard group at the left of the home ribbon Then I will drag the cursor down the A column from row 3 to 20; Excel will highlight it Then I will click the paste icon

Just before clicking Paste

Just after clicking Paste Note that cell A3 has formula A2+1000!

Relative Names So when I copy formula =A1+1000 from cell A2 into cell A3, it becomes A2+1000 When I copy it to cell A4, it becomes A3+1000 This is because the A1 in the original formula is a RELATIVE name. It is the cell directly above cell A2, where I am writing the formula When I copy the formula, Excel replaces A1 with the name of the cell directly above the one where I’m putting the copy

Relative Name Illustration Here I put 50 in cell E1 and then copied the formula from cell A2 to cell E2. You can see that Excel changed the formula to use E1 instead of A1, because E1 is directly above E2

Absolute Names Suppose I really want to use a particular cell, and don’t want Excel to change it in the formula when I copy the formula Let’s say I want to put a number in cell A1, another number in A2, and then add them and put the answer in A3. Then for subsequent rows I want to add A1 each time. So if I start with 10 in A1 and 20 in A2, I should then get 30, 40, 50 etc. Let’s look at what happens if I go with my first idea: to put =A1+A2 in A3 and then copy it

Instead I got this I wanted the formula for A4 to be =A1+A3, but instead it is =A2+A3 Instead of keeping the A1, Excel used the two preceding cells, A2 and A3

To get an absolute name, use $ $ fixes the row and/or column of a cell name So instead of =A1+A2, I’ll use =$A$1+A2 Let’s see what happens…

This is what I wanted!

Change numbers in A1 and A2? Excel automatically recomputes the rest of the column based on the formula! This is one of the great things about using Excel: it lets you try different numbers in “what if” scenarios.

Use Similar Formula in Other Col? I can make a formula where the row is fixed and the column is relative, or vice versa In this case, instead of =$A$1+A2, I’ll use the formula =A$1+A2. So the column is relative, but I am always using the item in row 1. Let’s copy it to column G, put some numbers in row 1 and 2 of that column, and give it a try…

Here the Result The formula =A$1+A2 copied over to be =G$1+Gn, where n is the number of the preceding row

Actual Names You can give any cell an actual made-up name that will be absolute and usable on every sheet in the workbook and in all its formulas Just click on the cell, type the name in the name box, and hit return This can render a formula more readable!

Functions These are found in the Formulas tab Excel has many useful functions for you to use They are in categories such as Financial, Logical, Text, etc., and there are many math and statistical functions We’ll write our own functions, too

The formulas tab, function library The formulas tab, function library. Note all the choices for types of functions.

The function TODAY returns today’s date

I clicked on the function to insert it in a formula

Here’s the resulting value. It will update to the current date whenever you open the workbook, so don’t use it if you want it to stay on a particular day.

More Complex Functions “TODAY” is a pretty simple example. It doesn’t take any arguments More complex functions can be applied to spreadsheet cells or even to groups of cells (as in SUM or AVERAGE) Use them in your formulae when you need them; it saves time over writing your own calculation

Here I want to add a list of numbers. So I typed “=SUM(“ and then selected the list of numbers. You can see how Excel has filled in the notation A1:A17, which refers to this list. I’ll finish by typing the closing parenthesis and pushing Return.

Here’s the final result.

Try It! If any of this is new to you, open up a spreadsheet and try these ideas for yourself Experiment with relative and absolute names and with formulas We have only scratched the surface of Excel