1. WHAT IS EXCEL? Excel is a tool to organize, calculate, and display numerical data. Excel is kind of like a combination of WORD and a high-tech calculator (that produces graphs and charts for you).

2. WHY USE EXCEL? Excel lets us enter information into the worksheet and then it can do calculations for us. This can be especially useful for budgeting or calculating grades, for example. Excel can also translate the data into all sorts of graphs and charts. These can be great visual aids to any information you want to display to students or share with colleagues

3. ROWS & COLUMNS The number of rows and columns is a by-product of the binary number system. 256 is 2, raised to the eight power (2^8), which is the maximum value that can be stored using eight bits. The number of rows in a worksheet is 65,536, which is 2^16. Older versions of excel contained only 16,384 rows, which is 2^14 power.

4. HOW MUCH DATA? If you multiply the rows by the columns (256 columns X 65,536 rows), you get 16,777,216 cells in each worksheet! And remember, there are 3 worksheets in every “workbook”. That is a lot of cells to enter data in!

5. Microsoft Excel 7.0 (95) · Maximum Sheet Size: 16,384 rows by 256 columns · Column Width: 0 to 255 characters · Maximum length of cell contents (text): 255 characters

6. Microsoft Excel 8.0 (97) · Maximum Sheet Size: 65,536 rows by 256 columns · Column Width: 0 to 255 characters · Maximum length of cell contents (text): 32,000 characters

7. Microsoft Excel 2000 · Worksheet size: 65,536 rows by 256 columns · Column Width: 255 characters · Length of cell contents (text): 32,767 characters. Only 1,024 display in a cell; all 32,767 display in the formula bar.

8. EXCEL-WORD FEATURES

9. EXCEL-NEW FEATURES

10. EXCEL-WHAT’S NEW Menu: new item Data. Standard toolbar: New buttons Formatting bar: New buttons

11. EXCEL-WHAT’S NEW Formula bar Document body: all numbered rows and lettered columns. Document window: tabs at the bottom and a new set of arrows beside them.

12. EXCEL-MISSING Missing: The Styles box other Word buttons the rulers

13. The Excel Window

14. EXCEL-SPREADSHEET spreadsheet Document that is entirely made up of rows and columns. Used to list and analyze data. To add to the confusion in the world, people tend to use the word spreadsheet in two ways: –the entire Excel workbook file –an individual worksheet

15. EXCEL-WORKBOOK Workbook The basic document for Excel. Its filename uses the extension xls, from Excel spreadsheet. A workbook usually contains several worksheets.

16. EXCEL-WORKBOOK WINDOW workbook window The document window in an Excel window.

17. EXCEL-CELL Cell Intersection of a row and a column on a worksheet

18. EXCEL-SHEET TAB sheet tab Each worksheet has a tab at the bottom of the workbook window with the name of the worksheet on it.

19. EXCEL-ACTIVE WORKSHEET active worksheet The worksheet that receives your keystrokes and commands. It has a white tab and its name is bold.

20. EXCEL-WORKSPACE Workspace The area below the toolbars that holds your documents

21. EXCEL-WORKBOOK The default workbook is named Book1. It contains three worksheets, named Sheet1, Sheet2, Sheet3.

22. The Worksheet & Formula Bar

23. EXCEL-COLUMNS & ROWS Columns Named with letters in the following pattern: A, B, C,…Z, AA, AB, AC,…AZ, BA, BB, BC,…BZ, CA,…IA, IB,…IV, which is the last possible column. Rows Named with numbers from 1 to 65,536.

24. EXCEL-HEADINGS headings The gray buttons at the top of columns and at the left end of rows cell reference or relative reference The usual way we refer to a cell, using the letter of the cell’s column followed by the number of the cell’s row, like B3 or AD345.

25. EXCEL-NAME BOX Name Box At the top left above the sheet. Used to display cell references and to give and display cell names.

26. EXCEL-FORMULA BAR Formula bar Shows the contents of a selected cell, whether it is plain text, numbers, or a calculation formula. Sometimes the whole bar that contains the Name Box and the formula text box is called the Formula bar. Sometimes just the formula text box is meant.

27. EXCEL-ABSOLUTE REFERENCE absolute reference When you don’t want the cell reference to change as things are moved around, you must use an absolute reference, by putting a $ in front of both the column letter and the row number, like $B$3 or $AD$345.

28. EXCEL-ACTIVE CELL active cell Has a dark border around it and the row and column headers are raised, like buttons. This is the cell that receives your keystrokes and commands. You make a cell the active cell when you select it, by clicking it or by moving into it with keys. The TAB or the arrow keys are handy for moving from cell to cell.

29. EXCEL-RANGE range A rectangular set of cells, referred to by using the upper left and lower right cell references with a colon between them, Eg. like A1:B2

30. EXCEL-ABSOLUTE REFERENCE The absolute reference for the range would be $A$1:$B$2. You select a range by dragging, for example from the upper left cell to the lower right cell. As you drag, the Name Box shows the number of rows and columns that are selected. Once you quit dragging, the Name Box displays the upper left cell.