Excel Lesson 1 Excel Basics

Task 1  Goals  Learn about Excel  Start Excel  Explore the Excel screen  Explore the Excel workbook  Explore the worksheet elements  Navigate the worksheet

Learn About Excel  Excel is a powerful spreadsheet tool you can use to analyze, chart, share, and manage data for personal, business, and financial use.

Explore the Excel Screen The Office Button provides access to basic open, save, and print commands. The customizable Quick Access Toolbar provides a set of commands independent of the tab you have open. The title bar displays the name of the active workbook The Ribbon is made up of tabs that group commands by function Below the Ribbon is the Name Box on the left, the Function Wizard button, and the formula bar, which displays the contents of the active cell.

Top of Excel Screen Office Button Quick Access toolbar Title bar Name Box Formula bar Band of tabs

Explore the Excel Workbook  An Excel file is called a workbook  Each workbook contains one or more worksheets, which are separate documents within your workbook  When you start Excel, a new workbook called Book1 appears, containing three worksheets.  The worksheets are identified by the sheet tabs at the bottom of the workbook  You can increase the number of sheets in a workbook by clicking the Insert Worksheet tab at the bottom of the Excel window.

Bottom of Excel Screen Active Sheet tab Insert Worksheet tab Status bar Normal view button Zoom Slider

Explore Worksheet Element  A worksheet has vertical alphabetical columns and horizontal numbered rows.  The intersection of a column and row is called a cell.  A worksheet contains 16,384 columns and 1,048,576 rows  A cell is reference by it unique cell address  The cell address for the active cell is called an active cell reference.

Worksheet with Active Cell Name Box with Active cell reference Active cell column highlighted Active Cell Active cell row Highlighted

Navigate the Worksheet  There are many ways to move efficiently around the worksheet.  You can press the arrow keys or press both an arrow key and Ctrl for express movement. Navigate To:Keystroke Shortcuts One cell in any directionThe left arrow ( ), right arrow, ( ), up arrow ( ), or down arrow ( ) keys First cell in worksheetCtrl + Home First cell in current rowHome One screen up or downPage Up or Page Down

Go to a Specific Cell  You can move directly to a specific cell by entering the cell address in the Name box or by using the Go to dialog box.  How  Enter the cell address in the Name box  Press Enter  Or  Press F5  Enter the cell address  Click OK

Task 2  Goals  Enter text, dates, and numbers  Use Save and Save As  Open a file  Open a new workbook  Select worksheet cells  Proof data and check spelling  Change workbook views

Enter Text, Dates, and Numbers  Labels are cells that contain text, such as an alphabetic character or non-mathematical symbols, as the first character.  Label are left-aligned in the cell by default  When you enter a number or date as the first character, the cell contains a value.  Values are right-aligned in the cell by default

Use Save and Save As  Excel workbooks are named Book1, Book2 and so forth, until you save them with a descriptive filename.  You can save Excel files with different names, in different locations, and in different file formats using the setting in the Save As dialog box.

Select Worksheet Cells  You can print, format, or apply styles to cell data.  First, you must select the cell or cell range that contains the data  A range is a group of cells, column, or block  The beginning and ending cell addresses identify a range

Proof Data and Check Spelling  You can use the Proofing group in the Review tab to check spelling, research reference materials, refer to a thesaurus, or translate data.  In Excel, there are no indication of a spelling error until you use the Spelling feature.

Change Workbook Views  Use the View tab to set display options for your Excel workbook.  In the Workbook Views group, there are five views. Three of the view are also available on the status bar.  In the Show/Hide group, the Gridlines, Formula Bar, and Heading check boxes are selected, which means that they are displayed  In the View tab, in the Window group, you can create a New Window, which is a copy of the worksheet.