Microsoft
Excel
Microsoft
Excel is a spreadsheet program used
to record and analyze numerical and statistical data. Microsoft Excel provides
multiple features to perform various operations like calculations, pivot
tables, graph tools, macro programming, etc. It is compatible with multiple OS
like Windows, macOS, Android and iOS.
A
Excel spreadsheet can be understood as a collection of columns and rows that
form a table. Alphabetical letters are usually assigned to columns, and numbers
are usually assigned to rows. The point where a column and a row meet is called
a cell. The address of a cell is given by the letter representing the column
and the number representing a row.
Why Should I Learn Microsoft Excel?
We
all deal with numbers in one way or the other. We all have daily expenses which
we pay for from the monthly income that we earn. For one to spend wisely, they
will need to know their income vs. expenditure. Microsoft Excel comes in handy
when we want to record, analyze and store such numeric data. Let's illustrate
this using the following image.
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Where can I get Microsoft Excel?
There
are number of ways in which you can get Microsoft Excel. You can buy it from a
hardware computer shop that also sells software. Microsoft Excel is part of the
Microsoft Office suite of programs. Alternatively, you can download it from the
Microsoft website but you will have to buy the license key.
In
this Microsoft Excel tutorial, we are going to cover the following topics about
MS Excel.
- How to Open Microsoft Excel?
- Understanding the Ribbon
- Understanding the worksheet
- Customization Microsoft Excel Environment
- Important Excel shortcuts
How to Open Microsoft Excel?
Running
Excel is not different from running any other Windows program. If you are
running Windows with a GUI like (Windows XP, Vista, and 7) follow the following
steps.
- Click on start menu
- Point to all programs
- Point to Microsoft Excel
- Click on Microsoft Excel
Alternatively,
you can also open it from the start menu if it has been added there. You can
also open it from the desktop shortcut if you have created one.
For
this tutorial, we will be working with Windows 8.1 and Microsoft Excel 2013.
Follow the following steps to run Excel on Windows 8.1
- Click on start menu
- Search for Excel N.B. even before you even
typing, all programs starting with what you have typed will be listed.
- Click on Microsoft Excel
The
following image shows you how to do this
Understanding the Ribbon
The
ribbon provides shortcuts to commands in Excel. A command is an action that the
user performs. An example of a command is creating a new document, printing a
documenting, etc. The image below shows the ribbon used in Excel 2013.
Ribbon components explained
Ribbon
start button - it is used to access commands
i.e. creating new documents, saving existing work, printing, accessing the
options for customizing Excel, etc.
Ribbon
tabs – the tabs are used to group
similar commands together. The home tab is used for basic commands such as
formatting the data to make it more presentable, sorting and finding specific
data within the spreadsheet.
Ribbon
bar – the bars are used to group
similar commands together. As an example, the Alignment ribbon bar is used to
group all the commands that are used to align data together.
Understanding the worksheet (Rows and Columns,
Sheets, Workbooks)
A
worksheet is a collection of rows and columns.
When a row and a column meet, they form a cell. Cells are used to record data.
Each cell is uniquely identified using a cell address. Columns are usually
labelled with letters while rows are usually numbers.
A
workbook is a collection of worksheets.
By default, a workbook has three cells in Excel. You can delete or add more
sheets to suit your requirements. By default, the sheets are named Sheet1,
Sheet2 and so on and so forth. You can rename the sheet names to more
meaningful names i.e. Daily Expenses, Monthly Budget, etc.
Customization Microsoft Excel Environment
Personally
I like the black colour, so my excel theme looks blackish. Your favourite
colour could be blue, and you too can make your theme colour look blue-like. If
you are not a programmer, you may not want to include ribbon tabs i.e.
developer. All this is made possible via customizations. In this sub-section,
we are going to look at;
- Customization the ribbon
- Setting the colour theme
- Settings for formulas
- Proofing settings
- Save settings
Customization of ribbon
The
above image shows the default ribbon in Excel 2013. Let's start with
customization the ribbon, suppose you do not wish to see some of the tabs on
the ribbon, or you would like to add some tabs that are missing such as the
developer tab. You can use the options window to achieve this.
- Click on the ribbon start button
- Select options from the drop down menu. You
should be able to see an Excel Options dialog window
- Select the customize ribbon option from the
left-hand side panel as shown below
- On your right-hand side, remove the check
marks from the tabs that you do not wish to see on the ribbon. For this
example, we have removed Page Layout, Review, and View tab.
- Click on the "OK" button when you
are done.
Adding custom tabs to the ribbon
1. Right click on the ribbon and select
Customize the Ribbon. The dialogue window shown above will appear
2. Click on new tab button as
illustrated in the animated image below
3. Select the newly created tab
4. Click on Rename button
5. Give it a name of Guru99
6. Select the New Group (Custom) under
Guru99 tab as shown in the image below
7. Click on Rename button and give it a
name of My Commands
8. Let's now add commands to my ribbon
bar
9. The commands are listed on the middle
panel
10. Select All chart types command and
click on Add button
11. Click on OK
Your
ribbon will look as follows
Setting the colour theme
To
set the color-theme for your Excel sheet you have to go to Excel ribbon, and
click on à File àOption command. It will open a window where you have to follow
the following steps.
1. The general tab on the left-hand
panel will be selected by default.
2. Look for colour scheme under General
options for working with Excel
3. Click on the colour scheme drop-down
list and select the desired colour
4. Click on OK button
Settings for formulas
This
option allows you to define how Excel behaves when you are working with
formulas. You can use it to set options i.e.
autocomplete when entering formulas, change the cell referencing style and use
numbers for both columns and rows and other options.
If
you want to activate an option, click on its check box. If you want to
deactivate an option, remove the mark from the checkbox. You can this option
from the Options dialogue window under formulas tab from the left-hand side
panel
Proofing settings
This
option manipulates the entered text entered into excel. It allows setting options such as the dictionary
language that should be used when checking for wrong spellings, suggestions
from the dictionary, etc. You can this option from the options dialogue window
under the proofing tab from the left-hand side panel
Important Excel shortcuts
|
Ctrl + P |
used to open the print dialogue window |
|
Ctrl + N |
creates a new workbook |
|
Ctrl + S |
saves the current workbook |
|
Ctrl + C |
copy contents of current select |
|
Ctrl + V |
paste data from the clipboard |
|
SHIFT + F3 |
displays the function insert
dialog window |
|
SHIFT + F11 |
Creates a new worksheet |
|
F2 |
Check formula and cell range
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