3

USING MICROSOFT EXCEL

Microsoft Excel is an example of a program called a “spreadsheet.” Spreadsheets are
used to organize real world data, such as a check register or a rolodex. Data can be
numerical or alphanumeric (involving letters or numbers). The key benefit to using a
spreadsheet program is that you can make changes easily, including correcting spelling
or values, adding, deleting, formatting, and relocating data. You can also program the
spreadsheet to perform certain functions automatically (such as addition and
subtraction), and a spreadsheet can hold almost limitless amounts of data—a whole
filing cabinet’s worth of information can be included in a single spreadsheet. Once you
create a spreadsheet, you can effortlessly print it (as many copies as you want!), save it
for later modifications, or send it to a colleague via e-mail. Microsoft Excel is a very
powerful calculator—This handout covers just a small number of its features!

Microsoft Excel is available on both PCs and Macs, so what you learn in class today
should be applicable to any computer you use. The program may look slightly different
depending on the version and computer that you’re using, but Microsoft Excel will
function in the same basic ways. There are other spreadsheet programs out there,
including Google Spreadsheets (part of Google Drive), OpenOffice Calc, Apple iWorks
Numbers, Lotus 1-2-3, and WordPerfect Quattro. They have many features in common
with Microsoft Excel, and you should feel free to choose any program you prefer.

Opening Microsoft Excel

To get started with
Microsoft Excel (often
called “Excel”), you will
need to locate and open the
program on your computer.
To open the program, point to Excel’s
icon on the desktop with your mouse
and double-click on it with the left
mouse button.

If you don’t see the Excel icon on your

desktop, you’ll have to access the
program from the Start Menu. Click on
the button in the bottom left corner to
pull up the Start Menu. You may see
the Excel icon here, so click on it once
with your left button. If you still don’t
see it, click on “All Programs” and
scroll through the list of programs until
you find it. It may also be located in a
folder called “Microsoft Office” or something similar—it will depend on your specific
machine. Click once with your left button to open the program.
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Excel will then open a blank page called “Book1.”

This is an image of the upper-left corner of Excel.

This box features two important pieces of information: the name of the file that you are
currently working on (in this case, “Book1” since we have not yet renamed it) and which
program you are using (“Microsoft Excel”).

You will see a dark box around one of the lighter color boxes on the spreadsheet. This
means that a cell is selected and you will be able to enter information in that space.

Microsoft Excel Features

The Title Bar

This is a close-up view of the Title Bar, where file information is located. It shows the
name of the file (here, “Book1,” the default title) and the name of the program (“Excel”).
You will be able to name your file something new the first time that you save it. Notice
the three buttons on the right side of the Title Bar, controlling the size and closing of the
program.
 5

The Ribbon Menu System

The tabbed Ribbon menu system is how you navigate through Excel and access
various Excel commands. If you have used previous versions of Excel, the Ribbon
system replaces the traditional menus.

At the bottom, left area of the spreadsheet, you will find worksheet tabs. By default, one
worksheet tab appears each time you create a new workbook but you can add more by
clicking the + icon. On the bottom, right area of the spreadsheet you will find page view
commands, the zoom tool, and the horizontal scrolling bar.
Quick access toolbar

Ribbon Menu

Horizontal Scroll Bar, Page View, & Zoom

The File Menu

In Microsoft Office 2007, there was something called the Microsoft Office Button ( ) in
the top left-hand corner. In Microsoft Office 2010 and later, this has been replaced with
a tab in the Ribbon called “File.” When you left-click on this tab, a drop-down menu
appears. From this menu, you can perform the same functions as were found under the
Microsoft Office Button menu, such as: Create a new worksheet, open existing files,
save files in a variety of ways, and print.
 6

Quick Access Toolbar

On the top left-hand side of the Title Bar, you will see several little icons
above the File menu. These let you perform common tasks, such as
saving and undoing, without having to find them in a menu. We’ll go over
the meanings of the icons a little later.

The Home Tab

The most commonly used commands in Excel are also the most accessible. Some of
these commands available in the Home Tab are:

Font Name
Font Size Auto Sum

Alignment
Font Color Sort
Font Style

The Home Tab Toolbar offers options that can change the font, size, color, alignment,
organization and style of the text in the spreadsheet and individual cells. For example,
the “Calibri” indicates the FONT of your text; the “11” indicates the SIZE of your text; etc.
We will go over how to use all of these options to format your text in a little while.
 7

Each of these options expands into a menu if you left-click on the tiny down-arrow in the
bottom right corner of the window.

This tab works the exact same way as the MS Word Formatting Toolbar. The main
difference is that the format changes will only affect the selected cell or cells, all
unselected cells remain in the default setting (“Calibri” font, size “11”).

Formula Bar

The formula bar is generally found below the ribbon menu. The left side denotes which
cell is selected (“C5”) and the right side allows you to input equations or text into the
selected cell.
There are two ways to input information into a cell. You may either select an individual
cell and type the equation or text into the formula bar or type the equation or text directly
into the selected cell.

Equations (for example, =SUM(D5+E5)) will automatically be hidden inside the cell and
can only be viewed using the formula bar; the result of the equation will display in the
cell.

If any written text is longer than the cell width, then the spreadsheet will cover up any
portion longer than the cell width. The information will still be in the cell, you just won’t
be able to see it at all times.
 10

MICROSOFT EXCEL BASICS

Typing in Cells
Cells are the small rectangular boxes that make up the spreadsheet. The boxes are the
intersection of columns (A, B, C, etc.) and rows (1, 2, 3, etc.). To reference a cell, use
the column the row name. For example, the cell in the first column and first row is called
“A1”. All the information entered into an Excel spreadsheet is entered into cells.

Click on a cell to begin typing in it. It is that easy! When you are finished typing in the
cell, press the Enter key and you will be taken to the next cell down. You can then begin
typing in that cell. You can easily navigate around the cells using your arrow keys.

Keep in mind that the Formatting toolbar in Microsoft Excel 2013 is exactly the same as
the one used for Microsoft Word 2013. The biggest difference between the two
programs is that, in Excel, the format is set for each individual cell. So if you change
the font and applied the bold option in cell C5, then this format will only be applied to
cell C5. All remaining cells will remain in default mode until they have been changed.

Sometimes you may only wish to adjust the format of one particular cell. In this case,
simply select the cell by clicking the mouse on it and make any necessary adjustments
to the font, size, style, and alignment. Those changes will not carry over when you begin
typing in a new cell.

Other times, you may wish to adjust the text format of a group of cells, entire rows, or
entire columns.

In Excel, you can choose groups of cells in rectangular units—all the cells you select
must form a rectangle of some kind. To select a group of cells, begin by clicking on the
cell that would be in the upper-left hand corner of your rectangle. Hold down the Shift
key on your keyboard and use the arrows (←, →, ↑, ↓) on the keyboard to expand the
selection of cells, or click and drag your mouse.

Once the group of cells has been selected, you can make adjustments to the font, size,
style, and alignment and they will be applied to all selected cells.

To select an entire row, click on the Row Number

with your mouse—note how the entire row
becomes highlighted. All formatting changes will now be applied to the whole row.

To select an entire column, click on the Column Number with your mouse—
again, the entire column will become highlighted. All formatting changes will
be applied to the whole column.
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PRACTICE:
Select cell A1. Type 123 in that cell and press Enter on the keyboard. Select cell C6.
Type abc in that cell and press Tab on the keyboard. Pressing Enter, Tab or left-clicking
another cell will indicate to Excel that you are done typing in that cell.

Left-click in the Formula Bar. You should now

see a blinking cursor in the bar. Type hello in
the bar and press Enter. As you’re typing in
the formula bar, the data appears in the
highlighted cell. Now use the Undo button in
the quick access toolbar to remove “hello”.
Select cell C6. Press the delete button on your
keyboard to delete “abc” from that cell.

Formatting Cells
Cells are the small rectangular boxes that make up the spreadsheet. All the information
entered into an Excel spreadsheet is entered into cells.

The cell width and height will usually need to be adjusted to view all the information
entered into a cell.

To adjust the cell width, move the mouse pointer in between two cell
columns in the column header. Hold down the left mouse button and
drag the mouse left to shorten the width or right to expand the width.
Notice that all cells within the column are automatically adjusted.

Adjust the cell height using the same method. Move the
mouse cursor between two rows, hold down the left mouse
button and move the mouse up to decrease the height and down to increase
the height.

Before you begin entering data into a spreadsheet, you may already know the width and
height you want your cells to have. In this case, you can adjust all the widths and
heights by doing the following:

Select the “square” between Column A and Row 1. This will select
ALL the cells in the spreadsheet. From the “Home” tab of the Ribbon
Menu, within the “Cells” box, click on “Format,” and select Row Height. You will now
be asked to enter a numerical value for height. The default value is 15, but you can
enter your own height value (10, 20, 25, etc.).
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Repeat the same steps for Column width. From the “Home” tab of the
Ribbon Menu, within the “Cells” box, click on “Format,” and select
Column Width. Note that the default value for the width is 8.43.
Enter your own width value (5, 10, 15, 20, etc.).

PRACTICE:
In cell A1, type “1600 Penn Ave”. In cell B1, type “Washington DC”. You will notice that
the street address is cut off and the city blends into cell C1. If you highlight cell A1, you
will see the entire address is still there and shows up in the formula bar. Adjust the cell
width for columns A and B so you can see all the data in both cells. Now set the row
height for the entire worksheet to 20. Set the column
width for the entire worksheet to 15. With the entire
spreadsheet still selected, Hit the Delete key on the
keyboard to remove all data from the cells.

For any given cell or selected cells, you can also format the way your data is
represented within the cell(s). Select a single cell or multiple cells. Again, from the
“Home” tab of the Ribbon Menu, within the “Cells” box, click on “Format.” Select
“Format Cells.” The format window will now appear, giving you a wide variety of options
on how to format your cell.

Number – This allows you to choose how to represent the numbers that are entered
into a cell (number, currency, time, etc.).

Alignment – This determines how the data will be aligned within the cell (left-side,
centered, or right-side).

Font – Select the type of font to be used within the cells.

Border – This option lets you choose what type of border, if any, you would like around
the cells or some of the cells.

Fill – This allows you to change the background color of the cell.

Protection – This option allows you to “lock” cell information so that other users cannot
make changes.
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Inserting Rows and Columns

When you are working on a spreadsheet, you may realize that you left out a row or
column of data and need to add it in.

To insert a row, click on the row below where you want your new row to be (remember
to click on the row number to highlight the entire row). From the “Home” tab, within the
“Cells” box, click “Insert.” Select “Insert Sheet Rows.” A new row will automatically be
inserted and the row numbers automatically adjusted.

To insert a column, click on the column to the right of

where you want your new column to be (remember to click
on the column letter to highlight the entire column). From
the “Home” tab, within the “Cells” box, click “Insert.” Select
“Insert Sheet Columns.” A new column will automatically
be inserted and the column letters automatically adjusted.

PRACTICE:
Enter the data as shown in the screenshot below.

Now let’s insert a heading. Insert a row above row 1. In cell A1, type “Bill” and in cell B1,
type “January”.
 14

Sorting Data
Once you have created your spreadsheet and entered in some data, you may want to
organize the data in a certain way. This could be alphabetically, numerically, or another
way.

First, select all the cells that represent the data to be sorted, including the header
descriptions. Then, select the first cell in Row 1. Click and drag to select all the cells that
you want to sort.

Using the mouse, select Sort & Filter from the Editing panel. Select Custom Sort…
The following window should appear: Ensure that the “My data has headers” box is
checked.

Select the column you wish to sort by. Do you want to sort by alphabetical order,
reverse alphabetical order, date, or amount? When you press “OK,” your spreadsheet
will be sorted in the order that you specified.

PRACTICE:
Select all the data on your worksheet (cells A1
through B7) and go to the Custom Sort menu.
Ensure that “My data has headers” is checked.
Choose to sort by Bill and click OK. Your list should
now be sorted alphabetically.
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Basic Formulas

Excel can calculate basic equations like addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.
Let’s say you just want to add two numbers, with the answer appearing in a particular
cell. (As you may remember, all formulas begin with an = sign. This lets Excel know that
you are entering a formula.)

To write a formula that adds two numbers together (for example, 181 + 376):

1. Click on the cell where you want the answer to the equation to appear.

2. Begin by typing the = sign.

3. Type the numbers you want to add separated by the + sign (without spaces):
181+376.

4. Your entire equation should look like this:

=181+376

5. Press the Enter key.

6. You will now see the sum appear in the cell – in this case, 557.

You can repeat these steps for subtraction, multiplication, or division too. Instead of the
plus sign (+), use - for subtraction, * for multiplication, and / for division.

Cell References

What if you want to be able to add numbers in two different cells, but those numbers
might change and you don’t want to have to retype your equation every time they do? In
situations like this, you can use cell references within your equation. This tells Excel to
use whatever value is in a specific cell to calculate the equation. That way, if the
number in one of the cells does change, your equation will automatically recalculate the
answer.

In the example to the right, we want to add the

contents of cells B3 and B4 (181 + 376). We could
write our formula the way we did above, but then if
we changed the value in cell B3 to 200, our
equation wouldn’t reflect the sum of these two cells
anymore. We would have to update the equation
manually.

Instead, we can write our equation using the

names of the cells rather than the numbers in them. The name of a cell is its column
letter and its row number (A2, C3, etc.).
 16

To write a formula using cell references:

1. Type the numbers you want to add in two different cells.

2. Click on the cell where you want the answer to the equation to appear.

3. Begin the equation by typing the = sign.

4. Either click on or type in the name of the cell with the first number to be added (in
this example, B3).

5. Type the + sign.

6. Either click on or type in the name of the cell with the second number to be
added (in this example, B4). Your equation should look like this: =B3+B4

7. Press the Enter key.

8. You will now see the answer appear in the cell – in this example, 557.

Now, if you changed the value of cell B3 to 200, the answer that appears in the cell
where you typed your equation will be 576 (200+376). It automatically recalculates
when one of the numbers in a referenced cell changes.

Once you have entered your equation, when you click on the cell with that equation it
will highlight the cells it is referencing by drawing colored borders around them (see the
example above). This helps you see if it is using the cells you want it to use or if you
have made a mistake in typing the formula.

AutoSum and Excel Equations

One of the most powerful features of Excel is its ability to perform basic math functions
on data. Excel can add, subtract, multiply, divide, find the average, and perform
general counting functions on the numerical data that you enter. To enable this feature,
highlight all of the cells in a column, plus one additional empty cell in which to display
the result.

Select the AutoSum icon from the ribbon menu:

If you click directly on the ∑, Excel will automatically add up the

numbers you have selected. If you click on the little dropdown
arrow next to it (▼), you will get the full choice of mathematical
functions.
 17

If you double-click on the cell in which the answer appears, you will see an equation that
looks something like this (you will also see this equation in the Formula bar):

Let’s break down what exactly the equation means:

= indicates that you are starting an equation in this cell.

SUM tells the function to be performed. In this case, all the cells will be added together.
( ) The parentheses contain the cells that the function will be performed on.
D2 This is the first cell to be included in the addition formula.
D8 This is the last cell to be included in the addition formula.
: indicates that all cells between the first and the last should be included in the formula.

The spreadsheet will often “select” the cells that it thinks you wish to include. But you
can manually change the cell range by typing into the Formula bar.

When you are ready to execute the formula, just press the “Enter” key.

Other mathematical functions you can perform from the AutoSum button include:

Average – This function will calculate the average of the selected cells.
Count Numbers – This function simply counts the number of cells selected.
Max – This function will return the highest value of the selected cells.
Min – This function will return the lowest value of the selected cells.

*Remember* Excel equations are similar to programming languages,

so have some patience and if at first you don’t succeed, try again.
Even Excel professionals create incorrect formulas on their first try.

Once you get an equation to work, you will technically be a computer

programmer!

PRACTICE:
Select cell B8. Click the AutoSum button. Excel will highlight the
amounts in cells B2:B7. Click Enter to accept this. The total amount
now appears in cell B8. Now change the amount of electric to 90.
Note that the total price changes automatically.
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CLOSING MICROSOFT EXCEL

Saving Spreadsheets

When you finish your spreadsheet and want to leave the computer, it
is important to save your work, even if you are printing a hard copy.
To save your work in Excel, it is essential to know WHAT you are
trying to save and WHERE you are trying to save it.

Click on the File Tab, then click “Save As” to get started.

You can change the filename that Excel has chosen just by typing a
new one in the “File name” box at the bottom of the window that
appears.

The My Documents folder on your computer’s hard drive is a good

place to store your documents. A blank CD or a USB jump drive are
great portable storage options and can contain a LOT of data.

Excel will automatically save your document with the suffix “.xlsx”–
this is simply a tag that lets Excel know that your work is specific to
this program and what version it is in. You do not have to type it–just
highlight what is there (default is “Book1”) and write a new file name.
You may also chose to save it in an older format so that it can be
opened with older versions of Excel.

After the first save, you can just click “Save” to preserve your work. However, it is
important to note that every following command of SAVE will overwrite your original file,
creating the most up-to-date version.
 19

If you would like to keep saving different versions of your worksheet, be sure to use the
“Save As” function each time you save, using a slightly different name for each version.

Finding More Help

You can get help with Excel by
clicking on the Question Mark
symbol in the upper-right hand
corner of the main menu bar or
by pressing the “F1” button. This
will take you to help from
Office.com, Microsoft’s help
website.

There are also many other resources and tutorials available online. You might try a
Google search with the words “Excel 2013” and the function you are trying to perform.
Ask your instructor for help finding these resources if you have any trouble.

Closing the Program

Click on the Excel Icon in the top left corner of the quick bar and select Close from the
menu.

OR

Click on the X in the top right corner of the Excel screen.

It’s that easy! If you don’t save before attempting to close the program, Excel will prompt
you to save the file. Make sure you save if you don’t want to lose any changes!!

NOTE: Images and screen captures may differ from those seen on another system.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0

International License.