Microsoft Excel

MS Excel

Overview

To use excel, you should have MS office installed on your laptop or have a trial version.

• Excel is a spreadsheet application developed by Microsoft
• It is used to enter numbers, text and images
• Excel can also store data and is an example of File based data storage
• Excel file is called a Workbook and it has an extension of XLSX
• A workbook contains multiple Sheets. As you can see in the below image, Sales and HR are two sheets and can contain different set of data.

Since Excel is a Microsoft Office product, it has many similarities with MS Word in terms of navigation and functionalities.

a. Observe that each tab brings up a ribbon below it. Each ribbon is specific to the tab clicked.

b. Each ribbon is divided up into separate groups such as Clipboard, Font, Alignment etc.

c. Some of the Groups have little launch buttons or drop downs. These buttons display extra functionalities.

Lab1 – Creating your first Workbook

1. Launch excel application. Similar to MS-word, on your computer start program type Excel
2. Create a New Workbook or excel file. It will automatically come with one Sheet, called Sheet1
3. You can Add, Rename, Copy or Delete Sheets. To insert a new sheet, use the Home/Insert option or add one from the bottom(+ sign) of your existing excel sheet.
4. Create a new Sheet. Now you will have two sheet.
   1. Rename first one as School Data.
   1. Rename second one as CustomerDataByState
5. Save you excel workbook in your file explorer by using option File/Save As.

Understanding Spreadsheet

• A spreadsheet in excel is divided into Rows and Columns. Rows are numbered and Columns are denoted by alphabets.
• There are many columns and labeled from A-Z. If there are columns beyond Z, they are labelled as AA, BB and so on.
• Intersection of a Row and Column is called a Cell. Every cell is named by the position of Column and Row, like A2.
• The cells in spreadsheet also make a Range. Range is a combination of adjacent cells. Range is named too.
• Excel provides the Range name is in the following way,
  • Starting cell: Ending cell   for e.g. L2: N9
• Excel spreadsheet can be zoomed in by using the View option from the menu/ribbon or from the slider at the bottom right of your screen.

Lab2- Entering data into Spreadsheet

1. On the excel spread sheet. Click on different cells and look for the address.
2. Create a range by using your mouse and keyboard. Look for the address.

1. On the School Data Sheet, in the first cell, enter the title/header as School Name. In the subsequent cells enter, Address, Director, Phone, Email, Courses and Fee.
2. Make these titles Bold. You can do this using the B icon from the Home ribbon or by using keyboard keys combination Ctrl + B
3.  Observe how the cell look and behave.
4. Enter multiple rows of data in the cells below these headers as shown below

Formatting data

1. Try formatting options in the Font group – such as Font type, Font Size, Bold, Italics, Underline, Colors
2. Try Alignment options
3. Wrap Text will wrap the text in two lines. Try Wrap text on School Name.
   1. To try wrap text, make sure that your cell of School Name is small (it does not fit in the cell). Select the cell or the column of School Name, then right-click on it and select the Format Cells option (from the menu which shows up when you right-click).

In the next screen, go to the second tab for Alignment and select Wrap text

Try different options on this screen and see how your text on the screen changes.

1. Merge and Centre options merges the two or more cells in one.
2. Number option will format your numbers into currency, percentage and decimals 
3. Conditional formatting will provide you the highs-lows in your numbers using colors
4. Right – click on any cell and select Format cells. Explore different options for Number, Alignment, Font, Border

Adding data in the sheet CustomerDatabyState

In the similar fashion, add data to the other sheet you have created CustomerDatabyState

Sorting and Filtering

• Sorting is a way to arrange your data in alphabetical or numeric order. 
• Filtering is used to restrict data or to see certain data based on a criteria

Practice

1. Highlight a column in your excel sheet. From the Data tab, select Sort. Make sure to use expand your selection so that Sorting to applied to all the columns appropriately.
2. Sorting and filtering options are also available on the Home ribbon, all the way to the right.

*In the similar fashion practice options available on different tabs.

Hope this introductory course helped you in getting started with MS-Excel.