CIS110 – Digital Skills for
College Success
Unit 5 Assignment: Excel Part I Step-By-Step Guide
Due: 11:59 pm EST Sunday of Unit 5
Points: 100
Why is Excel important?
• Excel is an important, in-demand skill in countless industries.
• Knowing how to use Excel offers many benefits that will help you in the present and well
into your future career.
• Using Excel makes it easier to figure out how long it will take for you to reach your
financial goals based on your spending habits.
This assignment will teach you how to use the basics of Excel.
• You will be tasked with following the step-by-step guide below to see how much money
someone spends on coffee during the course of the month.
• To do this effectively, you will create two columns. Column A which will include all 12
months and Column B which will list how much money is spent on coffee for each
month.
Step 1: Open a new workbook in Excel.
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Step 2: In cell A1, enter the following word: MONTH
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Step 3: In cell B1, enter the following words: TOTAL SPENT ON COFFEE
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Step 4: In cells A2 – A13, enter the following:
A2 – January
A3 – February
A4 – March
A5 – April
A6 – May
A7 – June
A8 – July
A9 – August
A10 – September
A11 – October
A12 – November
A13 – December
After you enter all 12 months into cells A2 – A13, it should look like the image above.
Step 5: In cell B2 – B13, enter the following numbers for each month:
B2 - $283.43
B3 - $94.55
B4 - $104.11
B5 - $125.98
B6 - $145.32
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B7 - $175.32
B8 - $189.34
B9 - $155.64
B10 - $171.34
B11 - $114.21
B12 - $133.34
B13 - $195.43
After you enter all 12 months into cells B2 – B13, it should look like the image above.
Step 6: Now that you entered all these amounts, you want to find out how much money is spent
on coffee for the entire year. With your mouse/cursor, go to cell B2 and left click and drag down
until you have all the numbers you entered selected (cells B2 – B13 will appear in gray).
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Step 7: With these cells (B2 – B13) selected, press this symbol in the Excel ribbon to add
up all these numbers.
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Step 8: You are finished entering all the information you need into column A and column B.
However, you will notice that some of the months entered in column A are cut off and that the
total of all the numbers you got the sum for (in cell B14) is not showing. You need to adjust the
width of the columns in your workbook.
To make these adjustments, please do the following:
1. With your mouse, left click on cell A1 and drag the mouse down to cell B14, selecting
everything in your workbook. All information in it should be selected in gray.
2. Find the section that says ‘cells’ in the workbook, it looks like:
3. Click on the ‘format’ option from the three listed.
4. A lot of options will appear, you want to click on the fourth option form the top, ‘AutoFit
Column Width.’
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You increased the width of your workbook and made everything readable. Nice work!
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Step 9: Your last step is to create a chart from the information you created, please do the
following:
1. With your mouse/cursor, left click and select cells A1 – B13. Everything in your
workbook should be selected and in gray except the total sum in cell B14 ($1,888.01)
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2. In the Excel ribbon, select the ‘insert’ option.
3. Look for the icon that says, ‘recommended charts.” It will look like this:
4. Click on this icon.
5. A small box will pop up with a variety of charts. You want to pick the first option, which is
a line chart. This chart is already selected for you so all you need to do is click on ‘ok’ at
the bottom.
Step 10: Once you click on ‘ok’ in the previous step, you will see a line graph appear in your
workbook
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Step 11: Save your assignment.
Step 12: Upload your assignment to Blackboard.
See how powerful Excel is! Excel really is a great resource that can come in handy in more
ways than one. Now that you helped your friend, they will be able to see exactly how much
money they spend on coffee and if they can put that money to better use.
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