1. © 2004 by the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Lecture 15 Excel Basics (cont’d)

2. © 2004 by the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Objectives Type text, values, formulas, and function into worksheet cells Select a block of cells Use cell ranges in functions Edit and clear cell entries

3. © 2004 by the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Excel Data types –Text –Values –Formulas Text entries document and identify important elements in a worksheet Formulas compute and display numeric or text entries Functions are prerecorded formulas Entering Text, Values, Formulas, and Functions

4. © 2004 by the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Text entries are also called labels Text is a combination of characters not interpreted as values Text cannot be used for calculations Text Active cell, containing long label, is visually truncated at the cell border Formula bar matches contents of cell B2, proving long label is complete Cell adjacent to long label is occupied Long label with empty neighboring cell

5. © 2004 by the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Values are numbers that represent a quantity, date, or time –Quantity: any numeric value 199, 1.5, 10%, -45, (80) –Date: 12/11/2001, … –Time: 15:30:40, 7:30 am, … It can be used for calculations The default setting is right justified in the cell Text vs. values –Anything that can be used for calculation is considered as values by Excel Values

6. © 2004 by the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. A formula is an expression that begins with an equal (=) sign It contains cell references, arithmetic operators, values, and Excel built-in functions Formulas Formula bar reveals cell’s underlying formula Value appears in cell as calculated result

7. © 2004 by the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Formulas

8. © 2004 by the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. A function is a built-in or prerecorded formula It provides a shortcut for complex calculations It starts with the function's name and is followed by parentheses Depend on the function type, values or cell references within the parentheses provide the function with the parameters on which the result is calculated Multiple parameters within the parentheses are separated by commas When we want to refer to a large number of neighboring cells in the parentheses, we may use the cell range Functions

9. © 2004 by the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. A group of neighboring cells can be represented as: –Starting cell : Ending cell Using the cell range, we do not need to enumerate every cells used in a function Cell Range Cell range C2:J2 Cell range B4:B4 Cell range B6:B17 Cell range D6:G12

10. © 2004 by the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Entering Functions The dashed line highlights the selected cell range Excel automatically fills in cell names as you drag the mouse Excel provides tips about a function and its arguments A SUM function can contain more than one cell range Example: - –Cell range – B4:B6 consists of cells B4, B5, and B6 –Cell range B4, B6 consists of cells B4 and B6 only

11. © 2004 by the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. If you type directly in a cell, the original content of the cell will be overwritten To edit/modify the content of a cell, you need to type in the formula bar or using the key The contents of a cell can be cleared by: Clicking on the Clear button in the Editing group on the Home tab and then select Clear Contents in the menu, or Pressing the key Editing Cell Entries

12. © 2004 by the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. What-if Analysis involves modifying values and reviewing their effect on other values It helps to recalculate the entire workbook Conducting What-If Analysis New unit sales assumptions New results